Lot 136: Hamilton, George

A Voyage Round the World, in His Majesty's Frigate Pandora. Performed under the Direction of Captain Edwards in the Years 1790, 1791, and 1792. With the Discoveries made in the South-Sea; and the many Distresses experienced by the Crew from Shipwreck ... Berwick: By and for W. Phorsdon, 1793 8vo (9 x 5 ½ in.; 229 x 140 mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait of the author; frontispiece foxed, browned and offsetting to title-page, gutters of quires D,E, and L browned, some light text browning. Contemporary blue boards; backstrip perished, lower board detached. Brown folding case.

Ferguson 151; Hill 766

First edition, the account rendered by the ship's surgeon, George Hamilton. On 23 March 1791, H. M. S. Pandora, a 24-gun Porcupine class frigate commanded by Captain Edward Edwards arrived in Tahiti. Edwards, a right Tartar of an officer and a near victim himself of mutiny a few years earlier, had orders to pursue the Bounty fugitives, and did so with a bloodthirsty vengeance. Heywood and another youngster from the Bounty, George Stewart, who paddled out to the ship of their own volition, were immediately arrested and clapped in irons. Twelve others were apprehended on the island shortly thereafter, including the three men whom Bligh had declared innocent of rebellion: Coleman, McIntosh and Norman. Shackled in the sweltering heat. The fourteen men were confined in what was styled "Pandora's Box," a closed area eleven feet long and eighteen feet wide built on top of the quarterdeck. The entrance was through a scuttle, eighteen inches square in the roof, secured by an iron bolt passed through the coamings. The only air admitted was through two iron grates, nine inches square, in the bulkhead. The heat was so intense that the prisoners' sweat streamed in rivulets into the scuppers. Shipwreck. On 28 August 1791 Pandora struck a reef in the treacherous Endeavour Straits, and nine feet of water quickly flooded the hold. Coleman, McIntosh, and Norman were released to work the pumps; Edwards refused to free the other prisoners. The armourer's mate, hearing the prisoners' desperate pleas for mercy, went to remove their irons. Thirty-four Pandoras and four prisoners drowned, leaving eighty-nine of the ship's company, and ten prisoners. Edwards erected tents for his people, but refused the prisoners a useless, old sail so they buried themselves in the hot sand, which scorched their naked bodies. On 1 September, they repeated part of Bligh's track in an open boat (1100 miles), arriving at Coupang 16 September. Upon their return to England in 1792, three of the prisoners were hanged, and the rest acquitted. In the course of the journey, Edwards determined the best passage to Botany Bay, discovered the islands of Ducie, Nukunono, Rotuma, Anuda, and Pitt, among others.