Descripción
[20],60,145-165,167-168,[1]pp. (as issued, see below) Later mottled calf and brown paper boards, gilt label. Text a bit toned with light foxing and soiling. Tear in lower inner margin of titlepage, not affecting text. Small tear to top margin of leaf K4, closed tear to lower right corner of penultimate leaf, chip in top margin of final text leaf, none damaging text. 19th-century manuscript ownership inscription and note about irregular pagination on front pastedown and flyleaf. Very good. An entertaining and acerbic response to supporters of the Scottish colony in Central America. The Scottish attempt to establish a colony in Panama, also known as the Darien scheme, proved to be a spectacular failure. Disease, poor planning, in-fighting, and opposition from Spain and England combined to ruin any hope of the venture's success, and only a few hundred of the 2500 colonists survived. This failure proved difficult for Scots at home as well; an enormous amount of the country's resources were poured into the project, and their financial and political position was greatly weakened, doing much to enable the Acts of Union of 1706 and 1707. The struggles and eventual failure of the colony were the subject of heated debate, and the present work is a viciously satirical response to another anonymously authored text printed the year before. The authorship of many of these works is still somewhat unclear, but most attribute the present work to the perennially prosecuted Walter Harris. Halkett and Laing write: "One Walter Herries (or Harris), surgeon to the first Expedition [to the Darien colony], was supposed by the Scots Parliament to have been the author of this Defence, which was ordered to be burnt by the hands of the hangman; and the Lords of the Treasury were required to offer a reward of £6000 Scots for the arrest of the reputed author." Hill backs up this idea, quoting J. Scott's bibliography of the Darien company: "This is the second of the books for which Walter Herries or Harris was ordered to be prosecuted by the Scottish Parliament. The book was ordered to be burned." This copy is of the second issue listed in EUROPEAN AMERICANA, with "Dunensi" in roman type and page 18 numbered "1S." The present copy contains the manuscript signature of Robert Pitcairn, a Scottish antiquarian and bibliographer born in Edinburgh, 1793, along with a bibliographic note about this edition's "very curious" pagination. Pitcairn was a friend of Sir Walter Scott, who was supposedly inspired to write AUCHINDRANE; OR, THE AYRSHIRE TRAGEDY by a story recorded by Pitcairn in his work TRIALS AND OTHER PROCEEDINGS IN MATTERS CRIMINAL BEFORE THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN SCOTLAND (DNB 1885-1900, vol. 45). SCOTT 102. HALKETT & LAING II, p.32. HILL 776. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 700/130. KRESS 2226. JCB (4):414-415. ESTC R29058. SABIN 78209. N° de ref. del artículo WRCAM57070
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