A Letter from Mr. Dalrymple to Dr. Hawkesworth, occasioned by Some groundless and illiberal Imputations in his Account of the late Voyages to the South.

£37,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

When the official account of Cook’s first voyage was published in 1773 its editor, John Hawkesworth, was subject to a wave of public criticism. Alexander Dalrymple was “the most uncompromising” (ODNB) of those critics and this very rare pamphlet represents his first attack on Hawkesworth’s efforts . This second issue is the first to include the chart. While other readers had been offended by Hawkesworth’s descriptions of South Sea Islander sexual mores and confused by his decision to adopt one narrative voice (melding that of the Captains with his own), Dalrymple was eager to contest the accuracy and validity of Hawkesworth’s record of the voyage. Dalrymple, arguably more than any other man, was in a position to make such criticisms. On the publication of his An Account of the Discoveries Made in the South Pacifick Ocean Previous to 1764 (1767) he had become the acknowledged authority on South Sea exploration. Indeed, he was deemed to be so knowledgeable on the subject that “he became the Royal Society’s candidate to lead the transit of Venus expedition. After a misunderstanding between the Royal Society and the Admiralty in April 1768 over the command of the chosen ship, Dalrymple declined to take second place in the expedition under a sea officer, and James Cook was subsequently appointed both commander and Royal Society observer” (ODNB). Due to this prehistory there existed the popular opinion that Dalrymple’s pamphlet was actually a veiled assault on Cook, who, as a natio

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