Ricketts had learned the exhibition business in London from Charles Hughes, rival of Philip Astley (1742-1814), the owner of a riding academy near Westminster Bridge, where Astley presented the multi-act performances that later became known as circuses. Ricketts stayed in Philadelphia through July. His July 12th performance was a benefit for the poor of Philadelphia. Circus benefits over the next several decades by Ricketts and other impresarios raised funds for the poor, fire victims, asylums, churches and for the performers.

The memoirs of Jacob DeCastro (born 1758), a London comedian of Portuguese-Jewish heritage who knew Philip Astley, were published in London in 1824. DeCastro's memoirs include this fold-out of a publicity print Astley used in Paris.

From the New Album of London, undated.

Philadelphia Alms House drawn, engraved and published by W. Birch and Son, 1799.

Deaf and Dumb Institution in New York City, undated. Published by Peabody & Co., London.

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Shipping contract is from the Benjamin F. Brown Collection.

This picture of ships, including a schooner, is from Sixty-Five Plates of Shipping and Craft, drawn and etched by E.W. Cooke, published in London in 1829.

The permit to leave Demerary and Essequebo is from the Benjamin F. Brown Collection.

Map of the West Indies published by Bankes, Blake, and Cook, 1810. This c. 1810 French map by E. Collin of the northeast coast of South America shows some of the places where Brown took his circus.

In the 1830s, Benjamin Brown and his brothers took their circus to the Caribbean and South America. Brown and his troupe performed in Barbados, Martinique, Demerary and Essequebo, Berbice and Paramaribo and elsewhere. In the United States, after the advent of the portable canvas tent, circuses transported equipment by horse-drawn wagons. Troupes could travel about 15 miles per day to towns or villages that had paying audiences. Of course, to get to and around the West Indies and areas of what are now Surinam and Guyana, the Browns had to transport his circus by ship. For the trip from Norfolk, Virginia, to Demerary, for instance, H.J. Brown, his personnel, animals and equipment traveled on a schooner. On one voyage in the Caribbean, Benjamin Brown and his performers fended off a pirate attack.

Brown and his companions were not the only travelers who had to contend with pirates. A captive of pirates (and an accused but acquitted pirate himself), Aaron Smith wrote an account of his experience, published in London in 1824.

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