WILLYAMS, Cooper.

A voyage up the Mediterranean in His Majesty's Ship the Swiftsure, one of the squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson, K.B. now Viscount and Baron Nelson of the Nile, and Duke in Bronte of Sicily. With a description of the battle of the Nile on the first of August 1798, and a detail of events that occurred subsequent to the battle in various parts of the Mediterranean.

London, printed by T. Bensley for J. White, 1802. 4to (290 x 230 mm), pp. xxiii, [i, errata], 309, [1, blank], with 43 plates including an engraved dedication; occasional offsetting; plate 34 (Grand Canal and the Rialto) waterstained; contemporary reddish brown calf, gilt tooled border; rubbed. First edition. An eyewitness account of the 1798 British naval campaign in the Mediterranean which ended with one of Nelson’s most famous victories, the battle of the Nile. At the beginning of the year Napoleon had abandoned any idea of invading Britain and had decided to focus on the Mediterranean instead. An invasion of Egypt would not only considerably expand his empire but would also give him access, via the Suez canal, to the Indian Ocean, and, from there, to British colonies. Thus on 20 May, 30,000 troops aboard 300 transports left Toulon for Aboukir Bay, evading the British fleet in the process. On hearing of this, a section of the Mediterranean squadron under Nelson set off on a frantic mission to find Napoleon which took it via France, Sicily, Malta, and Italy before finally finding the French fleet on 1 August anchored within Aboukir Bay. The battle that ensued was one of Nelson’s most spectacular achievements. Undertaken in failing light and with a dangerous shoal wind, the thirteen British ships of the line captured eleven French ships of the line and two French frigates, not including the 120 gun l’Orient, at the time the largest war ship in existence, which famously exploded during the action (Nelson later had his coffin made from l’Orient).Reverend Cooper Willyams, serving upon HMS Swiftsure throughout the campaign, was clearly an interested observer in the naval and political aspects of hunting out Napoleon but he was also eager to create a lively picture (heightened by the tinted lithographs made from his own original sketches) of the various ports and towns which he visited in the search. ‘Willyams was a clever artist. His journals and drawings of the expeditions in which he took part were said to be “intelligent and useful” ’ (Oxford DNB).‘Placed as he was in the midst of a battle as splendid and extraordinary as the page of history has ever recorded, an attendant of the chase which preceded it, and of many interesting occurrences and scenes which the shores of the Mediterranean exhibited for nearly two years after its termination, he daily minuted with his pen and pencil the observations and images which obtruded themselves upon him. The authenticity of such memorials, and the views of places and people, which the present as well as the past has rendered subjects of such warm curiosity and interest, may, as his friends flatter him, give a value to his simple diary, and the sketches, even if unskilful, of a self-taught artist’ (preface).Abbey, Travel 196; Blackmer 1813; Hilmy II p. 334; JCB, Maritime 1235; NMM V 1657.

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