The picture painted of pre-1790s victualling by maritime historiography is as gloomy as it is erroneous. Almost every publication has quoted the same extracts from William Thompson's An Appeal to the Public in Vindication of Truth and Matters of Facts, in which the author, who was employed as a master cooper by the Victualling Board in the 1740s, describes the deplorable conditions and methods in which and by which food provisions were conserved. On the basis of Thompson's statements, it is only too easy to hastily discredit the work of the Commissioners and to judge them as having been, at best, incompetent and negligent, at worst, corrupt. This judgement provided a facile and logical explanation for the high mortality and morbidity rates in the Royal Navy right up to the end of the eighteenth century. Yet the fact that William Thompson's two earlier works were equally exaggerated, not to mention his dismissal by the Victualling Board in January 1745 for having overseen the preservation of provisions which turned bad, should perhaps have warned future historians to be wary of his accusations.