Home / Browse / Illustrated / A Voyage to New Guinea, and the Moluccas, from Balambangan;
FORREST, [Thomas].
A Voyage to New Guinea, and the Moluccas, from Balambangan;
including an Account of Magindano, Sooloo, and other Islands … performed in the Tartar Galley, belonging to the Honourable East India Company, During the Years 1774, 1775, and 1776 … to which is added, a Vocabulary of the Magindano Tongue.
Publisher: London: printed by G. Scott; and sold by J. Robson; J. Donaldson; G. Robinson [in London]; and J. Bell, Edinburgh, 1779
Stock code: 21553
Price: £3,500 Currency Conversion
First edition. For some time before entering the service of the East India Company Forrest had served in the Royal Navy, seeing action in 1757 under George Pocock against the French in the Bay of Bengal. The year 1762 found him in command of a company ship, "from which he seems to date his experience when, writing in 1782, he spoke of himself as having been more than twenty years in 'the country trade'; and as having made fifteen voyages from Hindustan to the East, and four voyages from England to India" (ODNB). In 1770 he pioneered the settlement at Balembangan at the eastern tip of Borneo and from here set out in 1724 in a native prahu renamed the Tartar accompanied by two English officers and 18 Malays. "In this unlikely craft he pushed further east than any of his company predecessors, eventually reaching Geelvinks Bay on the north coast of New Guinea. There he found one of the few nutmeg forests not under the control of the Dutch. After exploring Gilolo Passage … between New Guinea and the Moluccas, he sailed to Mindanao, where the Sultan gave him a free choice of locations for future British bases" (Howgego). On his return to Borneo he found that the Balembangan colony had been abandoned and so proceeded to the Malay Peninsula where, at Kedah, his two companions refused to proceed further bringing his odyssey to an end. "The voyage was one of examination and enquiry rather than of exploration, and the additions made to geographical knowledge were corrections of detail rather than startling discoveries, but the tact with which he conducted his intercourse with the natives, and the amount of work done in a small boat, deservedly won him credit as a navigator" (Hill).
Quarto, (300 × 233mm). Later half calf on marbled boards, red morocco label, spine gilt in compartments, slightly rubbed, upper joint repaired. With engraved portrait after Sherwin, large folding map and 30 engraved plates and plans, 23 of them folding, many featuring coastal profiles accompanied by detailed charts. Two plates rather heavily browned, some light browning else, short closed tear to the margin of the map, but internally a good, clean copy.
