SKETCHES IN NORTH AMERICA AND THE OREGON TERRITORY. BY CAPTAIN H. WARRE, (A.D.C. TO THE LATE COMMANDER OF THE FORCES)

Book Description

[London]: Dickinson & Co., [1848].. Lithographic map, handcolored in outline with routes marked in red and blue, twenty handcolored lithographed views on sixteen sheets, by Dickinson and Co., after Warre. Folio. Contemporary green half morocco over green pebble-grained cloth-covered boards, titled in gilt on upper cover, the flat spine tooled in gilt with fillets and decorative flourishes at head and foot, and a large centered lettering panel titled in gilt and bordered with a triple fillet with decorative arabesque tooling above and below, glazed endpapers. In a half morocco and cloth box. First edition, handcolored issue of a work which contains the "only western color plates comparable in beauty to those by Bodmer" (Howes). An important record of the American west before it was touched by western civilization. This is evidently a family copy, inscribed on the upper right corner of the inside front board: "H. Warre, Fyne Court, Bridgewater." Captain Warre and Lieut. Mervin Vavasour, of the Royal Engineers, left Montreal on May 5, 1845. They initially accompanied Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson Bay Company, who was making a tour of inspection of the Company's outposts. On reaching Fort Garry (plate 1) at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, they teamed up with Peter Skene Ogden (1790-1854), a Company chief trader who had vast experience of the West in general and the Columbia River and the Rockies in particular. Travelling mainly on horseback, the journey from the fort over the Rockies to Fort Colville took them from June 16 to Aug. 12. This section of the journey is illustrated by five plates. They left Fort Colville in boats and made their way down the Columbia River, arriving at the Pacific on Aug. 25 (3 plates). They then spent the winter exploring Oregon Territory and the Pacific Coast, visiting the Company settlement on the Willamette River (2 plates), exploring the Columbia River (1 plate), visiting Fort George on the Columbia River (2 plates), Vancouver Island and Fort Vancouver (1 plate), Cowelitz River, and Puget's Sound. Once the weather started to improve, Warre and Vavasour and a party of about thirty began their westward journey on March 25, 1846, again by boat, but this time against the current. Warre made sketches of Mount Hood (2 plates) during this journey. They arrived at Fort Walla Walla, after travelling a distance of about two hundred miles, on April 3. They then took to horses again, and taking a shortcut of about two hundred fifty miles, made for Fort Colville across a desert landscape (1 plate). From Fort Colville they went up the Columbia by boat for about two hundred fifty miles, setting off to cross the Rockies on foot. After seven days their food ran out, but fortunately a search party sent out from the Company station at Jasper's House found them and guided them to safety. The station was on the Athabasca River, and from here they again took to boats and swiftly descended a distance of nearly four hundred miles in two and half days to Fort Assiniboine. On horseback they travelled one hundred miles in three days to Fort Edmonton on the Saskatchewan River. Then by boat five hundred miles down the river to Fort Carlton. Again on horseback, they crossed the prairie to Red River in ten days, a distance of about four hundred fifty miles, arriving back at Fort Garry on June 7. There they met up with Sir George Simpson and together returned by boat to Montreal, arriving on July 20, 1846. The background to the journey was semi- official and semi- secret: Warre and Vavasour were to undertake what amounted to a military reconnaissance of Oregon Territory. American expansionists were making it clear that the uneasy joint occupation of Oregon by the United States and Great Britain was not equitable and were demanding that a northernmost frontier be established. The two officers, with the enthusiastic support of the Hudson Bay Company, were sent to gather information that would be of use in the negotiations. As Howes notes, Warre's dramatic depiction of the scenery, situations, and incidents he encountered has resulted in "the only western color plates comparable in beauty to those by Bodmer." Abbey notes that the work was originally published at two guineas uncolored or, as here, with the plates colored at £3 13s. 6d. Warre continued with his military career after his return to Great Britain, serving with distinction in both the Crimean and the New Zealand wars, he was knighted for his military services and retired with the rank of General. In addition to the present work, he published a series of views in the Crimea (London, 1856), but the present work is his undoubted masterpiece, and a monument to an area of the American West before it was touched by civilization. ABBEY 656. GRAFF 4543. HOWES W114, "c." SABIN 101455. SMITH 10727. WAGNER-CAMP 157.

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