Voyage à la Baye de Hudson, fait en 1746 & 1747 par les Navires le Dobbs-Galley & la California, pour la découverte d'un passage au Nord-Ouest ; avec une description exacte de la Côte ; un abrégé de l'histoire naturelle du Pays, & un exposé net des Faits & des Argumens, qui servent à prouver la probabilité de trouver dans la suite ce Passagefait en 1746 & 1747 par les Navires le Dobbs-Galley & la California, pour la découverte d'un passage au Nord-Ouest ; avec une description exacte de la Côte ; un abrégé de l'histoire naturelle du Pays, & un exposé net des Faits & des Argumens, qui servent à prouver la probabilité de trouver dans la suite ce Passage[A voyage to Hudson's-Bay, by the Dobbs Galley and California, in the years 1746 and 1747, for discovering a North West Passage]
Second edition of the French translation, expanded with a few remarks and illustrated with a map of the North Atlantic and 9 folding plates outside the text (natural history, views, Inuit types, etc.), cf. Sabin 22312n. "European Americana" 750/110. See Leclerc 717 for the first French edition published a year earlier.
The plates are captioned in both French and Dutch; the original English edition was published in London in 1748; the first French edition appeared in Paris in 1749.
The work opens with a historical account of earlier attempts to discover a route to the East Indies via the Northwest Passage.
Contemporary binding in full marbled calf, spine with gilt compartments decorated with floral tools, some fading to the gilt, modern havana morocco label, gilt roll tooling on the caps, gilt dentelle frame inside the boards, marbled edges, gilt fillets along the board edges.
The text begins with a chronicle of the various efforts made up to 1746 to discover the Northwest Passage.
Henry Ellis, the English traveller, was born in 1721 and died in Naples on January 21, 1806. As hydrographer and mineralogist, he took part in the 1746 expedition aimed at finding a northern route to the Indies and published this account, which includes valuable observations on Inuit customs. He was later appointed governor of Georgia and Nova Scotia.
Ink ownership inscription at the foot of the title-page.
A handsome copy.