A Voyage Round the World, by the Way of the Great South Sea: Performed in a Private Expedition during the War, which broke out with Spain, in the Year 1718

Author: George Shelvocke (1675-1742)

Year: 1757

Publisher: W. Innys and J. Richardson, M. & T. Longman

Place: London

Description:

[6]+iii+[3]+476 pages with frontispiece folding map and four engraved plates (two folding). Octavo (8 1/4" x 5 1/4") bound in half green morocco with five raised spine bands and red spine label lettered in gilt over marbled boards. (Howes S383; Sabin 80159; Wagner 88) Second edition expanded by the author's son.

Shelvocke joined the Royal Navy when he was fifteen years old. During two long wars with France he rose through the ranks to become a sailing master and finally second lieutenant of a flagship serving under Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Dilkes in the Mediterranean. However, when war ended in 1713 he was beached without even half-pay for support. By the time he was offered a commission as captain of the privateering ship Speedwell, he was living in poverty.

Alongside the Success, captained by John Clipperton, the Speedwell was involved in a 1719 expedition to loot Spanish ships and settlements along the Pacific coast of the Americas. The English had just renewed hostilities with Spain in the War of the Quadruple Alliance, and the ships carried letters of marque which gave them official permission to wage war on the Spanish and keep the profits. Shelvocke broke away from Clipperton shortly after leaving British waters and appears to have avoided contact as much as possible for the rest of the voyage.

In 1720 the Speedwell was wrecked on the island of Más a Tierra in the Juan Fernández Archipelago.[6] Shelvocke and his crew were marooned there for five months but managed to build a 20-ton boat using some timbers and hardware salvaged from the wreck, in addition to wood obtained from locally felled trees. Leaving the island on 6 October, they transferred into their first prize, renamed the Happy Return, and resumed privateering, despite the war having ended in February and rendered their letter of marque invalid. They continued up the coast of South America from Chile to Baja California, capturing more vessels along the way, before crossing the Pacific to Macao and returning to England in July 1722

In England Shelvocke was arrested on charges of fraud at the instigation of the principal shareholders of the voyage, though he avoided conviction through out-of-court settlements with two of the complainants. They suspected, probably with reason, that he had failed to let them know about a significant portion of the loot obtained from the voyage, and planned to keep it for himself and other members of his crew. The self-justifying version of events given by Shelvocke in the memoir A Voyage Round the World by Way of the Great South Sea was disputed by some who had accompanied him on that expedition, in particular by his captain of marines, William Betagh.

In his book Shelvocke described an event wherein his second captain, Simon Hatley, shot a black albatross while the Speedwell was attempting to round Cape Horn in severe storms. Hatley took the giant sea bird to be a bad omen, and hoped that by killing it he might bring about a break in the weather. Some seventy years later the episode would become the inspiration for the central plot device in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's narrative poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Condition:

Modern binding. Some spotting and toning else very good.