[PIRACY] A Journey Over Land from the Gulf of Honduras to the Great South-Sea

FIRST EDITION, viii-349[3], folding map frontispiece showing Central America and the Isthmus of Panama., lower margin of map trimmed without loss, modern speckled calf, a.e.g., 8vo, London, C. Rivington, 1735

First edition of an important work on Central America, with a first hand account of the pirates Captain Johnson and Poleas.

Cockburn was an English seaman who had sailed to the coast of Central America in 1731. Cockburn’s ship was attacked by the infamous pirates Captain Johnson and Poleas off the coast of Jamaica. Johnson was known as a ruthless and bloodthirsty pirate, said to be an excellent shot despite missing a hand. After a five hour battle Cockburn’s ship surrendered and Johnson’s pirates boarded and looted. Cockburn, Thomas Rounce, Richard Banister, John Holland, Thomas Robinson, and John Ballman, found themselves ‘naked and wounded’, stranded on the shore at Porto-Cavalo. They escaped from jail in San Pedro Sula in Honduras, crossed the Isthmus to San Salvador. They then crossed Guatemala to the Pacific, navigated the Gulf of Fonseca, and journeyed either by canoe or on foot to Panama eventually reaching the English Factory there.

This story of his marooning, escape, and two-year-long overland journey starting with his capture by Johnson was originally assumed to be fictional due to the severity of the hardships they faced. The account was a best-seller and was to be reprinted three more times before 1800. Today it remains one of the few accounts by foreign travelers through Central America in the first half of the eighteenth century.

An extraordinary account.

[Sabin 14095; Hill 324]