Description
WITH ARTICLES ON BOTANY BAY
1. ADAMS, Reverend John. Modern Voyages: Containing a Variety of useful and entertaining Facts... Also, the latest authentic Accounts from Botany Bay... For the amusement and instruction of youth of both sexes. Two volumes, with both balf-titles, an attractive set in neat contemporary calf, flat spines gilt with double labels. Dublin, Chamberlaine and Rice, P. Wogan and others, 1790.
Scarce Dublin-printed anthology of voyages for the enlightenment of younger readers. Pacific voyagers, including Dampier, Anson, Wallis and Carteret feature heavily in the narratives, while no fewer than four chapters are devoted to the discoveries of Cook. One chapter includes a plea for a public monument to Cook's memory.
Of particular note given the 1790 date of publication, Adams' work also includes thirteen short entries on the newly established penal colony at Botany Bay edited and simplified from the official account of Governor Phillip published in London the previous year, they include descriptions of the Aborigines of Port Jackson, early attempts at agriculture and the soil and climate of the colony. Interestingly, the journal narrative of Lieutenant
Watts of the convict transport Lady Penrhyn and that of Captain Marshall of the Scarborough are included in simplified form.
First published in London in 1790 by Kearsley, this Dublin version is of some rarity: Beddie could locate just one copy, in the State Library of Victoria; Forbes found three other copies, including one in the Mitchell Library.
Beddie, 331; Ferguson, 58 (London edition); Forbes, Hawaiian National Bibliography', 180
ISBN:978187556745
