The Hakluyt Society: Second Series No.158  1st Edition 8vo. x+310 with 8 maps, 14 illustrations including frontispiece, bibliography and index.Blue cloth gilt design on front cover, gilt title to spine. Dust jacket slightly rubbed top of spine otherwise very good condition in protective plastic sleeve. Text illustrations.

The St Jean-Baptiste expedition sailed at a crucial time in Pacific exploration. The voyages of Bougainville and Wallis had just ended, James Cooks’s voyage had just begun. Jean-François-Marie de Surville entered the Pacific by way of the Northern Philippines, made a landfall in the Solomons, sailed to New Zealand, where he narrowly missed encountering Cook’s Endeavor, and crossed the southern Pacific to the coast of Peru where he met his death in an attempt to obtain help for the decimated crew. Professor Dunmore has chose the Journals of Surville and his first officer, Guillaume Labé, to present a complementary two-man picture of the expedition, while also drawing from other journals and reports. In his Introduction, he analyzes the aims of the voyage, the part played by the expedition in the rediscover of the Solomon Islands, the contribution Surville and his officers mad to our knowledge of pre-colonial Maori society and the Spanish response to the arrival of a French ship in their coastal waters. He examines the question of the first religious service held in New Zealand and the problem of the mythical Davis Land. Above all, the Introduction and the journals provide a valuable picture of a Pacific expedition in the heroic period of exploration and hardships the encountered.