PBA Galleries

xij, 206; [2], 256, [4]; 144 pp. With one folding plate. (8vo) 20x12 cm (8x5"), period quarter cloth and marbled boards, gilt ruled spine titled in gilt, marbled edges. First French Edition.

Originally published in English in 1790. The second part of the volume, which occupies 256 pp. is a series of translator's notes. Bound in at the rear of the book is vol. 4 of Malte-Brun's "Annales des Voyages, de la Géographie et de L'histoire...", published in 1808, which is illustrated with one folding plate, titled ​"Plan de la Perte du Rhone." John White joined the navy in his twenties, and in 1786 he became surgeon of the 'Irresistible', and four months later, on the recommendation of Captain Sir Andrew Snape Hamond, he was appointed chief surgeon of the expedition to establish a convict settlement at Botany Bay. Of almost 1500 people in the eleven ships of the First Fleet, 778 were convicts, many in poor health from long imprisonment. It is to the credit of White and his assistants that on the voyage of more than eight months there were only thirty-four deaths. Outbreaks of scurvy and dysentery and lack of accommodation for the sick were early problems in the new colony.