AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE – Extrait du journal d'un officier de la marine de l'escadre de M. le comte d'Estaing. [Paris?]: 1782.

AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE – Extrait du journal d'un officier de la marine de l'escadre de M. le comte d'Estaing. [Paris?]: 1782.

First edition of an anonymous and highly critical account of Comte d’Estaing, an admiral in command of a French fleet during the American War of Independence. Written by an officer under d’Estaing (Howes suggests one Captain Walsh), the work describes the fleet’s engagements against the British at New York, Newport, and the West Indies, and gives an important account of the attack on Savannah. Howes E-198; Polak 3271; Sabin 23033.

Octavo (195 x 122mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait of d’Estaing above a view of the taking of Grenada, woodcut title device (first and last leaves faintly stained in margins). Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt (very lightly rubbed). Provenance: Mégret de Devise (bookplate dated 1920) – pencil inscription recording sale at auction in 1921.

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