An Historical and Geographical Description of the Great Country & River of the Amazones in America.

£6,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A very good copy of the sole English edition, complete with the map missing from most copies . “From the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Amazon River had been the target of commercial investments by the Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French, all of whom perceived it as an important route to the interior of the American continent” (Dias). This work is a compendium of Spanish information concerning the continent, largely sourced from Acuna but also several others. Borba notes that in his dedication to the French edition (Paris, 1655), Pagan calls on Cardinal Mazarin to “take possession of the Amazon and establish several colonies. He proves that it would not be a difficult enterprise and large armies and many pieces of artillery would not be necessary.” In fact, “Pagan called for the creation of an equatorial French empire with Peru, the amazon and Guiana as borders. The construction of fortified entrepôts on the Amazon would yield numerous advantages - large commercial profits, access to gold mines and obstruction of a much discussed alternative route for Spanish bullion from Peru” (Boucher). Borba adds that “the map drawn by Pagan is of great importance as a proof of the French ambitions in the Amazon regions …“ This English edition includes the same map, and if further proof of English interest was needed, in his “Epistle Dedicatory” William Hamilton, urges the King of England to establish an English empire in the same territory . Furthermore, the extende

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