Bucaniers of America: Or, a true Account of the Most remarkable Assaults Committed of late years upon the Coasts of The West-Indies, By the Bucaniers of Jamaica and Tortuga, Both English and French. Wherein are contained more especially, The unparallel'd Exploits of Sir Henry Morgan, our English Jamaican Hero, who sack'd Puerto Verlo, burnt Panama, &c. Written originally in Dutch, by John Exquemeling. . . AND Bucaniers of America. The Second Volume. Containing The Dangerous Voyage and Bold Attempts of Captain Bartholomew Sharp, and others; performed upon the Coasts of the South Sea, for the space of two years, &c. From the Original Journal of the said Voyage. Written by Mr. Basil Ringrose, Gent. Who was all along present at those Transactions
THE GRAVES-NOVAL-BISSET-HOLDSWORTH COPY
[Exquemelin, Alexandre Olivier.] Bucaniers of America: Three parts in one volume. London: William Crooke, 1684. First edition in English.
and
Ringrose, Basil. Bucaniers of America. The Second Volume: London: William Crooke, 1685. First edition.
Quarto (8 9/16” x 6 9/16”, 218mm x 167mm).
Vol. I: A4 a2 B-P4 Q2, Aa-Tt4, Aaa-Rrr4 [$2 signed; +C3, D3, E3]. 208 leaves (64, 76, 68), pp. [12] (title, blank, 10pp. to the reader), 1-115, blank; 21-151, [1] (advertisement); 31-124, [12] (11pp. table, blank). With 9 engraved plates, of which 3 are double-page.
Vol. II: A4 a4 B-Hh4 [$2 signed; –A1, H2, K1]. 128 leaves, pp. [16] (title, blank, 13pp. to the reader, errata), 1-139, 144, 141-143, 2140-212, [24] (17pp. table, 7pp. catalogue). [=xvi, 216, xxiv] With 16 engraved plates, of which 14 are integral to the text, and 2 folding.
Bound in contemporary (?) mottled calf (re-backed) with a central panel in blind. On the spine, five raised bands. Title gilt to olive sheep in the second panel. Date gilt to the tail. Gilt roll to the edges of the text-block. All edges of the text-block speckled red.
Re-backed. Some chips and scuffs to the boards, with the fore-corners rebuilt.
Vol. I: repaired loss to the upper margin of the title-leaf, with some offsetting from the front paste-down. Small loss to the upper edge of Pp3, affecting the head-line. Small hole to Eee2. Marginal tanning and occasional spots of foxing or soiling. Armorial bookplate of Arthur & Elizabeth Holdsworth of Widdicomb to the front paste-down. Price notes in two hands — 6–3–6 in a later hand, “Pretium 5 Solid/ pretium quinq[ue]/ solid.” in an earlier hand — to the front paste-down. Armorial escutcheon with motto of Bisset of Aberdeen cut out and mounted to the verso of the title-page. Ownership signature of “R. Graves. Hosp. Lincoln. 1697.” to p. 20 (D2v).
Vol. II: repaired loss to the upper margin of the title-leaf, with some creasing. Hole to D1. Tear to the upper edge of V1. V2.3 still joined at the spine-edge, with some attendant tearing. Marginal tanning and occasional spots of foxing or soiling. Ownership signature: “IoHn NovaL His BooK/ 1701” to the front paste-down. Price marking “pretium 4 solid.” in an early hand as well as a code: “38 1884 d47382′” in a different hand, and verses in a third hand: “pray go home my house/ house my name in my/ house in this Court names plum trees Court/ qui voulez vous qui vous aide/ my house is in thus(?)” all to the front paste-down. Armorial escutcheon with motto of Bisset of Aberdeen cut out and mounted to the verso of the title-page. Ownership signature of “R. Graves. Hosp. Lincoln. 1697” to p. 20 (D2v). Armorial bookplate of Arthur & Elizabeth Holdsworth of Widdicomb to the rear paste-down.
Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin (ca. 1645–1707), called John Esquemeling in the title, published his account of privateering — that is, acting as a government-sanctioned private sailor, used to attack, harass and raid enemies of that government — in 1678 as De Americaensche Zee-roovers ("The American sea-robbers"). It was translated into Spanish in 1681, which in turn was the basis of the present first edition in English; the name of the translator is unknown.
The popular imagination, of course, has a different term for Exquemelin and his Caribbean brethren: pirates. Exquemelin’s tale of swashbuckling — swaggering with a small shield (from French “bouclier”) — ignited the public imagination about the New World perhaps more than any other work besides The Tempest. In a period in which the Spanish and Dutch were near constant enemies of the British, Bucaniers is a curious success.
The account of Sir Henry Morgan, whose portrait faces p. 60 of vol. I, brought libel claims for its sensational claims of rape, torture and other malfeasance. Accusations of inaccuracy, as ever, served only to excite public interest in the work. The first edition sold well enough to spark a second in the same year. The year following a “fourth part” — a separate work by Basil Ringrose — was published; this is the present first edition. Ringrose’s account carries into the Pacific, describing sorties made under Captain Bartholomew Sharpe.
The provenance of the set is rich. The earliest ownership mark is that of Richard Graves (1677–1729) “the antiquary” of Mickleton in Gloucestershire. He signs as “Hosp. Lincoln.”[1] For “Hospitium Lincolniense,” i.e., Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court in London. Graves was admitted to the Inn on 21 October 1693.[2] He was an omnivorous collector, although it seems as though the volumes left his library before his death.
John Noval owned the set (although his ownership signature is only in vol. II) — bought it, perhaps, for 9 shillings (5 shillings or “solidi” for the thicker first volume, 4 the for the second) — in 1701. Noval’s name (a clerk, with a wife called Judith) appears in the lists of naturalized Protestant emigrés from 10 October 1688; by 1701 he will have been living for perhaps 15 years in England. The verses below his inscription are in a different style — though not necessarily a different hand — but, because they are written in (imperfect) English and French, suggest an immigrant (Huguenot?) owner.
The family whose escutcheon (azure, on a bend argent three mullets gules) and motto (“tempus edax rerum” (“time, eater of things”)) have been cut from a bookplate (?) and pasted to the verso of each title-page is Bisset of Aberdeen. Perhaps the volumes belonged to Charles Bisset (1717–1791), a physician and military engineer who worked in Jamaica and the West Indies as a naval surgeon in Admiral Vernon’s fleet.
Finally the set came into the library of Arthur Holdsworth (ca. 1757–1787), MP, of Widdicombe, Devon and his wife Elizabeth (née Holdsworth). The Holdsworth family of Dartmouth had long held the seat as well as the governorship of Dartmouth Castle, long a center for piracy and privateering — especially against the French — given its position on the English Channel.
Church 689; ESTC R21525 (Exquemelin) & R20999 (Ringrose); Hill 578 (Exquemelin) and 579 (the second edn. of Exquemelin with the first edn. of Ringrose); Sabin 23479.
[1] The “l” of the final word is crossed in both volumes, indicating the abbreviation of “Lincolniense”.
[2] W. Pailey Baildon, ed. The records of the honorable society of Lincoln’s Inn. [London:] Lincoln’s Inn, 1896; p. 347.
Item #JLR0420
Price: $18,000