A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, performed in the Years 1796, 1797, 1798, in the Ship Duff … with a preliminary Discourse on the Geography and History of the South Sea Islands; and an Appendix, including Details never before published, of the natural and civil State of Otaheite.

FIRST EDITION, pp.[xii], c, 420, [xiv list of subscribers)], 7 engraved maps (of which are 6 folding) and 6 engraved plates, full contemporary tree calf gilt, gilt spine, morocco label, 4to, London, printed by T. Gillet for T. Chapman, 1799.

This work is partly written from an unpublished manuscript by James Morrison, one of the Bounty Mutineers.

Morrison’s manuscript is also the source of the detailed appendix on Tahiti. In fact, William Wilson and James Morrison can be said to be co-authors of this book. “Wilson’s book contained a map that actually used the words ‘Greater Australia’ – taking Captain Cook’s map of the southern and eastern coasts of Van Diemens Land. This map would have influenced Matthew Flinders. Flinders is traditionally said to have been the first to use the term “Australia” in the context of a voyage: Duff’s account appeared about fifteen years earlier. There is much Australian interest in the account of the voyage, including a mention of the escaped convicts from Botany Bay, and the flight of several missionaries from Tonga, where three were killed, to Sydney. Some of these missionaries settled in Sydney and founded families that would later become important in Australian history”. Dorothy Prescott

‘The London Missionary Society was founded in 1795, mainly to send missions to Polynesia. The voyage of the Duff was undertaken for the purpose of establishing a mission in Tahiti, and a settlement of twenty-five persons was formed… Apart from the missionary interest of this account, the voyagers made many important discoveries of islands including Timoe, Mangareva, and Pakarua in the Tuamoto Archipelago; Ongea and Fulanga Islands; Vanua Mbalavu, and Satawal, Lamotrek, Elato, Ifalik, and Woleai atolls in the Western Carolines, before putting in at Macao.

A new group of islands, named the Duff Group, was discovered among the Santa Cruz Islands. On the outward voyage, the expedition visited Rio de Janeiro. The narrative is fresh, although sometimes naive, and provides a glimpse of everyday life on the islands that the mariner or naturalist didn’t consider worth reporting.” (Hill).

There are two issues of this work, with differing subscriber’s lists, The authorship of the work is variously attributed depending on which bibliography is consulted. An ‘Advertisement’ in this copy states, ‘the body of the journal is the composition of Mr. William Wilson, from the Captains’ [James Wilson’s] papers, his own, and the Missionaries reports’. The editor of the work was Thomas Haweis, of the London Missionary Society, and the long Preliminary Discourse was written by Samuel Greatheed, using the then unpublished account of James Morrison, one of the pardoned Bounty mutineers.

Borba de Moraes p943; Ferguson 301; Hill 1894; Kroepelien 528.