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ROGERS, Woodes.
A Cruising Voyage Round the World:
First to the South-Sea, thence to the East-Indies, and Homewards by the Cape of Good Hope. Begun in 1708, and finish'd in 1771. Containing a Journal of all the Remarkable Transactions... An Account of Alexander Selkirk's living alone Four Years and Four Months in an Island... With Maps of all the Coast, from the best Spanish Manuscript Draughts. And an Introduction relating to the South-Sea Trade. By... Commander in Chief in this Expedition, with the Ships Duke and Dutchess of Bristol. Second Edition, Corrected.
First published in 1712, Woodes's journal was an immediate success and is widely considered to be "a buccaneering classic" (Hill). Born in Bristol around 1679, Rogers made an advantageous marriage in 1705, his wife being the daughter of Admiral Whetstone, commander in chief in the West Indies. This may well have stood him in good stead when he proposed to the merchants of Bristol a scheme to challenge the French and Spanish monopoly of trade in the South Sea. "Two merchant ships, the Duke and the Duchess, were fitted out. A number of noted officers were included, perhaps the most noteworthy being Captain William Dampier, master of the Duke and pilot of the expedition. The crew comprised an eclectic combination mainly of 'Tinkers, Taylors, Hay-makers, Pedlers, Fiddlers etc.' Rogers and his motley crew set sail aboard the Duke from King Road, near Bristol, on 2 August 1708" (ODNB). They met with early success when on their way to the Cape Verde Islands they captured a Spanish merchantman, and by December had reached Brazil. Rounding Cape Horn early in 1709 they reached the Juan Fernandez Islands where they encountered Alexander Selkirk ("a man cloth'd in goat-skins, who look'd wilder than the first owners of them") who had been willingly marooned there by Thomas Stradling, and who became the model for Robinson Crusoe. Off Peru they took another vessel, and another out of Lima, in which action Woodes's brother was killed. Despite the loss, the party successfully attacked Guayaquil, then headed for Gorgona, off Colombia, in order to recuperate from a fever which was rife amongst the crew. At the beginning of October the fleet was off Mexico near to the tip of Baja California and encountered and took the Manila galleon Nueva Señora de la Encarnacíon Desengano, "her hold crammed with riches" (Howgego). An attempt on the treasure ship's larger sister ship was repulsed, and in January 1710 the expedition set off westward across the Pacific. Their circumnavigation was completed via Guam, the Moluccas, Batavia and the Cape of Good Hope. Woodes's "epoch-making voyage" was completed on his return to the Thames in October 1711. "The total value of the captured treasure was estimated (then) at £800,000 and was divided among the crew according to shareholding determined prior to the voyage" (Howgego). News of this "well-organized and sympathetically commanded" expedition spread fast, "stimulated public interest, and, encouraged by his friends, Rogers agreed to publish his 'journal" (ODNB).
Octavo (196 × 118 mm). Contemporary sprinkled calf, red morocco label to the spine, bands, double rules to the compartments, double ruled panels to the boards, edges sprinkled red. Folding map frontispiece, map of the world in two hemispheres with track of the expedition and 4 other folding maps. A little rubbed, neatly rebacked with the original spine, restored, laid down, light browning, but overall a very good copy.
