A Collection of Voyages chiefly in the Southern Atlantick Ocean.

With extra Jefferys chart. The extra chart, by Jefferys, is: A Chart of the Ocean between South America & Africa. With the Tracks of Dr Edmund Halley in 1700 and Monf.r Lozier Bouvet in 1738. Halley and Bouvert outlined tracks in the South Pacific outlining a possible Southern Continent, the potential presence of which greatly concerned Dalrymple.

The volume contains in its preface Dalrymple's appeal to Lord North to allow him official approval to make a voyage of discovery in the South Atlantic to investigate the reports of Halley, Bouvet, La Roche, and Leon, and to search for and establish a colony at Halley's Cape Circumcision. There is a most interesting section which contains a surprisingly modern constitution for the new colony: 1. '...there shall be a Tax of Batchelors or Maidens possessing lands and houses... which shall go the maintenance of orphans...'; 2. 'No coin but Copper Money as in China and accounts kept in decimals'; 3. 'Women are not debarred from public office, but may enjoy their rights in the public assembly on the same footing as men'; 4. 'No Person shall exercise the Profession of Law, by counsel or otherwise, for hire or fee, on penalty of forfeiture of all his property and perpetual imprisonment'; 5. 'No person to be imprisoned for debt, or for any offence, but such as make their being left at liberty dangerous to society'. Dalrymple had intended to expand the work further, but decided to collect such articles as he had assembled on the subject, for he was about to set sail for India. The various accounts contained within the book are printed in different places (for example, the Extrait du Voyage is obviously of French origin, while Dalrymple's brother, James, saw the Lyon journal through the press in Scotland).

First (only) edition, 4to, [iv], 20, [ii], 22, 88, 16, 16, 14pp., half-title, contents leaf, 3 engraved maps, 2 folding, extra-illustrated with a large folding chart of the Atlantic on thicker paper, contemporary sprinkled calf gilt, red morocco label, half-title browned, joints rubbed, small split to upper join professionally repaired, some browning towards the end, 2 leaves (in the Extrait) with paper repairs to lower margin not affecting text, a very good copy.

Cook A45; Sabin 18336.