Portlock, 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: For George Stockdale and George Goulding, 1789



4to (11 3/4 x 9 in.; 298 x 229 mm).  Engraved frontispiece portrait, 13 engraved plates (including 5 handcolored plates of birds), 6 folding maps and charts; light offsetting to maps, early marginal repair to chart of the Northwest Coast, bottom margins of 3 plates dampstained, strong offsetting from plates to adjacent text. Later half calf over old marbled boards, marbled endpapers; repairs to boards, corners restored and renewed.

Ayer/Zimmer 495; Forbes, Treasures of Hawaiian History 7; Hill (2004) 1376; Howes P497; Sabin 64389; Streeter sale 6:3485

First edition. The King George's Sound Company, which had exclusive trading privileges on the Northwest Coast, engaged Captains Portlock and Dixon for the purpose of pursuing the lucrative fur trade in that region. The company purchased two vessels which left England in September 1785. After stopping in at the Falkland Islands, the two ships put in for a long stay in the Hawaiian Islands. Both Portlock and Dixon had accompanied Captain Cook on his third voyage, and they were the first foreign captains to visit the islands after his death. The official account of the voyage includes ornithological and zoological observations as well as the first description of the native life along the southern coast of Oahu. The account includes a plate of the white tern of the Sandwich Islands, which  bears the distinction of being the first published depiction of a Hawaiian bird  (Forbes).  After departing the islands, the two vessels sailed to America where they surveyed the coast, producing the most important results of the voyage.