A Voyage Round the World; but more particularly to the North-West Coast…
A Voyage Round the World; but more particularly to the North-West Coast of America: performed in 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1788, in the King George and Queen Charlotte…
London: John Stockdale, 1789.
Quarto, [v]-xii, [4], 384, xl pp. With 20 plates including portrait frontispiece,13 copper-engraved plates, & six folding copper-engraved charts. All the plates of birds are hand-coloured as usual. Contemporary mottled calf, backstrip gilt with red label. Despite the worn binding, internally a lovely copy with excellent margins, some leaves untrimmed.
Bligh's great assistant
First edition of 'the principal account of the first commercial voyage to the Northwest Coast and the first English voyage to visit Hawaii after that of Captain James Cook' (Forbes). Portlock's famous book contains 'early and important original source material, with many illustrations which enhance its value' (Lada-Mocarski). Dixon's "Voyage round the World" is a companion work to this account of the voyage.
First edition of 'the principal account of the first commercial voyage to the Northwest Coast and the first English voyage to visit Hawaii after that of Captain James Cook' (Forbes). Portlock's famous book contains 'early and important original source material, with many illustrations which enhance its value' (Lada-Mocarski). Dixon's "Voyage round the World" is a companion work to this account of the voyage.
Portlock had served on Cook's third voyage, sailing on both the Discovery and the Resolution, and had returned to the Northwest Coast of America on the King George in 1785. He was a veteran of the Pacific by the time he was chosen as commander of the Assistant and Bligh's second-in-command for the second breadfruit voyage.
This account details the voyage of the King George to the Northwest Coast of America. The expedition went up Cooks River, past Kodiak Island and cruised around Montague Island and Prince William Sound, looking for furs, and then sailed directly to Nootka. His description of the stay at Nootka is 'of great value' (Hill) and contains vivid descriptions of encounters with the native Americans and the Russians.
The King George made two stops in Hawaii in 1786, and another in 1787, trading there at Hawaii, Oahu, Kauai and Niihau. Portlock made fascinating notes on trading, the chiefs, the death of Cook, and the development of the islands since his visit with Cook on the Discovery. His notes on a mutiny aboard the Belvedere while at Whampoa and the subsequent Court of Inquiry are curious when it is recalled that he was later to sail with Bligh. The book is not recorded by Ferguson, despite Portlock's visionary and notable early remarks about the geographical significance of the Hawaiian Islands to the New South Wales settlement: 'their situation and produce may be productive of material benefit to our new settlement at Botany Bay, and at the same time be a considerable saving to government in the articles of provisions, which may be purchased here at a trifling expense…'.
The companion work to this account of the voyage is Dixon's Voyage round the World.
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Provenance: Armorial bookplate of Wilfred Lawson.
Forbes, 'Hawaiian National Bibliography', 177; Hawaii One Hundred, 9; Hill, 1376; Howes, P496; James Ford Bell, P365; Judd, 147; Lada-Mocarski, 42; not in Ferguson.
Condition Report: Binding worn, and upper joint cracked but holding.