Memoirs on the Life and Travels of Thomas Hammond, 1748–1775 ed. by George E. Boulukos (review)

Many years ago the rumor circulated among academics that the University of Texas, awash in money, was buying books and manuscripts in Britain, not item by item, but linear foot by linear foot. One result is Thomas Hammond's Memoirs, rescued from manuscript obscurity and a library shelf in Austin into a handsome edition, enhanced by many illustrations.

Thomas Hammond (1748–1824) wrote his life story in five notebooks. Mr. Boulukos describes them thus: "All are carefully bound (still in their original bindings), and carefully presented. They include thorough tables of contents, charts, maps, footnotes, and lavish illustrations: some earnest amateur efforts by Hammond, some by a professional artist, and others appropriated from printed books." The first volume, 1748–1771, exists in two versions, one using Greek letters to spell English words, the second the English version. The decision to publish only the first two of four English notebooks seems to have been fiscal caution; one suspects there will not be a great demand for the remaining two.

This is not to deny their social value of insights into the life of a literate servant and itinerant circus (equine) performer toward the end of the century. His experiences as a groom in England and abroad offer rare insights into a world largely un-chronicled. There are moments of humor, as when Hammond recounts events one might find in rogue biographies, the popular chapbooks that were probably his introduction to literature, and moments of romance, interesting primarily because of Hammond's puritanical conscience. However, that his career mirrors the century's transformation of the countryside and increasing urbanization, as Mr. Boulukos suggests, seems a stretch; Hammond partakes of this movement, as did everyone in the century, but the journal seems directed toward—and hence useful for—other purposes. Similarly, the attempt to wed Hammond's story to the present fascination of some eighteenth-century scholars with contract labor seems more an editorial effort to establish relevance than to reflect Hammond's own text, modeled after fictional heroes who learn to survive by their wits, and delighting in relating events in which he is able to turn the tables on those hoping to exploit him.

The overwhelming impression of Hammond's account is twofold: first, he is obsessed with money; especially on the continent, every entry is filled with calculations, so much so that one wishes for a heavier editorial hand: "our share amounted to no more than 562 rials, out of which having paid the expences there remained only 75 rials or 16s…8d"; or again, "we rid 7 times & got to our share 3812 Rials (or 42£.7s Sterling)." At some point these repetitious calculations stop having interest or significance. A second obsession is geography. Hammond produces several maps of his travels, and consistently provides distances between stops and the time it takes him to traverse them. When he enters a new place he provides a wealth of details, of the sort Sterne parodied in volume 7 of Tristram Shandy. His entrance into Cadiz is typical, and quite Shandean: "Now I shall give the following short Description of cadiz before I leave. … Cadiz, in the kingdom of Andalutia, 90 miles from Gibraltar & 400 from Madrid, is a very famous sea-port where commonly the Spanish Galleons and Flotilla unload their treasures. … There is likewise a Bishoprick, & a University. This City though not very large, is the Richest, and most Populous of all the cities in Spain, & reckoned to contain upwards of 100,000 Inhabitants." Mr. Boulukos annotates, unnecessarily since they are defined in any common dictionary, "Galleons" and "Flotilla," but here and on all such occasions leaves unanswered the most pertinent annotative questions: What is Hammond's source? Why does he feel compelled to enter these generic descriptions into his "personal" account? The only travel work cited is Baretti's Journey from London to Genoa, and Hammond did look into it, but he had other...