A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean … Performed in His Majesty’s Sloop Providence and her Tender, in the years 1795, 1796, 1797, 1798.

London : T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1804. Quarto, full contemporary calf, spine renewed in period style; pp. xx, 393, [1], [2 publisher’s advertisements]; with three charts and six plates and views (most folding); a fine wide-margined copy, with fresh plates and maps.

Broughton’s A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean is an acknowledged rarity among Pacific voyage accounts. It contains lengthy descriptions of New South Wales, Hawaii and the American Northwest Coast.

In 1795 Broughton was despatched in Bligh’s old ship Providence to rendezvous with Vancouver on the Northwest Coast. He sailed to Nootka Sound via Rio de Janeiro, Australia (where it caused the coast of New South Wales in August, calling at both Port Jackson and Port Stephens), Tahiti and the Hawaiian islands. Having missed Vancouver by a matter of months, however, Broughton turned back south to Monterey and then headed across the Pacific, once again visiting Hawaii. During the next four years Broughton surveyed the coasts of Asia and the islands of Japan, producing a number of important maps of Japan, Korea and Formosa, some of which are included in this volume. Following the loss of the Providence in May 1797, the crew were forced to make for Macao in her companion vessel, where they became dispersed on different ships in order to make their way back to England. Broughton reveals a huge admiration for his ‘sober, attentive, and well-behaved’ men, not only listing them all by name, but – rather extraordinarily – also giving an account of their subsequent fortunes after leaving Macao. We learn through Broughton’s meticulous and concerned research that many of them perished on their homeward journeys.

‘Extremely rare: the information contained in it is of prime importance’ (Lada-Mocarski).

Ferguson, 389; Hill, 191; Lada-Mocarski, 59; O’Reilly-Reitman, 671; Sabin, 8423