Discoveries Of The French In 1768 and 1769, To The South-East Of New Guinea, With The Subsequent Visits to the same lands by English Navigators, who gave them new Names. To Which Is Prefixed, An Historical Abridgement Of The Voyages And Discoveries Of The

London: Printed For John Stockdale, 1791., 1791. 4to. pp. xxiv, 323, [1]errata & directions to binder. with half-title. 12 folding engraved plates (incl. 9 maps) of the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. Uncut in 19th century quarter sheep (some foxing to plates & neighbouring leaves, marginal browning & few marginal tears repaired - no loss, first map partly dampstained). First Edition of the English Translation (first: Paris, 1790) of the major account of the French 'rediscovery' of the Solomon Islands. French politician and scientist Fleurieu was prompted to prepare the present work by the publication in Arthur Phillip's Voyage.to Botany Bay (1789) of Lt. Shortland's journal relating his claim to the discovery of 'New Georgia' in 1788. Fleurieu is here chiefly concerned with the accomplishments of Louis de Bougainville, who in 1768 discovered the three northern islands (Buka, Bougainville and Choiseul), and sailed through the channel which divides the last two and bears his name, and Jean de Surville, who in 1769 made a lengthy stay in the group and gave some of the islands the French names they still bear. Surville called the group the 'Terre des Arsacides', but the identity of these islands with Mendaña's Islas de Salomon was soon established by French geographer Buache. An extract from Buache's 1781 Memoir was printed for the first time in Fleurieu's account; in this English edition it occupies pp. 309-23. Also included here are compilations and translations made from various published and unpublished accounts of Spanish and English travellers in the Pacific, including Mendaña, Queirós, Mourelle, Carteret, Shortland, and Cook. '.In the narrative of the English expeditions to these regions there is a relation of Captain Cook's recognition of the Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo of Queirós as the New Hebrides, as well as of Cook's discovery of New Caledonia in 1774.' (Cox) Bell F104. Cox II p. 304. Ferguson 105. Hill p. 105. JCB II 3457. Kroepelien 437. National Maritime Museum Cat. I 561. O'Reilly, New Caledonia, 57a. O'Reilly, New Hebrides, 1970. Sabin 24749.. F. Hardcover.