An anonymous recount by 'an Officer on Board' published by W Lane, London in 1781. It is a reissued remainder of the 1776 'First Edition' with a new title page tipped in. A similar copy of this unofficial publication resides in the collection of the Mitchell Library (NSW) where it is described as "a surreptitious account of Cook's second voyage from the journal of one of the officers (and) published anonymously a year before the official account" In the Library collection it is highlighted as an "extreme rarity"

Condition
A very clean copy

Medium
Books, Maps & Manuscripts

Literature
There are no charts or illustrations but the author provides riveting passages regarding encounters with natives missing from the more sedate official accounts e.g. "November 23, Some gentlemen rowing about the shore for pleasure, pulled in at a cove and sent a boy up the land to see if he could find any greens: the boy returned soon after in a great fright, and told the Lieutenant he had seen a number of Indians feasting upon a body, and that he could distinguish the head and some entrails under a canoe. On this intelligence, the gentlemen landed and made up to the place described by the boy; where they beheld, with great horror, a company of the natives regaling themselves over the mangled body of a murdered Indian. On their approach some of them got up, and one of them presented the Lieutenant with a piece of liver and lights upon a spear, and seemed rather affronted at his declining to eat it. The Lieutenant bought the head of the Indian and brought it on board. The unhappy man to whom it had belonged had been killed but a very little time, for the animal inhabitants of the hair were running about alive. The skin was torn from the forehead; there appeared many bruises on the face, the eyes were black and blue. There were two holes in the crown, and the skull appeared to have been cut under one ear, and so continued the cut round the poll of the neck to the other ear, and from thence through the mouth to where the cut began, so that the chin and lower lip were severed off. The tongue, teeth and jaw-bones were taken out. In the evening some Indians came on board the ship, and seeing the head, expressed great satisfaction, and begged of the Lieutenant to give them a part to eat: The Lieutenant complied with their request and cut them off some of the flesh, which they broiled, having first dipped it in some stinking grease, and then eat it greedily, in preference of all on board. They afterwards licked their fingers and smacked their lips, as expressing how luscious a morsel they had made.The head was afterwards put in spirits. In the night we had reason to think the Indians were murdering more of their captives, of which they said they had taken twenty, for we heard at times hideous shrieks and cries, which ended at last in low hollow groans." A galloping read.

Exhibited
Books, First Editions