A short history of Barbados, from its first discovery and settlement, to the end of the year 1767.

Scarce, reputedly only 250 copies published. A fine copy of the first edition of this history of the island of Barbados 'from its first discovery and settlement, to the end of the year 1767.' Attributed to Henry Frere, a member of the council of Barbados, the book frames the colony as a loyal outpost of the British crown, perhaps aiming to diffuse fears of political instability in the aftermath of the Stamp Act crisis. Beginning with the Jacobean era the text includes references to the emergence of plantation slavery in the seventeenth century, charting the history of the island during the English Civil War, Cromwellian era and subsequent developments in the 1660s after the Restoration, before recording the political factionalism that beset the island in the Georgian era. Separate sections on the constitution and on 'trade, soil , and climate', with particular focus on sugar production and exportation, are appended, with a 'list of commanders in chief of Barbados.'