First Spanish edition, enlarged and revised by Casimiro Ortega with a considerable section on natural history. The voyage was destined mostly to the East Indies, but the true object was to make discoveries in the South Seas -New Albion on the American North West coast amongst other places.
Byron (1723 – 1786) sailed in 1764 in the Dolphin with junior officers Charles Clerke and John Gore. Both Clerke and Gore later sailed with James Cook, with Clerke taking command of the final voyage after Cook's death. Byron visited Brazil and then continued south through severe storms and ice for Patagonia and through the Strait of Magellan, relating one of the best accounts of the Strait to date –from this part of the voyage; he earned the name 'Foul-Weather Jack'. The expedition was searching for rumored islands and in the process identified a few new off the Falklands before being forced back to the Strait by storms. Ashore in Patagonia, he reported on the eight-foot tall Indians he found there (the famous meeting is shown in the frontispiece), and finally sighted the Falklands. He claimed them for England, unaware that Bougainville had recently claimed them for France. Ignoring his instructions to sail for New Albion, he headed for Juan Fernandez and the Tuamotus, where he discovered Danger Island and others in the Tokelaus and Gilberts before making for the Philippines, Sumatra, Cape of Good Hope and then home to England. Although no significant discoveries were made, thanks to the speed of the voyage, no men were lost to scurvy, the Falklands were secured for England and the Admiralty was stirred to make further exploratory voyages into the South Pacific.
Illustrated with a frontispiece “A sailor giving a Patagonian Woman some Biscuit for her Child” and two more plates. Appended are Byron's notes on the Patagonians and earlier first-hand accounts of them by Magellan, Cavendish and others. The work has often been ascribed to midshipman Charles Clerke.
Sabin, 9732. Hill, 313. Borba de Moraes, I 138.
