MANUSCRIPT. COLLINS, pub. Military Accounts for 1814. IN: Collins's Memoranda, 1814; containing a diary and tables. 4to. Collins, Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials. 1814
55pp diary, 6 days per page, excluding Sundays (except Saturday 1st January which has a page to itself), all with ms. insertions; pp56-57, 'Occasional Memoranda', 58-72 Printed Information. Orig. drab boards, printed paper label, sheep spine; worn.
¶The titlepage advertises the diary at '3s. sewed, 4s. in boards, (Fine) 5s. 6d. half bound'. The Diary, for a period near the end of the Napoleonic Wars, is primarily used for manuscript lists of names and sums of money, sometimes quite substantial, viz: Tuesday Jan. 4th, 'Major Crebbin £230, Lieut. Nicholas, £15.15.0, Lieut. Whylock, £30'. Although mainly officers, there are some entries for women: Miss Brown, Mrs Trollope. Some entries are separated, viz: Wednesday 23rd November, 'Col. Williams, Treasury, £250' or December 28th: 'Victualling Office, Major Crebbin, £159.12.6.'. 'Omnium' is mentioned in several places, for instance 15th April, 6th May, 22nd July, which implies 'agreement by all' on the accounts. There are further references to: Navy Pay Office, Alden Bank, French Leave, Cookes Insurance, Army Pensions, Lawes Insurance, Navy H(alf) Pay. The records are carried on in a desultory way to May 1815 in the Occasional Memoranda pages. The purpose of these accounts remains a mystery; speculation ranges from payments into an insurance scheme to recording of gambling debts. As the officers involved appear to belong to both the army and navy, they may be on ship; attempts to find a common theme for those listed has proved fruitless.