The Journal of Charles Mollet (17421819)

Charles Mollet (1742-1819) farmed 26 acres in Guernsey, and for much of his life kept a journal. Six volumes of this journal survive. They relate to the years 1771-1818 - a period of prolonged Franco-British warfare and unprecedented change. Mollet was a gregarious man and had dealings with people across the whole social spectrum. He recorded several stays in northern France, where he witnessed Louis XVI's inspection of port defences at Cherbourg, and southern England, where he met smugglers in Hampshire and Dorset. Mollet used his journal to record his agricultural activities, his public life, his domestic arrangements, his social life, his travels, matters relating to his family, and his observations on external events. This volume presents a selection of excerpts which both illustrate the minutiae of everyday life in Georgian Guernsey and introduce us to a sympathetic individual in whom - even at two centuries distance - we can see much that resembles ourselves.