The Jersey cutter Unity, 33 tons, was built for William Amy and George Le Seelleur by J. & T. Le Huquet of St. Catherine's in 1870. Registered in Jersey and mostly trading to the French coast, she measured 52¼ feet in length and had a 15¼ foot beam. Although she seems to have become the sole property of Le Seelleur in 1874, Amy continued to skipper her and she was apparently re-registered in Guernsey in 1891 to avoid a tax liability. Omitted from Lloyd's Register after 1881, probably dis-classed in the absence of any but her original 1870 surveyor's report, she nevertheless continued to sail and the vendor of this painting - a descendant of her owner - states that Captain Le Seelleur was lost with all hands when Unity was sunk off Newfoundland in 1891.

A ship's clock together with a barometer from the Cutter Unity is being sold in the Ephemera section of this sale; see lot ...........