Viaggi dalla China alla costa nord-ovest d'America fatti negli anni 1788 e 1789 dal Capitano G. Meares : prima traduzione italiana : arricchita di note istoriche-scientifiche di vedute, marine, ritrat

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Author: John Meares (c1756-1809) Year: 1796 Publisher: Presso Giuseppe Policarpo Merande. Luigi Coltellini Place: Napoli (Naples) Description: 4 volumes. [2]+3+[1 blank]+261 pages with frontispiece, four plates and index; [2]+238 pages with three plates (one folding), two maps and index; [2]+220 pages with large foldout map of the pacific and North West Coast of America, one folding plate, geographical vocabulary and index; [2]+252 pages with four maps, two folding plates, maritime vocabulary and index. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5 1/4") bound in contemporary quarter black leather with gilt lettering and decoration to spine over marbled boards. (Howes M 471) Second Italian edition. John Meares was a navigator, explorer, and maritime fur trader. Meares undertook his first voyage to the northwest coast of North America in 1786, sailing from Calcutta (India) in charge of two trading ships, the Nootka , under his own command, and the Sea Otter , under William Tipping. Meares may have been the principal owner of the Bengal Fur Company, the firm that organized the expedition; he was certainly its guiding spirit. He traded in Alaskan waters and wintered in Prince William Sound, where 23 of his crew died of scurvy. In May 1787 captains Nathaniel Portlock and George Dixon found him there, his ships trapped in the ice. Though captured, in effect, by Portlock and Dixon, Meares was released on bond with the understanding that he would sail directly for Macao and not return to the northwest c

• Binding: Hardcover

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