First, and only, edition of this rare account of Darien, regarded as one of the earliest first-hand accounts of the doomed settlement. With frontispiece map, 'A New Map of the Isthmus of Darian in America & Bay of Panama. The Gulph of St. Michal with its Islands, & Countries Adjacant', based on William Hacke and Robert Morden's 'A New Map of ye Isthmus of Darien in America, The Bay of Panama, The Gulph of Vallona or St. Michael, with its Islands and Countries Adjacent' (1699), engraved by Herman Moll. Moll had already prepared a similar map for William Dampier's 'Voyages and Descriptions in Three Parts', the first volume of his 'A New Voyage around the World' (1697), and reprinted for Lional Wafer's account of the Isthmus, 'A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America' (1699).

The Isthmus had long been of strategic importance to the overland exchange of goods between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Hoping to become a world trading nation, the Kingdom of Scotland created the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies in 1695, a direct competitor to the English East India Company. The Company of Scotland, led by William Paterson, set sail in 1698 with five ships and 1,200 Scots to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Darien. They were instructed to build a settlement on the mainland near the Golden Island, which was near the entrance to the Gulf of Darien. The colonists built a fort and a main settlement named New Edinburgh on a peninsula on the mainland and attempted to farm and trade goods with the Natives. The colony failed within a year amid poor planning, devastating illness, and attacks by Spanish galleons. The failure of the Darien Scheme (as it became known) contributed greatly to the crippling of the entire Scottish economy that eventually led to the dissolution of the Scottish Parliament and the 1707 Act of Union with England.

The map is dedicated to John, Marquis of Tweeddale, Lord Hay of Yester, who was dismissed from the Chancellorship in 1696 for supporting the Darien scheme. His son was appointed Lord High Commissioner to the Scots Parliament in 1704, and was Lord Chancellor of Scotland from 1704-1705.

Rare. ESTC records three copies in the U.K. at the British Library (from the library of Sir Joseph Banks), National Library of Scotland (two copies; one without the map) and Bodley; Boston Public Library (not located in the online catalogue), John Carter Brown Library, New York Public Library, Newberry and Library of Congress. OCLC adds Glasgow University.