A Protestant Seafarer's Testament to the Atlantic World, 1778-1795: The Memoir of Samuel Kelly

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the seafaring career of Samuel Kelly, a late-eighteenth century merchant mariner from Cornwall, using his published autobiography. It chronicles the development of Kelly’s career and how his experiences were characterized by family, faith, and a strong attachment to the land during the Age of Revolution. As a British seaman, Kelly’s Protestant identity was effectively the ideological link between the sea and shore, which were often considered separate and incompatible worlds by eighteenth century society and much of modern maritime scholarship. Kelly did not discern a tension between the shore (which symbolized family, faith, and his home) and the sea (which represented labor, duty, and ambition) and was comfortable in both environments, though he retained an affinity for Cornwall throughout his career. While Kelly’s life and memoir are distinctive, his experience is a useful point of comparison that can give a more complete picture of the collective body politic of seafarers during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. His memoir is a richly detailed testament to the seventeen-year-long career of a Protestant seaman and adds important dimensions to our understanding of the social history of early modern Anglo-American seafarers and their adherence to religion.