A Vindication of the Conduct of Captain Christopher Middleton, in a Late Voyage on Board His Majesty’s Ship the Furnace, For Discovering a North-West Passage to the Western American Ocean. In Answer to Certain Objections and Aspersions of Arthur Dobbs, Esq.

FIRST EDITION, [4]. 168, 177-206, [2], 48p., with the ‘Logg journal’ which is separately paginated with its own half-title, occasional paper flaw not affecting text, bookplate of Gerald F. Fitzgerald, contemporary half calf, marbled boards, textblock untrimmed, 8vo, London, by the Author’s Appointment, and sold by Jacob Robinson, at the Golden-Lion in Ludgate-Street, 1743. Very Rare First Edition of the first published work in the long series of attacks and counters between the merchant Dobbs and Captain Middleton. Only Dobbs's unpublished letter to the Admiralty demanding an investigation precedes this in the sequence of the debate. Arthur Dobbs was an active advocate for the exploration and discovery of a north-west passage to the Pacific from the early 1730s. In 1741, the Anglo-Irish MP commissioned Christopher Middleton, a captain in the Hudson’s Bay Company, to search for the North-West Passage. Dobbs’s interest in the North-West Passage was motivated partially by nationalism, but more so because he objected to the monopoly on trading enjoyed by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Dobbs chose Christopher Middleton because he had already established his reputation as a navigator. His work on the variations of magnetic needles in Hudson Bay had led, in part, to him being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society –no small feat for a ship’s captain of only two years’ standing. Dobbs arranged for Middleton to receive a naval commission and he left the company to command the Discovery and the Furnace. After much hardship and bad weather Middleton reached 65 degrees 10 minutes north, further north than any previous explorer, to find that Dobbs's proposed passage was in fact a closed inlet. Middleton abandoned the search and made a voyage home that was every bit as harrowing as the journey out. Dobbs refused to accept Middleton’s findings and accused him of having been bribed to falsify his records by the Hudson’s Bay Company, in order to preserve their monopoly in the area. This instigated a bitter exchange through books and pamphlets publicly repudiating one another. The dispute effectively wrecked Middleton’s career as one of England’s most skilled explorers and navigators of the 18th century. Not until the end of this paper war in 1745 was Middleton offered another command by the Admiralty. Provenance:Arctic and Antarctic Collection of Gerald F. Fitzgerald. The Gerald F. Fitzgerald collection is a major assemblage of material on the discovery and exploration of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. [ESTC:T87560; Sabin, 48858; Alden & Landis 743/157; Greenwich Maritime Museum; ODNB ].…