LEDYARD, John

A Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage...

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N. Patten, Hartford (Conn.),, 1783. Small octavo, lacking the map (as do virtually all copies known); the paper slightly discoloured as always; apart from a very small stain at start this is an unusually good copy of a book always seen in poor shape; well bound in a modern imitation of an 18th-century panelled binding. A particularly good copy of this important book, notoriously hard to find in good shape. This surreptitious narrative of Cook's third voyage is the first American account of the voyage and thus the very earliest American account of the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands, later to become the fiftieth of the United States.

Ledyard, one of several Americans on the voyage and the only one to publish an account of the expedition, sailed as a corporal of marines. It is now generally acknowledged that he got hold of a copy of Rickman's narrative which he used to help him compile this account after his return to America. He himself describes the sealing of all diaries, drawings, memorandums, and charts of all officers and crew aboard ship at Canton. However, the narrative contains considerable information not available elsewhere, including the first published description of the Russian presence on Unalaska, the first permanent Russian settlement in northwest America (only Ledyard, Samwell, and Edgar visited the settlement). The chart supposed to have been issued with the book, which seems to have been an almost direct copy of the Rickman map, is missing in almost every copy, and in view of the erratic nature of American eighteenth-century publishing it is nowadays accepted that it was not generally issued.

Ledyard's description of his stay at Hawaii, his expedition inland and the death of Cook occupies sixty-four pages of the text. The account of New Zealand and Australia is short but includes his observation that 'the island of New-Holland (for its boundaries are now ascertained) is by much the largest known, and most eligably situated on the map of nature... even the Empress of Russia might be gratified with such a portion'.
Beaglehole, III, pp. ccviii-ccix; Beddie, 1603; Hill, 991; Hocken, p. 21; Holmes, 45; Judd, 108; Kroepelien, 717; Lada-Mocarski, 36; O'Reilly-Reitman, 432.

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