PORTLOCK, Captain Nathaniel. 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, Captains Portlock and Dixon. London, John Stockdale & George Goulding, 1789.
4to. Contemporary full olive marbled and polished calf, spine ornamented in gilt and with red morocco lettering-piece, gilt-ruled borders, gilt edges and turn-ins, marbled endpapers; pp. xii, 384, xl; engraved portrait frontispiece of Portlock by Mazell after Dodd, 6 engraved folding map and charts by J. Reid and W. Harrison, Longmate, 5 engraved ornithological plates by P. Mazell after J. Woodcock, J. Hogan, et al., 5 engraved views and profiles P. Mazell after J. Woodcock, et al., 2 engraved plates of artefacts from the Sandwich Islands, and an engraved portrait of Tyaana (an Atoui chieftain) by W. Shirwin after Woodcock; slightly rubbed, skilfully rebacked and with minor restorations, occasional light spotting or browning (more so to first map) offsetting to opposite page from portrait of Tyaana, three marginal tears of flaws with repairs to text leaves; otherwise a very good copy.
First edition. Portlock’s account of his important circumnavigation, a by-product of his trading mission to the Pacific Coast of North America, is 'rich in geographical results' (ODNB), the principal, and successful, object of which was the opening of the fur trade in north-west America. This necessitated traffic with the Indians of the north-west coast, discussed by Portlock in chapters X, XII and XIII: 'vivid descriptions of encounters with the American Indians' (Hill); he also appends some native vocabularies. Portlock, commanding the King George, and Dixon, commanding the Queen Charlotte, did much to improve upon Cook’s earlier charts of the region. Earlier, Portlock had served on both the Discovery and Resolution during Cook's circumnavigation.
'Portlock had arrived late in the trading season, and his fur harvest was consequently poor. The two ships coasted southwards, but bad weather prevented their attempt, from 23 to 28 September, to enter Nootka Sound (B.C.), where the two captains had agreed to winter, and so the expedition refitted at the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. The following spring the ships returned to the northwest coast, arriving at Montague Island (Alaska) on 24 April 1787. Some two weeks later Dixon was led by Indians to the Nootka, commanded by John Meares, who with his crew had passed a desperate winter in Prince William Sound (Alaska). Portlock provided assistance to make the ship seaworthy, and it was able to sail on 18 June. Meanwhile, having learned that Meares expected one of his company’s ships to arrive at Nootka Sound from China that month, Dixon in the Queen Charlotte had proceeded southwards to forestall it' (Dictionary of Canadian Biography).
That winter Portlock and Dixon sailed separately to Macao (near Canton, People’s Republic of China), where their combined cargo of 2,552 skins realized 54,857 dollars. Proceeding then to England, they reached Margate roads in August 1788, bringing home a consignment of tea for the East India Company. Portlock’s account of the expedition, published in 1789, presents lists of the flora and fauna he observed, often with descriptions and illustrations, as well as ethnographic notes and a geographical record of the entire voyage.
Hill II, pp. 541-542; NMM I, 141; Sabin 64389; Wood p. 523; Zimmer 495.
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