Relacion del viage hecho por las goletas Sutil y Mexicana en el año de 1792 para reconocer el estrecho de fuca; con una introduccion en que se da noticia de las expediciones executadasanteriormente por los Españoles en busca del paso del noroeste de la América.
THE LAST SPANISH RECONNAISANCE OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Madrid, Imprenta Real, 1802. First edition.
Small quarto (7 7/8” x 5 7/16”, 200mm x 132mm): 3 binder’s blanks, *–**4 a–x4 A–Z4 +AA1, 3 binder’s blanks [$1 signed]. 185 leaves, pp. [16] (title, blank, 5pp. introduction, blank, 8pp. contents) I II–CLXVIII, 1 2–185 [1] (blank). With 1 folding table.
Folio (12 ½” x 9 3/16”, 316mm x 210mm): 2 binder’s blanks, π2, 2 binder’s blanks. [4] (title, blank, 2pp. explanation of plates). With 9 engraved maps, 4 of which are folding, 2 folding mezzotints, and 6 engraved plates
Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in full crushed green morocco. On the text’s spine, 5 raised bands. Title gilt to second panel. On the atlas’s spine, 2 raised bands. Title gilt lengthwise. All edges of the text-block specked.
Boards lightly scuffed. Ownership inscription of Luis L. Dominguez to the title-page of the text. Repaired stub tears to each of the maps. Repaired spilts to the folds of “Continuacion de los Reconocimientos Hechos en la Costa No. de America.” Ink stamp of Chicago Historical Society dated 1888 to the title-page of the atlas. Binder’s stamp to the lower dentelle of each volume.
Relación del viage hecho por las goletas Sutil y Mexicana en el año de 1792 occupies a central position in the documentary record of Pacific Northwest exploration and in the historiography of Spanish imperial science. Although the work was published anonymously, its composition is understood to be collaborative, reflecting both the firsthand experiences of naval officers involved in the 1792 expedition and the archival scholarship of the Spanish naval historian Martín Fernández de Navarrete. The expeditionary narrative is likely derived from José de Espinosa y Tello, Dionisio Alcalá-Galiano, and Cayetano Valdés’s documentation while in connection with Malaspina and Bustamante’s scientific voyages, but Navarrete is widely accepted as the author of the introductory essay and the editor of the accounts.
The schooners Sutil and Mexicana set out with Alcalá-Galiano and Valdés in command in 1792. With an objective to survey the Strait of Juan de Fuca and discover a long-sought Northwest Passage, the voyage was Spain’s final concerted effort to assert control over the region. Over the course of the trip, Spanish officers charted the complex coastline of the Pacific Northwest, including regions such as Puget Sound and Nootka Sound, producing maps that would remain authoritative for years. The quality of the Spanish charts was bolstered by information provided by George Vancouver and his men, whom the crew of the Sutil and Mexicana met on the west coast of Vancouver Island amid the Nootka Crisis. The explorers shared information despite the ongoing conflict over trade and settlement rights between Spain and Great Britain (the Nootka Conventions would not conclude for another two years). Navarrete’s extensive introduction is particularly revealing regarding the crisis, as it assembles narratives of earlier Pacific voyages in an attempt to reaffirm Spain’s priority and continuity in the region. The present set includes the often-lacking atlas, which boasts attractive maps of the California coastline and detailed charts of the Northwest, followed by aquatints depicting the seamen’s stay on the Nootka Sounds, engraved portraits of Indigenous chiefs, and reproductions of cultural artifacts. Although the maps were published four years after Vancouver’s, Wagner considers them in many respects to be superior (and goes on to postulate that Vancouver’s charts were “extensively copied from the famous English cartographer, Aaron Arrowsmith").
Luis Lorenzo Dominguez (1819-1898) served as Argentina’s embassador to Brazil, the United States and the United Kingdom. Dominguez perhaps had the set bound at Sangorski & Sutcliffe as Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Himself a historian and author — Dominguez penned the de facto history of Argentina used in schools throughout the XIXc — he will doubtless have used the set to show the broader diplomatic world of the achievement of Spanish (and Hispanophone) explorers.
Hill 570; Howes G18 (under Galiano, "dd"); Cowen, pp.198; Sabin 69221; Streeter 2458; Wagner, Northwest Coast, pp. 225-233, pp. 252-254
Cataloged by G.R. Murdock
Item #GRM0087
Price: $41,000