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© Maggs Bros Ltd 2020 A HANDSOME PORTRAIT OF THE PIRATE-EXPLORER 1 BOISSARD (Robert). Sir Francis Drake.

Engraving, with etching, measuring 186 by 126mm. Trimmed to plate mark, and on the right margin just inside, a small hole repaired just touching the ‘c’ of Frauncis in the legend. Inlaid into a paper mount. Nd. but after 1590. £2,250

Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) was the first English circumnavigator, and only the second after Magellan. His voyage extended British maritime power into the Pacific for the first time, threatened the Spanish empire in America to its heart, opened a new age in British seamanship, and made Drake a rich man.

Sailing from Plymouth in December 1577, the expedition reached Patagonia in June 1578, weathered a near mutiny, and saw the second ship, the Elizabeth, turn back during the stormy passage through the Straits of Magellan. Drake sailed on alone in the Golden Hind, raiding Spanish commerce along the Pacific coast of the Americas, and culminated his piracy with the seizure of a major treasure galleon. This exploit allowed him to pay a 4600% dividend to his backers on returning to England. In 1579 he explored northward up the California coast, discovered San Francisco Bay, and went as far north as Vancouver. He then crossed the Pacific, took on a cargo of spices in the East Indies, and went home by the Cape of Good Hope, arriving back at Plymouth in September 1580. It was considered the most heroic feat of seamanship of the age.

Here Drake is looking to the right, his armour and doublet elaborately realised and above a putto holds a laurel wreath aloft. This rare print is the second state of two, the first with the suspended engraved text (on a separate plate). Hind is unsure of the date of this print which was one of six executed by Boissard of British naval heroes. He suggests that the first state cannot have been before 1590. According to Hind, the famous Vaughan portrait is a reversed copy of this one.

Hind, Arthur, M., Engraving in England in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1 (1952), p.190; Boissard, 3. 1 ARGUING FOR A SECOND GALLEON “whose blood the harvests were nourished.” The author then 2 [MARIANAS ISLANDS.] [Draft letter from an reiterates the strategic importance of the mission and states that anonymous Jesuit missionary petitioning for a regular galleon run the islands “must be preserved at all costs as a valuable base between the Marianas and Manila.] leading to the surrounding islands, even Japan.” He argues that a galleon route between the Marianas and Manila, which would be a Manuscript in ink. 4pp. Small folio. Old folds, some very pale separate entity from the already established Manila galleon, would dampstaining to top left corner not affecting legibility. [?Hagåtña, benefit the mission and specifies that a vessel of one hundred tons c. 1680.] £4,750 would be sufficient and could also sail to Canton. He also suggests the mission be fortified and guarded by forty soldiers. In the first The Spanish mission on the Marianas Islands (Guam) was instance the bronze cannon from the wreck of the Concepción established by Diego Luis de San Vitores in February 1669, seven could be used for it. months after he landed on the island. He saw the immediate potential of the Marianas as a staging post for the wider spread The petition must have of Catholicism across the unknown austral lands. At that time, carried some weight, as by and for the next one hundred years, there was much discussion 1681, a fort had been built of an unknown Southern Continent, and the establishment of and a garrison installed for San Vitores’ mission must be seen in the context of the early the missionaries’ protection. exploration of the Pacific. Indeed, the“ arrival in 1668 of the This was disastrous for the Jesuit missionary team on Guam was of singular importance for Chamorros population the Pacific, for it represented the earliest sustained European as what commenced as a advance into any of the Pacific Islands” (Rosa). peaceful missionary project quickly resembled a military The first years of the mission were fraught with tension as the conquest. differences and demands of the two cultures became apparent. Just two months after their arrival, Fr Morales (in the northern Marianas) Any seventeenth-century and Fr Louis de Medina (in Guam) were attacked. San Vitores manuscript material had been adamant that the mission be peaceful and, importantly, regarding the Catholic unarmed. However, these attacks “persuaded him that sterner mission on the Marianas is measures were needed if the mission was to survive [...] Sanvitores rare. This speaks directly to went about Guam preaching what amounted to a crusade. Rallying the immediate concerns of life on the ground and looks ahead to a some of his first Guamanian converts and calling a handful of more secure future for the mission and its staff. Filipino troops to assist him, he returned to Tinian with his small army and succeeded, by threat of arms, in achieving a brittle peace” Hezel, F.X., “From Conversion to Conquest: The Early Spanish (Hezel). San Vitores was killed in April 1672 and, despite the evident Mission in the Marianas” in The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 17, success of the mission, ongoing relations proved difficult. No. 3 (July, 1982), p.122; Howgego I, S42; Rosa, A. Coello de la., Jesuits at the Margins: Missions and Missionaries in the Marianas This draft letter - filled with corrections, insertions and deletions (1668-1769) London, 2015, p.xv. - commences with a tribute to the martyred San Vitores with 2 COMMISERATING THE DEATH OF A MARTYR superior, but he also produced the first account,History of the 3 [MARIANAS ISLANDS.] FILPE (Father Johann). ALS to the Mission in the Mariana Islands, 1667-1673, for fear that letters Duchess de Aveiro. written from the mission would be lost. It’s no surprise that Tilpe Manuscript in ink on rice paper. Text in Latin. 2pp plus blanks on makes repeated reference to Coomans’ eloquence. a bifolium. Small folio. Hagåtña, 5 May, 1686. £4,250 Tilpe was a Bohemian Jesuit Father, who departed for Mexico in Very rare: a seventeenth-century letter written from Guam 1680, and from there he proceeded to the Marianas. He was one lamenting the death of Jesuit Father Peter Coomans. of five missionaries who arrived on the Marianas islands in 1681. His immediate task was to oversee the seminary for boys and also This letter was written seventeen years after the establishment attend to the spiritual welfare of the soldiers. of the Catholic mission by Diego Luis de San Vitores. It was his murder in 1672 that transformed a largely missionary enterprise Dampier, W., A Collection of Voyages in Four Volumes ... (London, into a colonial one. Tensions between the Spanish missionaries 1729) p.300; Rosa, A. Coello de la., Jesuits at the Margins: Missions and the local Chamorros were frequently violent and, by 1681, and Missionaries in the Marianas ... (London, 2015), p.7. the Spanish consolidated their military presence by fortifying the mission.

A contemporary report on the Spanish presence is supplied by no less than William Dampier, who visited Guam within weeks (21- 30 May, 1686) of this letter: “The Spaniards have a small Fort on the West-side, near the South-end, with six Guns in it. There is a Governour, and 20 or 30 Spanish Soldiers. There are no more Spaniards on this Island, beside two or three Priests. Not long before we arrived here, the Natives rose on the Spaniards to destroy them, and did kill many: But the Governour with his Soldiers at length prevailed, and drove them out of the Fort.” He is referring to the second Spanish-Chamorro War of 1684-6, after which the “Jesuits clearly had the political and religious leadership of the islands in their hands, becoming founders of a ‘missionary state’ in which martyrs were permanent moral referents for years to come” (Rosa).

Here we have a first-hand look at the sanctification of one such martyr. Father Johann Tilpe (1644-1710) writes to the Duchess de Aveiro regarding the death of the Belgian missionary Peter Coomans (1638-1685): “vivit post funera virtus.” Coomans was an important figure in the mission. Not only was he active as a

3 MARKING THE BEGINNING OF THE GRANDS VOYAGES ERA 4 [ANON.] Manuscript map of the South Pacific showing the tracks of Byron, Wallis, and Cartaret.

Executed in sepia ink with the Byron track and some other annotations in red. On two joined thin sheets measuring 380 by 710mm. Wormed along the bottom edge, with some, now restored, loss but not affecting the principal subject matter. England, c. 1770. £4,750

The author of this chart remains obscure, but there is some evidence that it might have been a working precursor to the Pacific map in Hawkesworth, certainly the daily positional observations have been made with care. The Torres Strait is not noticed, ie Papua New Guinea and the Cape York Peninsula are connected, however, it also differs from the chart in Bougainville’s voyage (1771).

The map incorporates the southern portion of South America, including the Falkland Islands and the Straits of Magellan, and then stretches across the Pacific to include the east coast of Papua New Guinea. In between, it notes the Juan Fernandez islands off the coast of Chile, and several dangerous reefs. To the west, Nova Britannia is the foremost landmark. William Dampier was the first Englishman to set foot there on 27 February 1700. It also includes Nova Hibernia and the Admiralty Islands. The map provides a fascinating snapshot of the burgeoning knowledge of the Pacific Ocean, which would increase dramatically with the voyages of Cook, Bligh and Anson that immediately followed.

4 ITEM 4

5 CELEBRATING CAPTAIN COOK hieroglyphic pillar: her right arm is projected over a globe, and 5 [COOK (Capt. James)] [KEARSLEY (George).] contains a symbol, expressive of the celebrated circumnavigator’s Description of Mr. Pingo’s Medal, executed in memory of Captain enterprising genius.” The inscription reads NIL INTENTATUM Cook, for the Royal Society, and engraved by Mr. Trotter, as a NOSTRI LIQUERE. These words would appear verbatim in the frontispiece to that great navigator’s last voyage. preface of Kearsley’s unofficial edition.

Single sheet plus engraved plate. Sheet has some edgewear and At the bottom of this descriptive sheet, it advertises “A few Proof toning, the plate is crisp with some very minor spotting. Np, nd, Impressions on French Paper, Price Two Shillings.” This image but c. London, 27 July, 1784. £4,250 preceded Webber’s drawing which was first issued the following year.

The death of Captain James Cook in Kealakekua Bay in 1779 was Rare: not in ESTC, a cause for international mourning. In the preceding fifteen years, not in OCLC, not he had mapped more new coastline than any other explorer; had in Libraryhub. Not crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time; and was the first in Beddie; Not in European to discover New Zealand, Hawaii, and a host of other Forbes. islands in the Pacific. The ramifications of this were later felt with the establishment of the penal colony at Port Jackson. David, Andrew, The Charts and Coastal A number of elegies were written in his memory, for example by Views of Captain Anna Seward in England, and Mathieu Gilli in France; John Webber Cook’s Voyages, 1997, famously drew the moment of his death; and the Royal Society p. xcvii; King, James, commissioned this medal. An Abridgement of Captain Cook’s Last Andrew David notes that the broadside was issued by the Voyage ... (London, publisher George Kearsley to advertise the engraved plate he had Kearsley, 1784), commissioned which depicted the medal: the engraving was by pp.v-vi.; Smith, L.R. Thomas Trotter, and was the first such image published. The image The Royal Society was used as a frontispiece for Kearsley’s unofficial account, as well Cook Medal (, as a description of the medal, though that edition (see Forbes 66) 1982). was quickly suppressed by the Admiralty.

Lewis Pingo (bap.1743-1830) was a member of a family of prominent medallists. He was trained by William Shipley, his talent was recognised by Thomas Hollis, and he was awarded several premiums by the Society of Arts. Here he has depicted Cook in profile with the inscription JAC. COOK, OCEANI INVESTICATOR ACERRIMUS. On the verso, there is an image of Britannia “standing upon a plain: the left arm rests upon an 6 BANKS AS MATCHMAKER 6 BANKS (Joseph). ALS to Mary Boydell about acquiring “Bartolozzi’s print” of Captain Cook.

Manuscript in ink. Single leaf of laid paper. Small 4to measuring 230 by 185mm. Old folds, heavily clipped with loss of thin strip at top of first leaf and some two-thirds carefully cut away from second leaf, but importantly retaining all of Banks’ letter and the relevant address panel; not signed but in Banks’ hand and signed “Soho Square”, small note in Mary Boydell’s hand; very good. Soho Square, August 22, 1785. £8,500

A remarkable survival. Joseph Banks here answers Mary Boydell’s earlier correspondence and apologises that “he can not procure for her so good a copy of Mr Bartolozzi’s Prints as her valuable collection of that masters works deserves but he has recommended it to ... the publisher to furnish her with the best he has...”

Although he does not specifically say so,he is doubtless discussing Bartolozzi’s smaller issue of the death of Cook plate which was published on 1 July 1785, just six weeks prior to the date of this letter. The folio sized issue was published the previous year and (though separately issued) is sometimes found bound into the atlas of Cook’s third voyage. Clearly demand was sufficient to warrant an additional version.

There is an additional note in Boydell’s hand on the verso stating “This letter from Sir Joseph Banks was the origin of my knowing my worthy Husband.” She married Nicol just two years later. One wonders if this also was how the Boydells came to be acquainted with John Webber. Mary’s younger brother, Josiah, would later publish Webber’s Views of the South Seas, perhaps the most significant of all Pacific colour plate books. cf. Forbes 108.

7 A FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST MISSION TO TAHITI BY ONE OF ITS PRINCIPALS 7 DAVIES (Rev. John). Journal of a Tour of Morea or Eimeo, commencing April 14th and ending April 20th 1813.

Holograph ms. in ink. 16pp. Small 4to. Paper watermarked 1806. Old folds, rusted paperclip stain to first and last page, a little grubby in places, but entirely legible throughout. [Matavai], 7 September, 1813. £15,000

This substantial, and entirely unpublished, manuscript contributes a significant addition to our understanding of the activities of missionaries in the South Pacific in the early nineteenth century. Davies’ tour took place in the difficult years before Pomare II converted to Christianity in 1815, which led to the establishment of the Tahitian Missionary Society in 1818.

Born in Pendygwm, Wales, (1772-1855) was one of the pioneer missionaries to Tahiti. Under the auspices of the London Missionary Society, he arrived on 10 July 1801. Davies spent 54 years on the island, surviving three wives and never once returning home. He was an indefatigable preacher and publisher. He translated several catechisms and, in 1823, produced the first Tahitian grammar. In addition to being superintendent of the London Missionary Society church, he compiled the History of the Tahitian Mission, 1799-1830. Alas this wasn’t published until 1962 which is likely the reason his efforts aren’t as widely known as those of his fellow missionary, John Williams, whose Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands appeared in 1837.

A brief account of this tour in 1813 appears in chapter nine of Davies’ History … It reads as follows: “April 14th. Mr D[avies] accompanied by Mr H[enry’s] son Samuel began a journey round Eimeo for the purpose of preaching to the people, and to know their present condition and number. On the 22nd he returned, he found the people in general far more willing to hear, and more attentive to what they heard than he expected. He spoke to almost

8 all the inhabitants, and some heard two or three times. Many were Davies then examined what he describes as “a little hammock absent at Tahiti with the king. Superstition and regard for the tied up about 4 feet long” and asks a series of rudimentary, gods seemed to be decreasing, and the maraes and altars out of condescending questions about their god before finally declaring: repair everywhere, and upon the whole he though there was an “And can this, this be the god that you worship.” He proceeds to encouraging prospect of seeing better times.” (The Henry family question the power of their god and deftly manoeuvres: “I could were one of several who returned to Eimeo after time away. In their now break him, tear him to pieces, and tread him in the dirt under case, they’d visited Port Jackson, leaving on 21 July 1811, though my feet – but I shall not do so, why? Because I fear him? No, no I the date of their arrival is unrecorded.) fear him not, but I respect the people of this country, therefore I will put him in again without any injury […] A long conversation Departing on the 14th, Davies and Henry sailed past Pápetoai, ensued, and the men argued strenuously that tho this image could Mauairoa, and Tiapititi, and from there to Aoe and Paitaha. do nothing, yet the spirit present with it was powerful.” Davies Eventually, they landed at Apoletea and “called at the house of turns to question the omnipotence of Oro: “Then at the time Oro Tarahoi formerly one of Oro’s prophets, found him at home, is hearing a prayer at Raiatea, there is no Oro at Eimeo, there is acquainted him with the object of our journey, he pressed us to no Oro at Taheiti. If a priest prays then, he prays to the wood and stay while he dressed some food for us, but I told him we did not sinnet alone …” want anything but to get the people together and teach them the word of Jehova, by his consent collected 11 grown people and He concludes rather smugly – not least with his own system several children into his home … Some were attentive, and all unchallenged – “the men were struck with surprise at the thought, behaved decently.” This very much establishes the pattern of the it having never probably struck them before. I then endeavoured journey, as they moved from Tepê to Tiatal Bue, to Moru in the to expose the absurdity of their system, and the superiority and north-west, and Ma’atea, Davies endeavoured to speak wherever excellency of the true God.” he might gain an audience. The groups numbered between five and thirty at a time. They were well looked after throughout. The entry for 16 April includes the following: “After having some refreshment, and giving Of particular interest is the information Davies provides on the the man of the house some fish hooks and 2 cartridges of powder as religious beliefs of the Polynesians. He reports one extraordinary he had been kind to us, killed a couple of fowles for our breakfast conversation, which also provides much insight into the methods and behaved as well as his circumstances would allow.” And later of the missionaries. It took place on Wednesday 14 April, and that same day, “Came to a large house belonging to Farefara the they’re discussing Oro, the god of war. Davies is asking the chief of the district who is my friend, as he was not at home his questions: “To whom does this house belong? It belongs to Oro. people welcomed us, set immediately about killing a pig and Does he reside here? Yes. What! By himself? Is he not moemoe pressed us to stop for the night …” (lonesome)? No, the god is not lonesome. In what part of the house doth he reside? Look yonder: (towards the western part, where Davies’ efforts to preach on Saturday the 17th were less successful. there was a sort of scaffold […] with a thing on it, which Capt. Some of the men had gone fishing, others to work and the women Cook compares to the Ark of the Covenant; rising up and walking were busy “beating cloth” (presumably tapa). And when he did to it, I asked if the god was in it, being answered in the affirmative, manage to gather together a group of fourteen people, he was I asked the men to get him out so that I might see him, to this they interrupted several times by the remaining men who had spent objected, then I asked if I might pull him out?” the day drinking, the sin of which he immediately made the 9 centrepiece of his next talk. (Intoxication was a persistent theme. On Monday April 19th, Davies had to wait while a quantity of Ava was distributed among the people before him, and on the 20th he found himself in a distillery.)

Wherever possible, Davies tried to tie his sermons to the events surrounding the village: “The sickness of the chief suggested a subject I considered man as made of dust and to return thither, sickness and death common to all.” Nonetheless he concludes in an upbeat manner which is reflected in his publishedHistory … : “I found far more encouragement among the people than I expected. Superstition is certainly losing ground, the marae’s and altars are out of repair and going to decay all over the island, a spirit of inquiry is excited in some, and many doubts in others.”

The final three pages contain eighteen excerpts from his diary between 1 March and 7 September 1813. The format certainly suggests Davies produced this document as a sort of report to be read by any interested parties, as well as for the mission’s own records. gets a mention, as does the troublesome Captain Fodger of the ship Daphne. There is also news of births on the island, correspondence with Pomare II, and enquiries by Tahitians on religious instruction.

Perhaps we should end with his entry from May 21 when he writes, “This day 12 month we arrived here in the Endeavour, in looking back I see much cause of humiliation and repentance I have met with some trials– and also many mercies, but remember the one more than the other!!”

Any manuscript material by Davies is rare on the market. This one is accompanied by a full transcription.

Newberry, C. ed, History of the Tahitian Mission, 1799-1830, written by John Davies … (Cambridge, 1961).

10 A RARE ABORINGAL PORTRAIT FROM THE CONVICT ARTIST 8 BROWNE (Richard). Memora.

Watercolour and body colour measuring 300 by 240mm. A closed tear not affecting image, some minor spotting. Tipped into a folio album. 40ll. [Sydney, c. 1819.] £60,000

A fine example of an Aboriginal portrait by one of the most important convict artists in the first period of Australian settlement.

Apparently convicted of forgery, in 1811 Richard Browne (1776- 1824) was to on the Providence and served the majority of his sentence in Newcastle.

Incarceration proved no obstacle to his productivity and Browne was active as an artist from the outset. The two Newcastle scenes in Absalom West’s suite of twelve views of the colony are by him and are signed I.R. Brown. Advertised in November 1812, but not available until January the next year, these are among the earliest illustrations to be printed in Australia. They appeared without a title-page or letterpress and cost £3. The other ten are by .

Browne contributed illustrations to the natural history manuscript compiled by lieutenant Thomas Skottowe. Richard Neville notes the widespread habit of settlers collecting natural history specimens in the first decades of the colony. He continues, “Drawings were similarly circulated. Together with images of the settlement itself, images of Aboriginal people and natural history were the dominant themes of most colonial art production ... Post-1800 images tended to be the work of professional artists - both convict and free. Colonial patrons generally limited their patronage to topographical, natural history and Aboriginal images ...” He supplied several watercolours for James Wallis’s An historical account of the Colony of New South Wales (London, 1821), and an engraving of his portrait of Cobawn Wogy was used for the frontispiece of James Dixon’s Narrative of a Voyage to New South Wales and Van Dieman’s Land (Edinburgh, 1822).

11 Upon his release in 1817, Browne established a studio at 27 Phillip Gunson, Neil, “Richard Browne” in Design & Art Australia Online: Street, Sydney, and “compiled a portfolio of designs of natural https://www.daao.org.au/bio/richard-browne/biography/ Accessed history (kangaroos, emus, lyrebirds) and Aboriginal people from 17 July, 2020; Neville, Richard, “Eager Curiosity: Engaging with the which his patrons could order” (Neville). He is renowned for the New Colony of New South Wales” in Hetherington, M et al, The latter and produced many in the period between 1817-1820. World Upside Down: Australia, 1788-1830 (Canberra 2000), pp.8-9; For example, the National Library of Australia hold twenty-five Wantrup, pp.287-8. separate examples of his portraits.

“The evolution of Browne’s figure work is revealing. He obviously became increasingly fascinated by the local Aboriginal people. An 1817 study of Broken Bay Jemmy, although still surrounded by the black and yellow frame with which he encased his natural history illustrations, already shows a growing maturity in figure drawing from the earliest work (1812-1813) which bears a very close resemblance to the ‘historical scenes’ depicted by the . Yet, while an anthropologist might safely depend on the Port Jackson Painter’s eye for detail in his portraits of Aboriginal people, particularly in regard to tribal markings and corroboree dress, Browne employs a more exaggerated caricature style. W.H. Fernyhough and later followed this way of drawing notable Aborigines ‘from life’” (Gunson). Described variously as “sinuous” and “unsympathetic,” one might wonder what someone such as Nicolas Petit would have made of Browne’s aggressive style.

Original work by him remains highly desirable and rarely appears for sale. At a Paris auction in 2017, his portrait of Long Jack fetched €74,796. In the same sale, his image of two kangaroos made €71,227.

Provenance: The piece is tipped into a family album with the ownership inscription of Mrs W.H. Butler on the front pastedown. She resided at Grenada House in Tulse Hill, Surrey, which the Post Office directory of 1851 confirms. There is a second name, A.A. Bookham, who is Ann Agnes Bookham (1828-1896) born in West Malling, Kent. We find her in Cudham, Kent in 1861, though she died a wealthy woman in west London leaving £10,000 in her will. The album is largely composed of clippings from newspapers and magazines, though there are a few pencil sketches, including one of West Malling. The pieces in the album date from 1780 to 1845. 12 OXLEY’S OWN COPY Other important works are Phillip Parker King’s “On the Maritime 9 [OXLEY (John).] FIELD (Barron) editor. Geography of Australia”, and Allan Cunningham’s (botanical Geographical Memoirs of New South Wales... collector for His Majesty’s Gardens at Kew) reports on the botany of the blue mountains and a specimen of indigenous botany. First edition, uncoloured issue. Aquatint frontispiece, 2 lithograph The appendix includes First Fruits of Australian Poetry, which plates and 4 folding maps. 8vo. Recent quarter speckled calf over had hitherto only been privately printed, as well as a glossary of marbled boards, black morocco label to spine, gilt, ms. presentation the Natural History of species from New South Wales and Van inscription to title-page, minor insect damage to the lower corner Diemen’s Land. of the first four leaves. xvi, 504pp. London, John Murray, 1825. £4,000 The four maps all relate to Oxley’s expedition and are as follows: “Plan of the River ” with an inset “Chart of ”; A desirable copy of an important work from Macquarie-era “Sketch of the River Boyne, Port Curtis”; “Map of the Country Australia. The presentation inscription reads: “To John Oxley Esq. Between Bathurst and Liverpool Plains”; and “Map of the Country From the Editor.” to the South of Lake George...” The frontispiece, “Campbell’s River, New South Wales” is after John Lewin. This is the sole appearance of Oxley’s expedition in print. Barron Field, the editor, has also contributed to this work. Abbey Travel, 571; Ferguson, 1009; Howgego II, O13; Wantrup, 108.

This work contains sixteen pieces, three of which concern Oxley’s expedition. The first is Oxley’s own “Report of an Expedition to survey Port Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen, with a view to form Convict Penal Establishments there...”. John Uniacke, who was employed as an assistant on the expedition contributes his own “Narrative of Mr Oxley’s Expedition to survey Port Curtis and Moreton Bay...” as well as “Narrative of Thomas Pamphlet ... who was with two other men wrecked on the coast of in April, 1823, and lived among the natives for seven months.”

The expedition departed on the Mermaid on 23 October, 1823, calling first at Port Macquarie before sailing north. Two rivers were discovered that year, first the Tweed River, on November 6, and later the Boyne River. Retiring south to Moreton Bay at the end of the season, they came across Thomas Pamphlet (whose memoir Uniacke records here). Acting on information from Pamphlet, they set out in an open boat and explored what he named the Brisbane River inland as far as Termination Plains and Termination Hill (now called Taylor Range). He returned to Sydney with the castaways in December 1823. A penal settlement was established at Moreton Bay shortly thereafter. 13 A BEAUTIFUL IMAGE 10 LEWIN (Thomas). A Gang-gang Cockatoo (Callocephalon fimbriatum).

Body colour, water colour with touches of gum arabic and pen and grey ink on paper watermarked J. Watman. Measuring 440 by 330m. Framed and glazed. Signed inscribed and dated “l.r. D & P by Thos. Lewin 182 9?.” Inscribed in pen and brown ink on the verso: “Species from New Holland (very scarce) Lewin. [And in pencil] Drawn and painted /from Nature and Correct/ siz Colours and all Honors(?) Lewin Jany 18. 1829.” [London, 1829]. £32,500

A wonderful example of an Australian gang-gang cockatoo by Thomas Lewin (1774 - after 1840), who was the son of William Lewin (1747-1795) and brother of John William Lewin (1770- 1819). The bird is perched on a branch, beak slightly open, the delicate line and colour is excellent, entirely in keeping with this eminent family’s talent.

The gang-gang cockatoo inhabits the south-west coastal regions of Australia: Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and the southern part of NSW. It is the faunal emblem of the ACT. The first specimen of the gang-gang cockatoo was sighted (and shot) in 1801 on Churchill Island by one of the crew from The Lady Nelson, which was on a coastal surveying voyage under the command of James Grant. The artist’s brother, John Lewin, was actually on James Grant’s voyage when the first gang-gang cockatoo was sighted. However, he was in the sister ship, Bee, which was forced to turn back in inclement weather. The interest in specimens from the New World was intense and several wealthy collectors established their own menageries. The gang-gang cockatoo is quite a hardy bird and often survived the voyage back to England, so there’s every chance that Thomas Lewin drew this from a live specimen.

The Lewin family had an abiding interest in ornithology and connections to Australia. On moving to Kent, William Lewin 14 befriended John Latham who has been described as the AN EARLY LETTER FROM WESTERN AUSTRALIA “grandfather of Australian ornithology.” Their friendship was such 11 [YORK.] CARTER (T[homas].) ALS to James Carter that Lewin dedicated his masterpiece The Birds of Great Britain, reporting on sheep farming in York. with their eggs, accurately figured (7 vols., 1789–94) to Latham. His clearly talented sons, John William and Thomas, who were Ms. in ink. Bifolium, written on three sides, last leaf used as also collectors and illustrators, helped their father with the second address panel. Folio. Poorly opened, some light soiling but entirely edition of Birds of Great Britain ... Just as John and Thomas worked legible. York, 25th October, 1838 & Perth, 13th November, 1838. together on their father’s work, they continued this relationship £5,250 while John was abroad. An early report from one of the first settlers of York, Western Armed with a recommendation from the Home Secretary to then Australia. Just under a hundred kilometres east of Perth, it was Governor John Hunter, John Lewin travelled to Australia in 1798 discovered in 1831 and became the first inland town. and became one of the best known artists of that era. In addition to landscapes, portraits, and miniatures, he painted much of the Thomas Carter arrived at Swan River in July 1830 on the Medina. environment around him, including Australian Aborigines, birds, He was one of those first to settle in York. Notably,he assisted in insects and plants. Such was his talent that Governor Macquarie the construction of the mud brick Gwambygine Homestead, which became one of his patrons. Lewin published his first book in 1805, was the first to be built in York and remains one of the earliest Prodromus Entomology: Natural History of Lepidopterous Insects of colonial buildings in Western Australia. Both Lieutenant Bunbury New South Wales. His second, published in London in 1808 was and Rev. Wollaston would stay there. While York was located in the Birds of New Holland, with their Natural History. 1831, and received its first settler, Henry Bland, the town wasn’t settled until 1835. It grew slowly. By 1836, it still didn’t look much ODNB clarifies the brothers’ working relationship: “The London like a township, holding little more than a couple of houses and a editions of his books were supervised and edited by his brother barracks. Indeed, the following year “over 500,000 acres had been Thomas Lewin, who also wrote the prefaces and arranged allotted in 113 separate grants, but there were only about 10 farms contributions from scientific experts.” In 1813 John had George in actual existence in the York district” (Hasluck). Howe (Australia’s first government printer) print a new edition of Birds of New Holland, this time called Birds of New South Wales. It Here Carter writes to his family back in England. The letter is full was the first illustrated book to be published in Australia. of information on local farming conditions and colony politics. He writes: “we are in the midst of shearing the sheep ... I continue to Penny Olsen, Feather and Brush: Three Centuries of Australian enjoy the blessings of health and that everything is going on with Bird Art. (Melbourne, 2001) p42; Richard Nevill, Mr. J.W. Lewin, me as usual. I am anxious and expecting to hear from England Painter and Naturalist. (Sydney, 2012). every day by the Britomart which is hourly expected.” Turning to business matters, “the last season has been the dryest and most unfavourable we have experienced since the formation of the colony and will have a considerable effect upon the quality of the wool. I shall not therefore anticipate a high price as the staple is very weak it will otherwise be in much better condition than the last I sent. The sheep are now doing very well. We had a most 15 trying time last lambing but have now much recovered. The dry season has just set in and I am afraid we shall be short of feed before we get more ... The corn has also felt the effects of the drought ...”

The pace of life in the first decades of the was slow to start and, three weeks’ after he started the letter, Carter was able to add to it while on business in Perth. He would have to wait some time for news, as the Britomart did not reach Fremantle until 5 December that year.

In this second section, he turns attention to politics: “we expect a change very shortly in the Government as a new Governor is expected ... Sir James Stirling will leave this immediately that the Britomart arrives with official despatches that he is to be removed we have learned by way of India that [John] Hutt has been appointed to succeed him. I hope I shall find him independent and active. His coming in stranger will have no prejudices or interest to bias him as Sir James who always took an opportunity of favouring any district in which his own land was situated.”

The letter concludes with Carter referencing a subscription to Bell’s Weekly Messenger, stating that “it is very seldom that I can get a London paper.”

The site of the town was located, and founded, by the surveyor Robert Dale, then just twenty-years-old. Dale became the first European to cross the Darling Range and so discovered the Avon Valley in 1830 - in every respect as important for the Swan River Colony as Blaxland’s discovery was for New South Wales. A highly accomplished young man, his Panoramic View of King George’s Sound ... (1834) remains one of the outstanding pictorial representations of nineteenth-century western Australia.

Hasluck, Paul (“Polygon”), “Centenary of York. The First Inland Settlement” in The West Australian, Saturday, September 12, 1931, p.4: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/32375817 . Accessed 29 June 2020. 16 A RARE BROADSIDE 12 [TAHITI.] The Surprising Life and Voyage of Tom Lambert, Shewing How He Left England Miserable and Returned Happy.

Printed broadside measuring 370 by 500mm. 10 woodcuts. Old folds, repairs to verso, wear at folds affecting one word, otherwise very good. [London,] Printed by Knight and Bagster for the Religious Tract Society, c. 1840. £1,250

Handsomely decorated with woodcuts, this story of Christian redemption is framed within a tale of nautical adventure in the South Seas. The first missionaries who arrived on Tahiti in 1797 were Protestants sent by the LMS. After initial hardships, they gained the favour of Pomare II and, in the 1820s, the nation converted to Protestantism. By the time this poem was printed, Catholic missionaries were also active in the Pacific.

Composed in forty-nine stanzas, the poem follows the early life of Tom Lambert, whose parents are condemned for their taste for drink and lapsed Christianity. Young Tom followed in their footsteps, “careless of god and man”, before deciding to go to sea. He found a berth on a ship bound for the Pacific and, while on Tahiti, was surprised and enlightened by the Christian example set on the islands, which he determined to bring home to England. Seemingly written with an eye on the Christmas market, it concludes “to have a happy Christmas now and endless bliss above.”

OCLC locates copies at ATL, SLNSW, NLA, Monash, and Newberry.

17 AN IMPORTANT COLONIAL SURVEYING GUIDE

13 WHITEHEAD (Arthur). A Treatise on Practical Surveying, as Particularly Applicable to New Zealand and other colonies...

First edition. Three folding maps coloured in outline, one folding diagram, & 17 lithographic plates. 8vo. Original green cloth, paper label to spine, ownership inscription to title-page. xii, [ii], viii, 9-174, [10 tables]pp. London, Longman & Co., 1848. £3,250

A very good copy of this landmark treatise on surveying in New Zealand. Published just seven years after the official establishment of New Zealand as a colony, it is the most important early work on the terrestrial mapping of New Zealand by one of the most important early surveyors.

Whitehead travelled to New Zealand under the auspices of the New Zealand Company (est. 1841), which under the leadership of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, “was determined to establish a colony with or without the government’s blessing” (ODNB). When Whitehead arrived in February 1842, New Zealand’s coasts were already well-charted by the Royal Navy, by way of trigonometric surveys. However, the islands’ interior was scarcely mapped at all, and many areas were yet to be visited by Europeans.

This even-handed, pragmatic work would have been indispensable for any settler, let alone surveyor, in a new colony. Whitehead makes clear the peculiarities of surveying basically in his introduction: “The survey of a Country so rugged and uncleared as New Zealand, must be attended with much expense and unexpected difficulty, and on that account it is not surprising to find that the system proposed by Captain Dawson, though excellent is not universally applicable to all the circumstances of such a Country.”

He advises that surveyors travel light, and discusses both the theodolite and the sextant: these two tools being essential to

18 the work of a surveyor. Whitehead provides detailed instructions, and goes so far as to recommend specific brands of theodolites which he considers a “very convenient Instrument, and particularly suitable for bush surveying.”

Whitehead’s remarks ... “To no class of persons in any colony is a knowledge of the native language more necessary than to Surveyors. It matters not what philanthropic system is carried out for the purchase of native lands for the settler, as little does it matter with what good faith such purchase has been effected by the natives, for disputes Provenance: Inscribed “Robert Baker 16th July 1858” on the will arise, and in most cases will commence as soon as the Surveyor title page. This is probably Robert Baker (1797-1867), a native appears to lay out the district ...”. of Devon who was a pioneer settler in New Zealand under the auspices of the New Zealand Company. Of real interest, he gives instructions for the laying out of towns and suburban lands; dedicates a chapter to marine surveys; and another Scarce. OCLC locates 9 copies. Auction records list just a single to the construction of colonial roads. The seventeen plates illustrate copy (this one). Bagnall, 6039; Ferguson, 4957. a new road in the Hutt Valley, while the large folding maps depict the district of Upper Hutt, the Hudson Valley (between Manawatu and Port Nicholson), and Port Nicholson Harbour.

While the work is of obvious relevance to New Zealand (as all the examples are drawn from his time there), Whitehead’s advice was applicable elsewhere, such as Canada, South Africa, Australia, Guyana and rural India.

19 WITH AN ACCOUNT OF A FAMOUS MUTINY IN THE PACIFIC Re-embarking on the Junior (“she was roomy, handy, and a good 14 SAMPSON (Alonzo D.) Three times around the world, sailer”), his third voyage in 1857 was eventful indeed. Ed Lefkowicz or life and adventures of Alonzo D. Sampson. notes that on this voyage, Sampson witnessed “Cyrus W. Plummer and part of the crew slaughter Captain Archibald Mellen, in First and only edition. Vignette to title-page. 8vo. Original black one of the most famous mutinies in Pacific history. Sampson and cloth, pictorial vignette gilt to upper board, rebacked with original several others were forced by the mutineers to accompany them spine laid down, extremities a little rubbed, text toned and spotted, in the ship’s boats in an escape to Australia.” They landed on the title-page repaired. 170pp. Buffalo, Express Printing Company, desolate coast near Cape Howe, just near what would become the 1867. £3,750 border between New South Wales and Victoria. An immensely satisfying book for any student of the nineteenth- Sampson gives a very century Pacific. This scarce narrative includes stops at Australia, detailed account of their New Zealand, Hawaii, and the Bering Strait with much information trek to safety, subsisting on each place, the local inhabitants, and historical notes, referencing on mussels, weeds and Cook, Bligh, Byron, and Wilkes. It also features a first-hand account the like. Sampson and of the 1857 mutiny on the Junior. several others were taken prisoner, and returned Three times around the world ... commences with a brief precis of to the US to stand trial, Sampson’s service in the Mexican-American War, before getting where Sampson was down to business, first on theJunior in 1850, which made stops freed. The account of at Cape Town, New Zealand, and Tonga, before sailing to the the whole incident from North Pacific. (Sampson gives a surprisingly detailed account of mutiny to discharge New Zealand’s topography, and a melancholy one of the Maori. occupies thirty pages. He describes Mongonni (Mangonui) harbour and the settlement behind it.) The Junior returned via Honolulu and Sampson Forbes, 2769; Ferguson, provides some details of methods of ship repair and sights in the 15429a; Lefkowicz, Ed, harbour. He also notes “an auxiliary force of English from Australia, Bulletin 69, (1991). known as the ‘Sidney Rangers’, whom we hated cordially.” They sailed to the South Pacific and then up to the Okhotsk Sea, which was increasingly fished by American whalers.

Sampson’s next voyage was as a steerer on the Rebecca Sims, which departed New Bedford in November 1853, and involved longer stops at Hawaii as well as the Falklands. They stopped first at Lahaina, and between trips to the North Pacific -they reached a highest latitude of 72°N (equivalent to Point Barrow, Alaska) - returned to Hilo, and Honolulu.

20 JOHN GOULD AND HENRY CONSTANTINE RICHTER as the finished plates, and these were later interpreted into careful [GOULD (John).] RICHTER (Henry Constantine). Three lithographs by the diligent Richter” (Lambourne, 191). watercolours and a proof lithograph in preparation for Gould’s Birds of Australia Supplement, 1851-1869. ODNB provides further clarification of the process. Gould’s “hand- coloured lithographic plates, more than 3300 in total, are called Rare and desirable, this suite of four images by Henry Richter ‘Gould plates’. Although he did not paint the final illustrations, were retained by the Godman family until very recently. The this description is largely correct: he was the collector (especially birds featured here – Coxen’s Fig Parrot, the Night Parrot and in Australia) or purchaser of the specimens, the taxonomist, the Bartram’s Sandpiper – all appeared in Gould’s Birds of Australia publisher, the agent, and the distributor of the parts or volumes. Supplement (1869). There are two illustrations of the Night He never claimed he was the artist for these plates, but repeatedly Parrot, the second of which, along with the very early proof of wrote of the ‘rough sketches’ he made from which, with reference Bartram’s Sandpiper (which includes an additional bird) do not to the specimens, his artists painted the finished drawings. The appear to be published elsewhere. design and natural arrangement of the birds on the plates was due to the genius of John Gould, and a Gould plate has a distinctive John Gould (1804-1881) ranks alongside James Audubon as one beauty and quality. His wife was his first artist. She was followed by of the pre-eminent ornithologists of the nineteenth century. He Edward Lear, Henry Constantine Richter, William Matthew Hart, was also a prolific publisher. Beginning withA Century of Birds and Joseph Wolf.” Hitherto Unfigured from the Himalaya Mountains (1830-32), he spent the next fifty years publishing works on birds from Australia, “Henry Richter began working for John Gould at the age of 20, Europe, Great Britain, and Asia, as well as monographs on the continuing the drawing and lithographic work that Elizabeth had toucan, humming-birds, and partridges of America. “He was the begun on the Birds of Australia. Born into a family of well-known entrepreneurial naturalist of the 1800s in England, and the pioneer artists, Richter became an excellent draughtsman and lithographer, naturalist of Australia” (ODNB). working from the skins and drawings that the Goulds had brought back from Australia. Richter worked on 595 plates for the seven- He travelled abroad just once, departing London in 1838 with his volume publication and illustrated plates for Gould’s other wife (and illustrator), Elizabeth, to Australia where they spent publications. His work is recognised for its precision and accuracy eighteen months collecting specimens that would feature in his ...” (Olson). magnum opus, the seven-volume Birds of Australia (1841-1848) which was later followed by a Supplement published in parts, There were some early teething problems, as Richter “not only 1851-1869. had to accustom himself to the pace and motion of the relentless Gould machine, but he had to compete with the shining example Alas, “Elizabeth Gould died tragically at the age of 37, soon after of the last Mrs Gould. The shorthand that had developed between her return to England. Gould, who was not a professional artist husband and wife over 11 years’ collaboration had to be learned by himself, was forced to seek another draughtsman and lithographer. Richter in a matter of months” (Tree). He soon caught up and the He eventually found in the young Henry Constantine Richter two men worked together over the following forty years. Relations (1821-1902) the ideal artist to meet his needs. Gould himself were clearly warm between the two men and Gould made a made initially sketchy but powerful drawings, often the same size specific bequest to Richter in his will: “I bequeath to my Artist H.C.

21 Richter a legacy of £100 as a kind remembrance for the purchase of 15 [GOULD (John).] RICHTER (Henry Constantine). a ring or any other article that he may prefer.” Coxen’s Fig Parrot.

The significance of Gould’s ornithological work is nowhere more Watercolour measuring 545 by 370mm. On undated Whatman evident than in his contribution of the birds volume to Darwin’s paper. [London, c. 1867.] £12,500 Zoology of the Beagle which proved a vital connection in his thinking towards his larger theory of natural selection. ODNB states: “In A beautiful illustration of two Coxen’s Fig Parrots. This image January 1837 Gould pronounced a group of twelve birds from the appeared as plate 65 in the 1869 Supplement. Galápagos Islands, which Darwin had thought to be ‘blackbirds, warblers, wrens and finches’, as all one family of finches, with Gould writes in the text leaf following the illustration: “My thanks variations in their beaks and size. This was the crucial piece of are due to Mr. Waller, of Brisbane, for his kindness in sending me a evidence that enabled Darwin to come to his theory of island fine specimen of this little Parrakeet, which, at his request, I have speciation.” named after C. Coxen., a Member of the Legislative Assembly of , who has for many years taken a lively interest in Lambourne, M., “John Gould and Curtis’s Botanical Magazine” ornithology.” This is, of course, Charles Coxen (1809-1876) who in The Kew Magazine, Vol. 11, No.4 (November 1994), pp.186- was Elizabeth Gould’s brother and was instrumental in facilitating 197; Olsen, Penny, A Brush with Birds: Australian Bird Art from the their visit to Australia. Charles also helped found the Queensland National Library of Australia (Sydney, 2008), p.53; Tree, Isabella, Museum. The Bird Man: The Extraordinary Story of John Gould (London, 2003), p.150. He notes further that it is the only example of the genus Cyclopsitta found in Australia and that it is more common in islands to the north of Australia. One can detect the amusement in the lines that follow: “in the month of June, 1866, several specimens were procured about thirty miles from Brisbane, by a sawyer, who had seen a flock in the neighbourhood for some weeks, and had shot several for a pudding.” Gould adds that the “mountainous district about forty or fifty miles north-west of Brisbane ... appears to be the natural home of the bird. There it sits on the large and lofty fig-trees, silent as death; and its presence can only be detected by attentively listening to the falling of the refuse of the wild figs upon which it seems to solely subsist ...”

Typically measuring between 150 and 160mm, it is a sub- species of the double-eyed parrot and its habitat is, per Forshaw, the “Blackall and Conondale Ranges, or possibly Rockhampton district, southeastern Queensland, south to Hastings River valley, northeastern New South Wales.”

22 Coxen’s Fig Parrot is currently classified by the NSW government as “critically endangered” and, in his recent work on endangered parrots, Forshaw includes this species. “Widespread land clearance of rainforest trees in the 1890s have left only small, very fragmented patches of subtropical rainforest, the preferred habitat of Coxen’s Fig Parrots, and it is this loss of habitat that is responsible for the near extinction of these parrots.”

Forshaw, J.M., Parrots of the World, (Princeton, 2010), p.84; Forshaw, J.M. Vanished and Vanishing Parrots … (Sydney, 2017), p.137; Gould, J., Birds of Australia, Supplement. London, 1869, plate 65 & text leaf; Taylor, Sue, John Gould’s Extinct & Endangered Birds of Australia. (Canberra, 2012), p.142.

23 16 [GOULD (John).] RICHTER (Henry Constantine). the Night Parrot in 1861, giving it the name occidentalis, ‘western’, Nocturnal Ground Parakeet (Geopsittacus occidentalis). because his reference specimen was collected in 1854, 13 kilometers south-east of Lake Austin in Western Australia. He had been in Watercolour measuring 370 by 545mm on undated Whatman possession of the skin of this ‘anomalous parrot’ for some time but, paper. [London, c. 1861.] £15,000 given his enthusiasm to be the first to describe new species, he must have had doubts about it to have not yet given it a name. While he One of the rarest of all Australian birds, the first Night Parrot was writing up his account for publication, he heard that Ferdinand was collected in 1845 on Charles Sturt’s expedition to Central Mueller, Director of the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, had shipped Australia. In his introduction to the 1869 Supplement, Gould a live specimen to the London Zoological Society” (Taylor) and was himself describes it as “extraordinary” and in the text takes great much relieved to find that they were the same. and immediate pains to clarify that it is its own species and not to be confused with Pezoporus formosus, which has similar plumage. It In her monograph on the Night Parrot, Penny Olson continues the appeared as plate 66 in that volume. story of that live specimen: “The unfortunate parrot arrived at the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park, London, in November, just Forshaw describes it thus: “Unmistakable; dumpy yellowish-green as winter set in. Gould was delighted to view the living bird and parrot with short, slightly graduated tail; no red frontal band; despite its long voyage, found it in ‘good health’ and ‘fine state of reported calls are low whistle, squeaking and croaking notes ... most plumage’. He immediately sketched out an illustration and within mysterious of Australian birds; nocturnal and secretive ... presumed a fortnight Henry Constantine Richter had prepared a lithographic extinct until rediscovered in 1979.” plate and 250 copies had been printed and hand coloured for part 4 of Gould’s Supplement to the Birds of Australia. It was the The naturalist Frederick W. Andrews worked in the Gawler Range first illustration of the parrot, which Gould named Geopsittacus‘ for the South Australian Museum and gives the best early account occidentalis Nocturnal Ground-Parrakeet.’ Just 2 months after of the Night Parrot. “During the day the bird lies concealed in the arrival at the zoo, the parrot ‘took what appeared to be a fit of inside of a tussock or bunch of porcupine grass the inside being sneezing, and died within a day’, a victim of pneumonia.” pulled out and a snug retreat formed for its protection. Here, also its rough nest is formed and four white eggs laid. When the Endemic to the continent, the 2013 sighting by John Young in dark shades of evening have fairly set in, it comes out to feed, Western Queensland has been called into question, with concerns but generally flies direction to the nearest water, which is often a that archival footage and fake feathers were used. However, considerable distance from its nest ...” recent confirmed, actual, sightings have since been recorded in Queensland in 2016 and Western Australia in 2017. Sturt’s specimen actually made its way to Gould, where perhaps its reputation for mysteriousness and secretiveness gained early Andrews, F.W. “Notes on the Night Parrot (Geopsittacus traction. The “skin had been misidentified by Sturt, misdirected to occidentalis)” in Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia, Gould’s patron Lord Derby and, consequently, misdescribed as a Vol. 6, (1883) pp. 29–30; Forshaw, J.M., Parrots of the World, Ground Parrot, complete with red frontal band in an appendix to (Princeton, 2010), p.136; Gould, J., Birds of Australia, Supplement. the expedition report by Gould and Sturt” (Olsen, 36). London, 1869, plate 66 & text leaf; Olsen, Penny, Night Parrot: Australia’s most elusive bird. (Sydney, 2018); Taylor, Sue, John Gould’s Some years later another chance presented itself. “Gould described Extinct & Endangered Birds of Australia, (Sydney, 2012), p.161. 24 ITEM 16

25 17 [GOULD (John).] RICHTER (Henry Constantine). Nocturnal Ground Parakeet (Geopsittacus occidentalis).

Watercolour measuring 545 by 370mm on undated Whatman paper. [London, c. 1854-1861.] £15,000

Another image of the Night Parrot, this one shows two taking flight from the branch of a tree. The Night Parrot is a bird which typically inhabits the low cover and is not a tree bird. Richter either produced this image in the years between Gould obtaining a specimen in 1854 and 1861 when Mueller’s live example reached London, or perhaps he hadn’t understood (or been told) the nature of the bird and it was rejected by Gould for being inaccurate.

Forshaw, J.M., Parrots of the World, (Princeton, 2010), p.136.

26 18 [GOULD (John).] RICHTER (Henry Constantine). These words were repeated near verbatim in its entry in the Bartram’s Sandpiper (Actiturner Bartramius). Birds of Australia, Supplement. It would appear that this specimen was sent prior to 1861 from Australia to the British Museum for Hand-coloured lithograph, proof before letters, measuring 545 identification as the note on the verso finishes with: “Return spec. by 370mm. Annotated on the verso in ink. [London, after 1861.] to Sydney museum. 1861”. £9,500 More information on the inscription on the verso is supplied by Bartram’s Sandpiper appeared as plate 77 in Gould’s Birds of the revered Australian ornithologist, Keith Hindwood. Despite Australia Supplement (London, 1869). speculation to the contrary by the likes of Robert Ethridge (at the museum of Sydney), and Gregory M. Matthews, Hindwood This rare proof copy is an excellent example, providing much argued that Gould’s specimen was indeed returned to Sydney. “In insight into how Gould prints were produced. This example shows the Australian Museum there is, at the present time, a mounted two sandpipers, one standing proud and looking to the left, the specimen of the Upland Plover bearing the label ‘Bartram’s other closer to the ground. The published version (illustrated Sandpiper or Tattler, Batramia longicauda’ (specimen no. 8563). below) would be captioned and only show the single, standing I have no doubt in my own mind that it is the bird shot in 1848 sandpiper. and later figured by Gould ...” Furthermore, he noted that “the measurements of its bill (28mm) and tarsus (47mm) agree with Gould’s figure, as do the disposition of plumage markings, general posture, and coloration ...”

Finally, and helpfully, he determined that the spot where the bird was shot (comparing to a contemporary map in the Mitchell Library) “was situated in that part of the Lachlan Swamps now represented by a series of ornamental lakes in Centennial Park, between the Agricultural Showground and Randwick Racecourse.” Although a North American bird Gould calls it “a great wanderer” and mentions this particular Australian vagrant in the text for this bird in Birds of Great Britain vol. IV pl. 63. Furthermore, Bartram’s Sandpiper also featured as plate 313 in Gould’s Birds of Europe (London, 1832-1837), this time painted by Elizabeth Gould. Here Gould adds that the “Australian specimen is much lighter in its general colouring than those killed in Europe and America” but Inscribed on the verso, almost certainly by Richter himself: “The does not consider it a distinct species. specimen from which the drawing on the other side was taken was shot by an old sportsman during the snipe season of October Gould, J., Birds of Australia, Supplement (London, 1869) plate 77 1848 near the water reservoir in the vicinity of Sydney N.S.W. On & text leaf; Hindwood, K.A., “The Upland Plover, or Bartram’s examination it proved to be a male. The innard(?) was filled with Sandpiper, in Australia” in Emu - Austral Ornithology, Issue 2 aquatic insects. Eye: yellow; legs: green; yellow under bill yellow …” (Canberra, 1950), pp.91-96. 27 ITEM 18

28 patterns of distribution of species and evolution. Published over the course of thirty-five years (1879-1915), Godman’s extraordinary work ran to sixty volumes.

In the mid-nineteenth century, British naturalists were a small community and Godman corresponded with Darwin, who offered encouragement, and the recorded letters were all written in the years leading up to the publication of Descent. It was at the prompting of another eminent naturalist, Henry Bates, that Godman wrote to Darwin in the first place.

Norman notes that Darwin “compared a man’s physical and psychological characteristics to similar traits in apes and other animals, showing how even man’s mind and moral sense could have developed through evolutionary processes”. The Descent of Man is the first of Darwin’s works to include the termevolution . It was incorporated into the sixth edition of Origin ... the following year. Indeed, “The Descent, understood by Darwin as a sequel to AN IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY the Origin, was written with a maturity and depth of learning that 19 DARWIN (Charles). The Descent of Man, and marked Darwin’s status as an élite gentleman of science” (ODNB). Selection in Relation to Sex. In this work, he fully established the importance of sexual selection, and “set out a definite family tree for humans, tracing First edition, first issue. 2 vols. Black and white illustrations to their affinity with the Old World monkeys” (ibid). text. 8vo. Publisher’s green cloth, titles gilt to spine, a little wear to extremities, bookplates to front pastedowns, some minor spotting. Garrison-Morton, 170; Freeman, 937; Norman, 599; cf. PMM, 169 [viii], 423, [1], 16ads; [viii], 475, [1], 16ads.pp. London, John & 344. Murray, 1871. £9,500

A fine association copy. This copy belonged to the English naturalist, Frederick DuCane Godman (1834-1919), whose groundbreaking Biologia Centrali-Americana demonstrated that a complete study of the fauna and flora of Central America revealed

29 A LETTER FROM THE FUTURE PRIME-MINSTER WITH governments. He mentions that he had to see Pomare IV (“La EXCELLENT ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTENT vieille diablesse”!) and would later inspect the convicts at Noumea. This trip was made in the immediate wake of the death of 20 FREYCINET (Charles de). ALS to Henriette. Napoleon III – Freycinet refers to this in the letter – who oversaw a Manuscript in ink. Bifolium. 4pp. 8vo. Fine condition with red rapid expansion of the French colonial empire. ink Archives de Laage stamp to first page. Tahiti, 3 March, 1873. £4,250 In his rather arch account of the life of Charles de Freycinet, Hector Despasse notes that “One cannot fail to recognize a very Charles de Freycinet (1828-1923) served as Prime Minister of decided method in all of M. de Freycinet’s political movements. France no less than four times during the Third Republic. He was During the ten years, from 1870 to 1880, he does not seem to have the nephew of the Pacific explorer, Louis. This letter was written taken a single false step to his during a seemingly quiet time during his career, between serving own personal prejudice. He under Gambetta as chief of the military cabinet, a defence of which has known how to practice he published in 1871, and running for the senate in 1876. two virtues absolutely essential to successful policy - supreme This intimate and informative letter was written to his wife, patience and decisive action Henriette, from Tahiti. Charles relates his travels to her, seemingly at a propitious moment.” This a tour of French colonies in the Pacific. Sailing from Valparaiso, he trip seems to fall into the stopped briefly at the Marquesas, before arriving at Tahiti. New former, an excellent use of Caledonia was the next destination on his itinerary and then Tonga. time, when he was otherwise unemployed, to reinforce His observations on the Tahitians and Marquesans form the heart his connections in the wider of the letter. He commences by noting that much of the cotton French empire. and coffee crops were cultivated by “les australiens.” Freycinet then describes the appearance of the Marquesans, with their Despasse, Hector, “Charles hair in buns, tattoos, and women’s dresses which resemble robes de Freycinet” in Potter, F.W. (“peignoir”). He describes their homes, huts built of sapling and trans. French Celebrities, as seen covered in foliage are erected on stone platforms. Noting that by their contemporaries (New their warriors no longer use arrows, he also says that cannibalism York, 1883), p.99. is also no longer practiced. He remarks on the changes to Papeete in the twenty-three years since his last visit, and complains of the heat (“Je ne suis pas très enchanté”) as he was about to take some excursions across this “ile charmante.”

Government was never far from his mind and he notes, with wonder and condescension, that over the course of a century the Polynesians have developed from savages into curious animals (“bêtes curieuses”) and have all managed to form constitutional

30 THE PACIFIC STATION 21 HANMER (Comdr. J.G.I., R.N.) Letterbook, maintained during Hanmer’s command of H.M.S. Daring during her cruise on the Pacific station between setting sail 31st October 1874 and her return to Spithead 20th April 1879. Including lengthy periods in Callao, and Honolulu and elsewhere with comments on day to day matters such as drunkenness, insubordination, politics, trade matters and shipping information.

Ms in ink, closely written in several hands. Folio. Original vellum, rather soiled titled in ink on upper cover, upper headcap missing. 254pp with blanks here and there. On the Pacific Station, 1874-9. £2,500

A surprisingly interesting ms. illuminating the varied responsibilities of the commanding officer of a naval vessel of the period. These range from notifying the grievances of a British resident in Tahiti ill-used by the French, and the British response to the Hawaiian/ U.S. trade agreements and duties thereunto demanded of British merchants, recounting instances of sickness, insubordination, and intoxication, (a Lieut. here in trouble). Hanmer’s letters addressed to senior officers in the Falkland Islands, Valparaiso, Callao (a lengthy stay here), Islay where an insurrection had broken out, Coquimbo, Panama, Corento, Acapulco, San Diego, San Francisco, Esquimalt, Papeete, Honolulu, Monte Video, Ascension Island & Sheerness.

Preceded by Hanmer’s letters while attached to H.M.S. President (18pp) in 1874.

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