Lot 26: 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. Berwick, W. Phorson; London, B. Law & Son, 1793.
Octavo; portrait frontispiece; full contemporary tree calf, expertly rebacked, a fine copy with the signature of Elizabeth Hervey.
FIRST EDITION. Bligh returned to England in 1790 with news of the mutiny on the Bounty. The frigate Pandora, commanded by Captain Edwards, was sent to capture the mutineers. George Hamilton was the Pandora's surgeon and kept an account of the voyage. Fourteen of the mutineers were captured at Tahiti in 1791 and kept in a cage on the ship's quarterdeck, nicknamed 'Pandora's Box'. On the return voyage the ship was wrecked on the Pandora Reef in Endeavour Strait. Captain Edwards left the manacled prisoners to drown, but the master-at-arms dropped the keys to the mutineers and ten out of the fourteen survived. Returning to England in 1792, the mutineers were tried by a court martial; three were hanged, the rest pardoned or acquitted. Edwards was also instructed to survey, in the course of his voyage, the Endeavour Strait and to determine the best passage to Botany Bay. He succeeded in this mission and made some discoveries as well, among them Ducie Island, Nukunono Island, the Duke of York's Island, Anuda Island, and Pitt Island. However, the men of the Pandora failed to find the remnant of the mutineers on Pitcairn Island.