Beschreibung:

A Journal of the Adventures of Matthew Bunn, a Native of Brookfield, Massachuetts ... Containing a very Circumstantial Account of the Cruel Treatment he suffered while in Captivity, and many of the Customs of the Savages.... Litchfield: Thomas Collier 1796. 24 pp. Printed on blue paper. 12mo (202 x 120 mm). Modern blue half morocco. Mostly untrimmed. Some browning, 3/4" repaired tear to gutter margin of title affecting one letter on verso, 5 leaves with minor fore-edge repairs, spine sunned. SECOND EDITION OF THIS EXTREMELY RARE AND EXCITING NARRATIVE OF CAPTIVITY AND ESCAPE. Vail locates only four copies of this second edition, including this one, and only one copy of the Providence first edition of the same year. This is the only copy identified by Vail in private hands and the only one we know to have been on the market since the Brinley copy sold in 1879 (now at the John Carter Brown Library). Matthew Bunn was an Ensign with General St. Clair, enlisting in 1791 at the age of about nineteen. He was captured in the Ohio Country by Indians, escaped, and was recaptured by George Girty. He gave Girty the slip and surrendered to the British garrison at Detroit in April of 1792. Vail calls him "a stout fellow!" While on the run from his Indian captors Bunn did not obtain much succor from the white men he encountered, as they were British subjects and he was an ardent American patriot. Collier 56; Evans 30136; Howes B952 ("d"); Trumbull 421; Vail 1053. Not in Ayer or Field. Provenance: ownership inscription of Richard Adams on title; penciled bibliographic notes to endpapers; sold by Goodspeed's in 1953 to Frank T. Siebert. Acquisition: Siebert sale, Sotheby's New York, Oct 28, 1999, lot 966, $14,950. "I told him that I came out of the Indian country; he answered what the devil brought you there; I said it was my misfortune to get among them; he replied that there were a great many rascals which he would be glad to have slaves to the Indians all their days."