Memoirs of the Life and Travels of the Late Charles MacPherson, Esq., in Asia, Africa, and America . . de [MACNEILL, HECTOR] - 1800

Edinburgh: Printed for Arch. Constable and Vernor and Hood, 1800, 1800. First edition. ESTC T96380; NCBEL II, 2028; not in Garside and Schöwerling. Text a bit foxed and smudged; very good copy.. 8vo, modern brown half morocco, marbled paper boards, black label, gilt lettering, untrimmed. With half-title. An autobiographical novel by Scottish poet Hector MacNeill (1746-1818) who was sent to the West Indies as a young man in hopes that he would find a vocation as a sailor, but he eventually returned to Scotland and authorship. These memoirs follow Charles MacPherson to the West Indies in his quest for employment and in the process he comments at length on the customs of the islands and in particular "the nature, treatment and possible improvement of the negro in the British and French West India Islands."