This is a rare collectable first edition in excellent condition in lovely gilt embossed leather binding. More importantly though it is personally signed with a detailed inscription by the author Admiral Lord Radstock, to one of the subscribers named in the book - the marquis of Buckingham.. a truly rare one off in great condition.

Admiral of the Red William Waldegrave, 1st Baron Radstock, GCB (9 July 1753 – 20 August 1825) was a Royal Navy officer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Newfoundland. Waldegrave joined the Royal Navy in 1766, initially in HMS Jersey, the flagship of the Mediterranean fleet. He was promoted to lieutenant and later commander in 1775 when he received command of the sloop HMS Zephyr. He was further promoted to captain in 1776 when he poor health forced him home but from 1778 to the end of the War of American Independence in 1783 he was a frigate captain. He spent the next ten years travelling and beginning a family.. At the start of the French Revolutionary War Waldegrave commanded HMS Courageux under Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood at Toulon and later HMS Barfleur under John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent in the Mediterranean where he was third in command at the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797. Waldegrave was offered a baronetcy for the role he played in the battle, but declined the offer on the grounds that, as a son of an earl, he already held a higher station. Waldegrave was promoted to rear admiral in 1794 and to vice-admiral in 1795

The fourth creation of the dukedom, as Duke of Buckingham and Chandos in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, was in 1822 for Richard Temple-Grenville, 2nd Marquess of Buckingham, a landowner and politician. He was the son of George Nugent Temple Grenville, 3rd Earl Temple, who was the son of Prime Minister George Grenville, and who had been created Marquess of Buckingham in the peerage of Great Britain in 1784. The 1st Marquess of Buckingham had married Lady Mary Nugent, daughter of Robert Nugent, 1st Earl Nugent. Mary was in 1800 created Baroness Nugent in her own right in the Peerage of Ireland, with remainder to her second son George (see the Baron Nugent). In 1788 Lord Buckingham also succeeded his father-in-law as second Earl Nugent according to a special remainder in the letters patent, and at the same time assumed by Royal licence the additional surname of Nugent.