A Voyage round the World, in His Majesty�s Ship the Dolphin, Commanded by the Honourable Commodore Byron. In which is contained, A faithful Account of the several Places, People, Plants, Animals, & c. seen on the Voyage by Byron, John - 1767

1767. London. J. and F. Newbery. In 8vo (202 mm x 121 mm). 1 [blank] + 2 nn + 186 + 1 [blank]. Contemporary calf gilt, boards with double gilt fillet, inner dentelle gilt, rebacked preserving spine, red morocco title label, slightly worn with a few pieces missing. Minor spotting and foxing as often, offsetting on folios facing plates, contemporary notes on first blank, else fine.�First edition of an account of the voyage of the Dolphin. Said to be the fastest circumnavigation to date of a voyage destined mostly to the East Indies but which true object was to make discoveries in the South Seas -New Albion on the American North West coast amongst others. Byron (1723 – 1786) sailed in 1764 in the Dolphin with junior officers Charles Clerke and John Gore. Both Clerke and Gore later sailed with James Cook, with Clerke taking command of the final voyage after Cook's death. Byron visited Brazil and then continued south through severe storms and ice for Patagonia and through the Strait of Magellan, relating one of the best accounts of the Strait to date –from this part of the voyage, he earned the name 'Foul-Weather Jack'. The expedition was searching for rumored islands and in the process identified a few new off the Falklands before being forced back to the Strait by storms. Ashore in Patagonia, he reported on the eight-foot tall Indians he found there (the famous meeting is shown in the frontispiece), and finally sighted the Falklands. He claimed them for England, unaware that Bougainville had recently claimed them for France. Ignoring his instructions to sail for New Albion, he headed for Juan Fernandez and the Tuamotus, where he discovered Danger Island and others in the Tokelaus and Gilberts before making for the Philippines, Sumatra, Cape of Good Hope and then home to England. Although no significant discoveries were made, thanks to the speed of the voyage, no men were lost to scurvy, the Falklands were secured for England and the Admiralty was stirred to make further exploratory voyages into the South Pacific. Illustrated with a frontispiece “A sailor giving a Patagonian Woman some Biscuit for her Child” and two more plates. Appended are Byron's notes on the Patagonians and earlier first-hand accounts of them by Magellan, Cavendish and others. The work has often been ascribed to midshipman Charles Clerke. Provenance, from the Wolfgang A. Herz library, his ex libris on front pastedown.�Sabin, 9732. Hill, 313. Borba de Moraes, I 138.