One day several years ago, I made a visit to the British National Archives, in Kew, where I put in a request. Hours later, I received a box; inside was a dusty, moldering manuscript. To avoid damaging it further, I gently pried open the cover with a paper marker. Each page was arranged in columns, with such headings as “month and year,” ship’s “course,” and “Remarkable Observations and Incidents.” The entries, composed with a quill and ink, were now smudged, and the writing was so small and squirrely that I strained to decipher it.
