The Naval History of Great Britain, From the Declaration of War by France, in February 1793; to the Accession of George IV. In January 1820; With An Account of the Origin and Progressive Increase of The British Navy; Illustrated, From the Commencement of the Year 1793, by A Series of Tabular Abstracts, Contained in a Separate Quarto Volume.

JAMES, William.

$2,000.00

Item Number: 130581

London: Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1822.

First edition of James’ naval history of Great Britain. Five octavo volumes and one quarto volume of tables bound in three quarter calf over marbled boards with morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, folding plate in volume I. Sabin 35720. In near fine condition. Uncommon.

At the outbreak of the War of 1812, British lawyer and military historian William M. James was in the United States and was swiftly detained by American authorities. He escaped to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1813 and began work on his great chronicle of the war particularly defending the reputation of the Royal Navy and pointing out the factual errors and excessive claims that American reports made against the Royal Navy. Theodore Roosevelt, as a young Harvard University undergraduate in 1876–77, began work on a response from the American perspective. Published in 1882 as The Naval War of 1812, the book took James to task for what Roosevelt perceived as glaring mistakes and outright misrepresentations of fact based on malicious anti-American bias and shabby research, despite James's painstaking research and primary sources.