HAMILTON, George, Surgeon. A Voyage round the World, in His Majesty's Frigate Pandora. Berwick, 1793. FIRST EDITION.
8vo (210 x 130 mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece (dampstain to lower corner). Contemporary calf gilt, smooth spine gilt (covers slightly rubbed).RARE FIRST EDITION ON THE BOUNTY MUTINEERS. When William Bligh returned to England in 1790 and news of the mutiny aboard the Bounty finally became known, the Admiralty immediately fitted out the frigate Pandora, with Capt. Edward Edwards commanding, to apprehend the mutineers. This account of that voyage is by the ship's surgeon George Hamilton. It is the only full contemporary published account, as Edwards wrote no complete account of the voyage. In Tahiti, Edwards arrested fourteen mutineers and caged them on Pandora's quarterdeck while he sailed from Tonga to New Guinea in search of the remaining mutineers. It is now believed that when passing through the Santa Cruz Group he failed to recognize a distress signal from the survivors of La Perouse's expedition. He made a number of discoveries including Rotuma and determined the best route to Botany Bay, but he failed to locate Pitcairn Island although he had sailed close to it on his outward passage. While surveying Endeavour Strait in the Great Barrier Reef, the Pandora was wrecked and captain and crew took to the ship's boats with the ten surviving mutineers who had been released from their cages, not by Captain Edwards but by the master-at-arms. After an 1,100-mile voyage in open boats through the Torres Straits they landed at Timor where Bligh himself had landed after being cast off from the Bounty. A ship was arranged for them by the Dutch to carry the mutineers to England where all were tried and three were hanged. Bell H24; Ferguson 151; Hill 766; Kroepelien 507; Sabin 30011.
