[AMY, Thomas].

Carolina; or a description of the present state of that country, and the natural excellencies thereof, viz. the healthfulness of the air, pleasantness of the place, advantage and usefulness of those rich commodities there plentifully abounding, which much encrease and flourish by the industry of the planters that daily enlarge that colony. Published by T. A. Gent. Clerk on board his Majesties Ship the Richmond, which was sent out in the year 1680, with particular instructions to enquire into the state of that country, by his Majesties special command, and return'd this present year, 1682.

London, printed for W. C., 1682. Small 4to (220 x 175 mm), pp. [ii], 40; lightly browned and spotted; eighteenth-century vellum backed boards; slightly foxed, extremities a little worn. First edition. An early account of colonial Carolina, present day North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, based on the findings of the Richmond voyage to the region in 1680. Carolina, founded as a colony in 1667, had been granted to eight proprietors, of which one was Sir John Colleton, a relative of the presumed author of this narrative. As Alden notes, ‘the author, “T. A.”, has long been identified with the name ‘Thomas Ash’, although such a person is otherwise unknown. It seems more likely that “T. A.” is Thomas Amy, who became a proprietor of Carolina’.The Carolina proprietors confronted the problem of a colony that returned neither profits nor obedience to its owners by launching two campaigns in 1682, one to recruit new immigrants and the other to reform the government of the colony. Within the next three years they commissioned at least ten pamphlets encouraging immigration and it is likely that Amy’s account was also issued with this aim. Carolina does, however, have ‘an authentic tone and is certainly more interesting to a modern reader than many of the other glowing but frequently misleading reports. After a hasty review of the history of Carolina, Ash [Amy] enters upon a descriptive report of the natural products of the country and of the cultivated plants, of the wild animals and the domesticated stock. His report on the ’possum and the hummingbird, neither of which was familiar to Englishmen, is delightful while his description of fireflies is particularly good. In many respects Ash’s [Amy’s] report rivals the later accounts of John Lawson for frankness and appeal’ (Powell, ‘Carolina in the seventeenth century: an annotated bibliography of contemporary publications’ in North Carolina Historical Review vol. 41, 1964, pp. 74–104).Alden 862/37; Church 673; Howes A349; Sabin 2172; Wing A3032aA.

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