A Voyage round the World

performed in the years 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, by M. de la Peyrouse... to which are addedA Voyage from Manilla to California, by Don Antonio Maurelle: and an abstract of the voyages and Discoveries of the Late Capt. G. Vancouver.First American edition. 8vo. Contemporary calf, spine gilt, extremities slightly rubbed, slightly brown as usual, some dampstaining to title page. vi, 7-334pp. Boston, Joseph Bumstead,

A very good copy of the scarce first American edition of this important Pacific voyage. It's believed that this edition is based on the 1798 Edinburgh abridgement. The Hill copy records a map which was added later.

La Pérouse's expedition departed from France in 1785 in the Boussole and the Astrolabe with orders to continue the work of exploration begun by Cook in the Pacific and on the North West Coast. Having rounded Cape Horn the two ships reached Easter Island in April of the following year, before sailing on to Hawaii, where the expedition members became the first Europeans to land on Maui. They then preceded to Alaska, surveying the coastline as instructed, before moving West to Asia, where La Pérouse charted the coast North of Macao as far as Kamchatka, and succesfully navigated the Sea of Japan.

Copies of the expedition's logs were sent home from Macao, Kamchatka (in the care of M. de Lesseps on the overland route), and Botany Bay (in early 1788). Thereafter nothing was known of the expedition's fate until Dillon discovered the wreck of the two ships on the reef at Vanikoro in the Santa Cruz islands in 1827.

Although merely a precis, this is also the first American appearance of Vancouver's voyage in print. It follows the first London edition of 1798. Maurelle's voyage to California included stops at Tonga and New Guinea. Ferguson, 333; Forbes, 331; Hill, 976; Kroepelien, 1331; Sabin, 38966.

Stock Code: 211632