DILLON, Peter

Narrative and Successful Result of a Voyage in the South Seas...

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Hurst, Chance and Co. London, 1829. Two volumes, octavo, plates (two folding, one coloured), and a folding map; plates crisp, with one or two subtle reinforcements at folds; repair to title-page of volume two otherwise an excellent copy in half green morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, spine banded and gilt. The solution of the La Pérouse mystery: an excellent copy of the first edition. Although Captain Peter Dillon is best known for his role in finding the wreck of La Pérouse's two vessels, the account also shows a passing interest in the voyage of the Pandora, and, especially in the region of the island of Rothuma, gives detailed notes on the charting done by Captain Edwards and published on an Arrowsmith chart.

Dillon was clearly very interested in the history of the Bounty voyage, and later published an important interview he did with Jenny, the partner of John Adams. Glynn Christian writes that she left Pitcairn in 1817 aboard the Sultan, and that Dillon's interview 'translated her account from the jumble of Tahitian and English in which it had been given. The details she remembers are about people rather than dates and places, and thus are all the more believable. They helped me discard much generally accepted history as fable' (Fragile Paradise, p. 196).

Of course, the most significant aspect of Dillon's account remains his role in solving the disappearance of La Pérouse, several decades after the French explorer first disappeared. Dillon, a sandalwood trader, called at the Solomons and, when a silver sword guard was brought out, suspected he had stumbled on the solution of the La Pérouse mystery. He returned to India and persuaded the government of Bengal to sponsor an expedition. At Vanikoro, he made a careful investigation among the natives, and was able to obtain many relics. On the successful receipt of his report and this material in France, Dillon was made a Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur and granted a pension.
Ferguson, 1255; Hill, 480; Hocken, p. 44; Spence, 'Bligh', p.15.

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