Alden was an officer in the sloop-of-war 'Vincennes', the flagship of the United States Exploring Expedition which spent four years in the Pacific under the command of Commodore Charles Wilkes.

The journal gives an account - but not a day-by-day account - of the Vincennes voyage which took in the Tuamotu Archipelago, Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, the Antarctic, Hawaii, the Gilbert (Kiribati), Ellice (Tuvalu) and Marshall Islands. See also PMB MS 124-146 and the Bureau's newsletter, Pambu, Dec. 1971:25, pp. 4-7.