The State and Position of Western Australia, commonly called the Swan-River Settlement

London, Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 1835. Octavo, [viii], 144 pages plus an erratum slip. Original cloth, rebacked retaining most of the backstrip, with a new paper title-label to the spine; covers bumped, worn and sunned; new endpapers (splitting at the front hinge); edges uncut; outer leaves a little foxed and marked; a handful of leaves with tiny nicks at the edges; small pencil mark at the foot of each page; overall, a very good copy. One of the earliest accounts of the European settlement of Western Australia. Irwin was twice acting head of government of the Swan River Colony, and during the first occasion was involved in controversial execution of Noongar leaders Midgeroo and Yagan. Irwin refers to this incident in his ten-page chapter on the local Aboriginal people: 'These acts of justice so completely succeeded in their object of intimidating the natives on the Swan and Canning rivers, that recent accounts from the colony represent the shepherds and others in the habit of going about the country, as having for a considerable time laid aside their usual precaution of carrying fire-arms; so peaceable had the conduct of these tribes become' (page 25). Two of the ten appendices have good Indigenous Australian content: 'Native Institution' (pages 134-136) and 'Extraordinary Recovery of a Child by two Swan-river Natives' (pages 136-139). Ferguson 1973, noting also a later issue with two advertisements (not present here).…