The voyages and manifesto of William Fergusson, a surgeon of the East India Company 1731-1739
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The voyages and manifesto of William Fergusson, a surgeon of the East India Company 1731-1739
(Works / issued by the Hakluyt Society, 3rd ser.,
Routledge, 2021
- hbk.
Available at 5 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-178) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This volume brings to publication for the first time the manuscript of William Fergusson, a Scottish ship's surgeon who sailed for the East India Company in the 1730s. Written in 1767, while in retirement, Fergusson's diaries are the memories of his youth spent travelling the world during his apprenticeship. They detail the four voyages he took, the first, a passage from Scotland to England with a lading in Ireland, and three others to the East, calling at ports in the Atlantic, southern Africa, Arabia, India, and Southeast Asia, before reaching as far as China. Almost nothing is known of Fergusson and none of his other writings are known to survive. Remaining evidence suggests that he was an average man of his class, who travelled the well-plied trade routes of European merchant capitalism. While many logbooks of these voyages survive, comparatively few accounts were written by the men who sailed them. Fewer still ever come to light. Fergusson's manuscript offers a rare new source on what were by then the relatively routine voyages of the East India Company's early trading network, providing a treasure trove of comments on the politics, economics, societies, and religious beliefs and practices he witnessed along the way.
Originally titled 'Journals of my Voyages & Manifesto', the name suggests Fergusson's manuscript offers far more than the insights usually contained in contemporary travelogues. In his manifesto, readers will discover Fergusson's impassioned polemics on natural religion, devotional 'enthusiasm', just governance, all while he implores the principles of rationality and reason. It is truly a manifesto of Enlightenment thought. As such, it also provides a unique example of how those who sailed for the East India Company during the early modern era participated in a global intellectual exchange of ideas.
Fergusson wrote his private memories in twenty-two small bound booklets, all of which have been transcribed and annotated to guide the reader. These are presented here along with a critical introduction that contextualises the complex eighteenth-century world into which Fergusson voyaged, including elements of his role as a ship's surgeon, the Indian Ocean trading and political environment, and the ideas of the Enlightenment he so passionately expressed. Researchers interested in the histories of ideas, medicine, early-modern colonialism, maritime merchant empires, as well as historians of Africa and Asia, will find much new information to explore within the pages of this volume.
Table of Contents
Introduction The Voyages of William Fergusson Voyage 1: Passage from Ayr to London, 7 June-16 July 1731 Voyage 2: London to Calcutta, 30 January 1733-12 August 1734 Voyage 3: London to the Malabar Coast, 1 December 1735-30 April 1737 Voyage 4: London to Canton, 6 October 1737-15 July 1739 Bibliography Index
by "Nielsen BookData"