A Voyage towards the North Pole: Undertaken by His Majesty's Command 1773

A friend of Sir Joseph Banks, and with scientific interests of his own, the naval officer Constantine John Phipps (1744–92) was appointed by the Admiralty in 1773 to command an Arctic expedition in search of a passage to the Pacific. Among the crew was a young Horatio Nelson and a freed slave, Olaudah Equiano, who became the first African to visit the Arctic. Although unsuccessful in its primary aim, the voyage is noteworthy for Phipps' description of the polar bear as a distinct species, a...