Welby, Adlard
A Visit to North America and the English Settlements in Illinois
Estimate: £400 - £600
Auction: 18 June 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
with a Winter Residence at Philadelphia. Solely to ascertain the Actual Prospects of the Emigrating Agriculturist, Mechanic, and Commercial Speculator. London: for J. Drury, 1821. First edition, 8vo (21.5 x 12.5cm), [iii]-xii 224 pp., later patterned boards, 14 tinted lithographic plates including frontispiece, tissue-guards, errata slip incorporating directions to the binder bound in at rear, plate intended to face p. 40 ('Place of Worship …') bound to face p. 72 and with stain in fore margin, ‘The Church at Harmonie’ plate at p. 129 slightly spotted , final plate ('View at Fort Cumberland, Maryland') and unevenly trimmed along fore edge and bound without tissue-guard (if issued), pp. 79/80 creased, short closed tear to errata slip in gutter [Sabin 102514; not in Abbey]
Footnote
The author visited Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Maryland in addition to Illinois, and notably describes the treatment of and former slaves in various states. Having reached Baltimore he professes that ‘not once during the journey did I witness an instance of cruel treatment’, though his observations regarding the ambiguities of the emancipation process in Pennsylvania will strike modern readers as more insightful, including the remark, concerning the ongoing trade in African American servants, that 'in free Pensilvania are blacks positively sold for a limited period, and though the law does not allow the purchaser the power of life and death over this sort of slave, yet to all other intents and purposes he is in as complete subjection as any slave in Virginia or Kentucky' (p. 177).