TENCH, Watkin

A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson.

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London, 1793. Quarto, folding map, early owner's name on title-page and some very scattered foxing,but less offset than usual; a fine copy in full tree calf gilt. A most attractive copy of the first edition of one of the scarcest First Fleet accounts. The second of Tench's two books, this brings his account down to the end of the first four years of settlement in an 'accurate, well-written and acutely observed account of the earliest years of Australia's colonization' (Wantrup). Tench had left New South Wales with the other marines on 18 December 1791 aboard HMS Gorgon which had accompanied the Third Fleet and this book was published in November or December 1793, more than a year after his return.

Tench had explored the country around Sydney, discovered the Nepean River, and commenced the assault on the still impregnable Blue Mountains. Consequently, this book 'has a special place in a collection of the explorers. Where the other First Fleet journalists described the excursions and expeditions of others, Tench published selections from the actual journals kept on his own expeditions. He was the first Australian explorer to do so. Tench and his travelling companion, William Dawes, have been described as the first systematic explorers, which gives an added point to his being the first to print extracts from his 'Travelling Diaries in New South Wales'. The interest of the 1793 volume is further enhanced by the fine folding engraved 'Map of the hitherto explored Country, Contiguous to Port Jackson: Laid down from Actual Survey' which records the results of early exploration around the settled areas' (Wantrup).

This copy is bound without the list of subscribers.
Crittenden, 'A bibliography of the First Fleet', 238; not in the catalogue of the Hill collection; Wantrup , 16.

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