He did not stop at Hawaii on this visit, though the lengthy preface contains references to his first voyage, on which he made an extended stay in Hawaiian waters during the winter of 1787-1788. Colnett's ship, Rattler, a Royal Navy sloop, was purchased from the Admiralty and altered to serve as a whaler. The voyage lasted from January 1793 until October 1794. In addition to the informative and lively text, this work is remarkable for the quality of the maps and plates. The folding plate within the text shows a diagram of a sperm whale, complete with scale and labelled segments, the two folding plates at the back show coastal profiles of six different locations. The large folding maps show the islands of Felix and Ambrose (on one map), the Pacific Coast of the Americas as far as California (one map), and individual maps of the islands of Revillagigedo, Cocos, the Galapagos, and Quibo.

Colnett first visited the Pacific as a midshipman on Cook's second voyage. Later he made several commercial voyages to the Northwest Coast, where in 1789 his brush with the Spanish commander at Nootka Sound instigated the "Nootka Controversy". An account of that incident is also given herein, as is his meeting with the Spanish commander at the Sandwich Islands. "This narrative is particularly important for the part Colnett played in the dispute between England and Spain over claims to the Northwest" (Forbes).

"--Donald A. Heald website (accessed September 2019)