Pioneers of the Pacific: Voyages of Exploration, 1787-1810

Description

144pp., hardbound with pictorial dust-jacket over black cloth with gilted spine, with numerous black & white and coloured illustrations, ISBN: 1-920694-64-1.

This book looks at six of Cook’s successors and their Pacific voyages: at Arthur Phillip, founder of the first British colony in Australia; the Comte de Laperouse, whose French scientific expedition vanished without a trace; William Bligh, first in the ill-fated Bounty but then successfully in the Providence and in his final role as Governor of New South Wales; Alejandro Malaspina, whose Spanish expedition was forgotten in the oblivion of his later political disgrace; George Vancouver’s controversial voyage to northwest America; and Matthew Flinders’ charting of Australia and long imprisonment by the French on Mauritius. [from back cover]. Both, Laperouse and Malaspina have significant contributions on their sojourns in the Philippines.