Beschreibung:

DRAGE, Theodore Swain or Theodore SWINDRAGE, attributed to]. The Great Probability of a North West Passage: Deduced from Observations on the Letter of Admiral de Fonte... London: Thomas Jefferys, 1768.
DRAGE, Theodore Swain or Theodore SWINDRAGE, attributed to]. The Great Probability of a North West Passage: Deduced from Observations on the Letter of Admiral de Fonte... London: Thomas Jefferys, 1768. 4 o (263 x 219 mm). Half-title; advertisement leaf at end. Three engraved folding maps: "A General Map of the Discoveries of Admiral Fonte Exhibiting the great Probability of a North-West Passage" (290 x 355 mm), hand-colored in outline (some pale offsetting, short tear near gutter margin); "Description de las Indias Orientales" and "The Discoveries made in the North West Parts of Hudsons Bay." (Some occasional spotting.) 20th-century brown half morocco, fore-edge untrimmed. Provenance : Thomas W. Streeter (bookplate; his sale part VI, Parke Bernet, 22 April 1969, lot 3465). FIRST EDITION. The anonymous author of the text makes a very considered analysis of the letter of Admiral Bartholomew de Fonte which was published in the Monthly Miscellany in April and June, 1708. The work is often attributed to Drage, who had been to Hudson's Bay in the California under Captain Smith in 1746-47, although Howard N. Eavenson maintains that it was authored by Charles Swaine. The Archivist of the Hudson's Bay Company, A.M. Johnson, identified the "Clerk of the California " mentioned as the author as a Mr. "Dragg." Jefferys's map closely follows Delisle's map of the supposed Fonte discoveries (see lot 147). Jefferys adds Bering's discoveries, the discovery of Fousang and a detail from a Japanese map published by Kaempfer. He omits Delisle's Sea of the West. Sabin 28460; Smith 10041; Staton & Tremaine/TPL 417; Streeter sale VI:3465 (this copy); Wagner Northwest Coast 614.