DIARIO DE LAS OPERACIONES DE LA EXPEDICION CONTRA LA PLAZA DE PANZACOLA CONCLUIDA POR LAS ARMAS DE S.M. CATOLICA, BAXO LAS ORDENES DEL MARISCAL DE CAMPO D. BERNARDO DE GALVEZ [caption title].
Galvez, Bernardo de:

[Madrid. 1781]. 48pp. Dbd. Faint spotting on the first leaf, else clean and bright. Very good. In a handsome cloth clamshell box, morocco label. An important document of the American Revolution in the South, with important ramifications for the history of Florida. In 1779, Spain joined France in aiding the Americans against the British in the Revolution; however, Spanish goals were mainly self-serving, and she particularly wished to regain Florida, lost to Britain in the Peace of 1763 which concluded the French and Indian War. With this in mind, the energetic Viceroy Bernardo de Galvez organized an expedition from Havana against the British base at Pensacola, the capital of the Province of West Florida (including the present Florida panhandle, southern Alabama and Mississippi, and Louisiana as far as the Mississippi River). The expedition set out in November 1780, but was scattered by storms and was launched again in February 1781. The Spanish secured Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Mobile before turning on Pensacola. Despite difficulty in coordination (the Spanish admiral was not under Galvez' direct command and at first refused to run the bar at Pensacola under the British guns), Galvez was able to land his forces and effect a siege, resulting in British capitulation on May 9, 1781. The loss was a major setback to the British in the South and insured that the Floridas were returned to the Spanish in the Peace of 1783. Spanish control of the Floridas was a thorn in the side of the United States until they were sold to the U.S. under the conditions of the Adams-Onìs Treaty of 1819. This account is Galvez' detailed report of the entire expedition, with the last part dated at Pensacola on May 12, 1781. Also included is the treaty of capitulation and a schedule of troops involved. Medina believed that this pamphlet was published first in Havana and later in Madrid. We recently compared two copies which we believe confirms this. While the same in pagination, and indeed with the same text per page, the line settings within each page vary considerably. One is crudely printed and looks like Spanish colonial printing; and the other, with a different type face, is much more elegantly printed. The present copy matches the latter description, which we believe to be the Madrid printing. The easy way to tell the two apart is the first (of many) different paragraph settings: on page three, the first paragraph at the top has five lines in the Havana edition and only four in the Madrid edition. Accompanied by a copy of Jose Porrua Turanzas' (editor) DIARIO DE LAS OPERACIONES CONTRA LA PLAZA DE PANZACOLA 1781... (Madrid, 1959). SABIN 26475. PALAU 96980. MEDINA (HAVANA) 68 (ref). STREETER SALE 1191. HOWES P59.

(Item ID: WRCAM39171) $7,500.00

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