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attracted the public notice: and being drawn up in a hasty manner, it required many corrections”. This is the first appearance of Bligh’s account of the entire expedition; the “extended and revised text makes this the fundamental published account of the Bounty saga” ( Parks Collection ). However, publication did not achieve his aim of rehabilitating his reputation, which was later further damaged by another mutiny and other serious insubordinations. History’s verdict has overwhelmingly been that Bligh was clearly a superior navigator and a brave man, but an abysmal leader otherwise. Interestingly, it was his habit of intemperate verbal abuse that upset his subordinates: research has shown that Bligh actually flogged less than any other British commander in the Pacific Ocean in the later 18th century. Provenance: from the library of George Bennett FRCS (1804– 1893), English-born Australian physician and naturalist, author of Wanderings in New South Wales (1834), with his armorial bookplate on the front pastedown. Quarto (300 × 230 mm). Near-contemporary mottled calf, rebacked with original spine laid down, spine with red calf label and floral and Greek key motifs in gilt, gilt roll to sides, marbled endpapers. Stipple-engraved oval portrait frontispiece of Bligh by Condé after John Russell, folding plan of the Bounty , folding plan of the Bounty ’s launch, plate of a breadfruit, and 4 plans and charts (3 folding). Corners expertly repaired, light offsetting to folding plates and adjoining leaves, very occasional faint staining, else internally clean and fresh; a very good copy indeed. ¶ ESTC T52638; Ferguson 125; Hill 135; Howgego, I, B107; NMM, Voyages & Travel , 624; The Parks Collection of Captain William Bligh, 12; Sabin 5910; Spence 104. £12,500 [143020] 7 BOLINGBROKE, Viscount Henry St John. Letters, on the Spirit of Patriotism: on the Idea of a Patriot King: and on the State of Parties, at the Accession of King George the First. London: A. Millar, 1749 First authorized edition, the earliest obtainable, including The Idea of a Patriot King , Bolingbroke’s best-known treatise. This volume has Bolingbroke’s clipped signature mounted on the front free endpaper. Bolingbroke’s Letters , originally written in 1738 for the benefit of Frederick Prince of Wales, were first printed without his permission by Alexander Pope in 1740. Bolingbroke bought up the entire edition and had it burnt in October 1744. That edition is known only in two copies, in the British Library and at Princeton. “In 1749 Bolingbroke dictated to his secretary, David Mallett, this revised edition, with a
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6 BLIGH, William. A Voyage to the South Sea. London: for George Nicol, 1792 mutiny on the bounty First edition of Bligh’s own full account of his voyage which led to the most famous mutiny in maritime history – “an extremely important book” (Hill). In mid-1787 Bligh received the command of the Bounty , then being fitted to transport breadfruit and other plants from the South Seas to the West Indies, part of an elaborate scheme to establish large-scale cotton cultivation in the West Indies by transplanting breadfruit and other fruits and vegetables so that plantation owners might feed enslaved persons more cheaply. The Bounty reached Tahiti, loaded up with breadfruit, and set sail again at the beginning of April 1789. In the early morning of 28 April, when off the island of Tonga, Fletcher Christian led part of the crew in mutiny. The rebels set Bligh and 18 men adrift in the ship’s 23-foot-long launch, with little food and only minimal navigational tools. Incredibly, Bligh managed to reach Kupang in Timor two months later with the loss of only one man, after a harrowing 3,500-mile voyage. To his embarrassment, Bligh found himself having to defend his own conduct. He had already published a shorter Narrative of the Mutiny in 1790. The Advertisement to this work explains that “the reason of the Narrative appearing first, was for the purpose of communicating early information concerning an event which
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