Madness, Betrayal and the Lash:
The Epic Voyage of Captain George Vancouver
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by Stephen Bown
Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver, 2008
272 pp., illus., $34.95 hardcover
Madness, Betrayal and the Lash is Stephen R. Bown’s attempt to restore the reputation of one of the greatest, yet least-known British navigators: George Vancouver.
An understudy of the renowned Captain James Cook, Vancouver explored the Pacific Northwest coast and was the first European to enter Burrard Inlet (near modern-day Stanley Park in Vancouver). He also dashed the dreams of those who hoped the region might be home to the western entrance of the fabled Northwest Passage.
Vancouver had a temper and refused to coddle his crew. He made powerful enemies who actively — and successfully — worked to destroy his reputation back in England. Vancouver would die, ignored and forgotten by English society, at the age of forty.
Bown believes Vancouver did not deserve this fate and presents a strong defence of the accused. Well-written and engaging, Madness, Betrayal and the Lash is a successful attempt to humanize a man lampooned by his peers as a coward, a tyrant, and worse.
— Mark Collin Reid (Read bio)
Mark Collin Reid is the Editor-in-Chief of Canada's History.