antiquarian bookseller - Peter Harrington

Peter Harrington Antiquarian Bookseller
NAVAL ACTS IN A ENGLISH
RESTORATION BINDING
297.(ENGLAND; Laws, etc.)
The Acts For Tonnage and
Poundage. Shipping and Navigation.
Prevention of Frauds in His
Majesties Customs. And the Book of
Rates, Together With an Abridgment
of all the Statutes now in Force,
relating to the Customs, continued
to 22 & 23 Car. 2. And Charta
Mercatoria in Latin and English.
Several Rules and Directions for
Gauging of Ships, Casks of Wine,
and Oyl, and Measuring of Timber.
Also The Fees of Officers, Tares
of Commodities, Rates of Scavage,
and Package, &c. Tables for Oyls,
Linens, Silks, Tobacco, and Wines,
calculated for the Duties payable
upon them. To which is Added,
An Index Alphabetically digested.
Collected for Publick Use.
In the Savoy: by the Assigns of J. Bill and Chr. Barker, 1671 [38661]
£3000
12mo (151 × 86 mm). Contemporary black goatskin by an
imitator of the Naval Binder, the covers tooled with an all-over
gilt pattern of volutes, tulips and other flowers, leaves, dots,
etc. with central panel; gilt spine divided into six panels each
tooled with a gouge-work design, comb-marbled endleaves,
gilt edges. Front joint just cracked at head and lower headband
loose, overall an excellent copy.
FIRST AND APPARENTLY ONLY EDITION WITH THE SECTION
ON NAVIGATION AND SHIPPING. Printed descriptions of
the import duties on wine and merchandise appeared in
England as early as 1545. But there was a hiatus during
the reign of Charles I, who levied the duties without
the authority of parliament, and new tables were
printed after the Restoration. The ancient fixed rates
at which tonnage and poundage had been levied were
now discarded, and the rates were set as parliament
considered appropriate. The rates were reprinted
regularly hereafter, in 1675, 1684, 1689, and 1702.
This printing is apparently unique in that it has an
additional section on shipping and navigation, abridging
“An Act for the Encouraging, and Increasing, of Shipping,
and Navigation”. This Act was ostensibly designed to
help fit out the British Navy against the threat from
France’s military build-up, but the king’s real designs
were against the Dutch, who had destroyed the core of
England’s navy in 1667. These clandestine manoeuvrings
resulted in the outbreak of the Third Anglo-Dutch War
the following year, with England and its newly refitted
navy in league with France against the Dutch. The Act
restricts imports and exports in English territories to
goods conveyed in English vessels, to be manned by
crews comprising at least three-quarters Englishmen,
restricts the buying of foreign ships, and so on.
The attractive English Restoration binding is very
much in the style of the so-called Naval Binder, with
similar though distinct tools. The Naval Binder was so
christened by H. M. Nixon because of the workshop’s close
connection with the Navy Office. The bindery was active
in the 1670s and 1680s, producing well proportioned
and carefully tooled bindings with more attention to
the headbands and sewing than was usual at the time.
The bindery seems to have inspired at least one imitator
who closely copied the style, though with different tools.
For examples of the Naval Binder, see Nixon, Five Centuries
of English Bookbinding, no. 41; Nixon, English Restoration
Bookbindings, nos. 79–82 and 116; Nixon, Catalogue of
the Pepys Library, nos. 47a and 47b; Foot, Henry Davis Gift
II, nos. 122 and 123. For imitators of the Naval Binder, see
Maggs, Bookbinding in the British Isles, catalogue 1075,
no. 93; and catalogue 1212, no. 47 (this book). There is a
1674 folio bible in the Wormsley Library that appears to
come from the same workshop as this binding.
Wing E1163A; Goldsmiths’ 1982.
298.FADEN, William.
Le Petit Neptune Français; or
French Coasting Pilot, for the Coast
of Flanders, Channel, Bay of Biscay,
and Mediterranean. To which is
added, The Coast of Italy from the
River Var to the Orbitello; with the
Gulf of Naples, and the Island of
Corsica…
London, W. Faden, 1793 [37188] £3500
4to. Engraved frontispiece and 42 engraved charts, maps,
plans and diagrams, most of them folding. Some foxing and
browning, but overall a very good copy in contemporary
marbled boards, somewhat rubbed, rebacked to style in
reversed calf, original label laid down.
FIRST EDITION. Attractive and nicely provenanced
copy of Faden’s timely coastal atlas of France. At this
point in his career Faden’s “systematic… acquisition
of the best available maps… [and] contact with mapmakers
throughout Europe” had made his “the most
competent cartographic service of the period… his
activities foreshadowed the emergence of national
cartographic agencies” (ODNB). His publication of an
up-to-date survey of the coastal waters of France in the
year that England declared war against the Revolutionary
government reveals an acuity of commercial
judgement to match his cartographic accuracy.
Provenance: bookplate of [Admiral Sir] George Francis
Seymour to the front pastedown and that of the Library
at Ragley Hall, seat of the Conway-Seymour family and
the Marquesses of Hertford to the front free endpaper.
An inked inscription to the front pastedown shows that
the book was given to Admiral Seymour by his fatherin-law
Admiral Sir George Berkeley, whose ownership
inscription appears on the title page. Berkeley had already
served with distinction at the Battle of Ushant and in
the Second Relief of Gibraltar when war broke out with
France and he was given command of the Marlborough,
74 guns. On the Glorious First of June his was one of six
ships to break the French line, dismasting two ships of line
Catalogue 57: Travel Section 7: Mapping, Navigation and Naval History
causing them to strike, in consequence Berkeley was one
of the captains to receive the Gold Medal for the battle,
the first engagement to be so honoured. From 1795 to
1797 he commanded the Formidable off Brest, Cadiz,
Ireland and the Texel, and in 1799, having advanced to
rear-admiral, he led the squadrons of the Channel Fleet.
He was recalled from a brief retirement in 1804 and
given the North American command, being responsible,
through his order for the attack on the Chesapeake, for
the outbreak of the War of 1812. Despite public, and to
some extent ministerial, approbation of his conduct
Berkeley was summoned back to England but then
appointed commander-in-chief of the coast of Portugal.
It was in this role, his last posting, that he was render
his most important services to the nation, “Directing all
naval support to the Anglo-Portuguese Army… under
Wellington, Berkeley provided remarkable co-operation.
Nearly all the men, horses, weapons, equipment,
money, and provisions required by Wellington arrived in
Berkeley’s ships or in convoys escorted by his ships. The
squadron performed a major role in the French defeat
in Iberia” (ODNB). Of him Wellington said, “I have always
found [him] not only disposed to give us every assistance
in his power, but to anticipate and exceed our wishes in
this way. It is impossible for 2 officers to be on better terms
than we are.” Berkeley retired in 1812 and weighed down
with wounds and deeply troubled by the gout that had
forced his retirement in 1800 he died in 1818. In view of his
services off Ushant and Brest it is interesting to note that
Berkeley has annotated the chart of the Road of Brest with
quite detailed instructions concerning a land-mark at Pte.
Mathieu and has made several other less easily interpreted
markings in the Gullet and Douarne Nez Bay. The “8th
Chart of the Coast of France…” which shows the waters to
the West of Ushant is marked with a number of locations.
His son-in-law, Admiral Seymour, also saw significant
service during the Napoleonic period. He was with Sir
Alexander Cochrane at Santo Domingo, where he was
wounded, and then, as commander of the Kingfisher
sloop, cruised the French coast. It was Seymour who came
to the rescue of Lord Cochrane, Sir Alexander’s nephew,
when Pallas was dismasted in the fight with the Minerve,
and later at the Basque Roads he “made a gallant effort”
in support of Cochrane’s attempt to destroy the French
fleet, and went to so far as to speak in Cochrane’s favour at
Gambier’s court-martial. Despite this he continued to find
favour, being for time William IV’s naval aide-de-camp
and later Master of the Robes, and becoming one of the
lords of the Admiralty.
152 153