BARROW, John.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

A Voyage to Cochinchina, in the Years 1792 and 1793: First edition of the first British illustrated work on Vietnam, being a description of the outward voyage of Lord Macartney's embassy to China. Barrow's letter, dated 18 January 1833, addresses Sir John Hill (1774-1855), the captain superintendent of the victualling and dockyards at Deptford. Barrow held the post of Second Secretary to the Admiralty for most of the first half of the 19th century."The voyage visited Madeira, the Canary Islands, and Rio de Janeiro; a description of that city and of Brazil in general is given. Touching at Tristan de Cunha, the ship rounded the Cape and eventually reached Cochin China via the city of Batavia on Java. The volume is also of Cook interest, as it describes finding Captain Cook's Resolution transformed into a smuggling whaler under the French flag" (Hill).Today, Barrow is "best known for his Mutiny on the Bounty (1831) but, during his lifetime, his accounts of his travels in eastern Asia and southern Africa, published between 1801 and 1807, were better known and more influential. These established new standards for travel writing... His interests ranged widely, but the great bulk of his output had a geographical focus, usually with an underlying imperial theme and a belief in progress and the superiority of British civilization... Collectively, these activities established his pre-eminence within British geography" (ODNB).

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