A NARRATIVE OF THE LOSS OF THE GROSVENOR

Compiled from the examination of John Hynes, one of the unfortunate survivors.

By Mr. George Carter, historical portrait painter, upon his passage outward bound to India.

Containing a variety of matter respecting the sufferers, never before made public;

With copper plates descriptive of the catastrophe, engraved from Mr. Carter's designs.

First edition: [2] ,174 pages, lacks the folding frontispiece – ‘Shipwreck of the Grosvenor’, 1 plate – ‘The Unhappy Fate of Master Law’, full polished calf titled and decorated gilt in panels on the spine, gilt rules covers , marbled endpapers and edges, a very good copy.

There is no sign of the frontispiece – ‘Shipwreck of the Grosvenor. Manner in which the Survivors Escaped on Shore’ ever having been bound into this copy.

The wreck of the Grosvenor, an East Indiaman, occurred on 4 August 1782 on the Pondoland coast of South Africa, north of the mouth of the Umzimvubu River. The shipwreck was close to the place where the Portuguese ship, São João, had gone down more than two centuries earlier on 8 June 1552. The Grosvenor was a three-masted ship of 729 tons on her return voyage to England when she was wrecked, carrying a crew of 132 and 18 passengers (12 adults and 6 children), and a cargo valued at £75,000. Of the 123 survivors, only 18 reached Cape Town and were repatriated, the remainder dying of their privations or joining with tribes. Four survivors, Robert Price, Thomas Lewis, John Warmington, and Barney Larey, eventually got back to England.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wreck_of_the_Grosvenor

A South African Bibliography, volume 1, page 475.

Mendelssohn (Sidney) South African Bibliography, volume 1, page 651, ‘The author met John Hynes, one of the survivors of the Grosvenor, on a voyage to India, and he appears to have attempted to relieve the monotony of the trip by examining the seaman, and committing to paper his account of the loss of the ship and the sufferings of the survivors.   The ill-fated vessel sailed from ‘Trincomale’ on the 13th of lune 1782, and struck on the coast of Kaffraria a few weeks after. The passengers agreed to accompany Captain Coxon in an attempt to reach the Dutch Settlements in the Cape, which he thought would take fifteen or sixteen days, but the party split up soon after the start, and the two divisions afterwards resplit, not owing to any disputes, but on account of the hostility displayed by the natives, and the difficulty of finding supplies for any large body. The party which remained with the captain, and which included all the white ladies, entirely disappeared, and, as the narrative states, ‘ its fate remains ... to the present hour, unknown.’ The other detachments pursued their way with incredible hardships and privation. They lived mostly on bodies of dead whales and seals that they discovered, or on roots and shellfish, and in many cases, when after great trouble they had struck a bargain with the natives, the inhuman savages cheated them out of their food. In fact, the inhospitality, cruelty, and barbarity of the Kaffirs was very remarkable, and contrary to their usual habits, but in explanation it is stated that, ‘as there subsisted at this time an inveterate enmity between the Kaffirs and the Dutch colonists, who had treated them with unparalleled cruelty, this may account for the behaviour of the former to the shipwrecked English, who being of the same colour as the Dutch, partook of their resentment.’ One by one, however, the doomed sufferers succumbed or were left behind, and when, after 117 days of fearful hardships, a remote Dutch farm was reached, only six men arrived out of a whole ship's company. Here the wretched survivors met with great kindness and hospitality, the Dutch farmers eventually sending them to the Cape in a waggon. The Dutch Governor, hearing of the circumstances of the wreck, despatched an expedition in search of the missing passengers and crew, but only three white men and some coloured Lascars and servants were discovered, while the fate of the remainder is a mystery of the desert. There is an interesting account of the natives, with long ex- tracts from the works of Paterson and Le Vaillant, and several engravings.’

See also: Ian (E. Glenn)The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Making of South Africa Literature, (https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA03768902_431)