Accounts of the Wreck of the Commerce

An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig "Commerce"

by James Riley



A Journal, Comprising an Account of the Loss of the Brig "Commerce", of Hartford, (Con.) James Riley, Master

by Archibald Robbins



A great American naval adventure of the early nineteenth century



The year 1815 was a momentous one. On the muddy slopes of Waterloo in Belgium Napoleon, who had set Europe ablaze for two decades, was brought to ruin. Across the Atlantic the United States of America had concluded its war with Britain having ended the conflict with a famous victory at New Orleans. Meanwhile in the eastern Atlantic an American merchant vessel and its crew underwent a drama which, although it was not significant to the world at large, would mean catastrophe, slavery and death for some of them. The brig Commerce out of Connecticut was sailing between Gibraltar and the Cape Verde Islands on a trading voyage when she ran aground on Cape Bojador off the coast of the Western Sahara desert. The ship and crew were attacked by local tribesmen of the Sahrawi. One man was killed and the rest of the crew, after terrible ordeals, were captured by Bedouin tribesmen. They suffered constant brutality at the hands of their captors as they were force marched through the desolate landscape and suffered dehydration and starvation before their eventual liberation. This Leonaur edition contains two accounts by crew members including one by the ship's master, James Riley. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States cited Riley's book as one as the most significant and inspirational books he read as a youth. Indeed, Riley's account was a phenomenal bestseller in America at the time of its first publication selling over 1,000,000 copies. The second account here is by Archibald Robbins and is included to give readers a perspective on the incident from by one of the ship's able seamen.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.