A SHORT HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF MAJOR JOHN BERNARDI. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF IN NEWGATE, WHERE HE HAS BEEN FOR NEAR 33 YEARS A PRISONER OF STATE, WITHOUT ANY ALLOWANCE FROM THE GOVERNMENT, AND COULD NEVER BE ADMITTED TO HIS TRYAL. TO WHICH IS ADDED BY WAY OF APPENDIX, A TRUE COPY OF THE DIPLOMA, OR PATENT OF COUNT OF THE EMPIRE, GRANTED TO THE AUTHOR'S GRAND-FATHER IN THE YEAR 1620, AND A TRANSLATION OF IT INTO ENGLISH. AS ALSO COPIES OF THE MAJOR'S SEVERAL COMMISSIONS, &C.

First Edition, Rare. Illustrated with the engraved frontispiece portrait. 8vo, bound in later half-calf over marbled boards, the spine with raised bands, compartments decorated with panel designs in gilt, black morocco lettering label gilt. [2], 135; 62 appendix pp. A very well preserved, unpressed and crisp copy, the portrait with a bit of old evidence of damp, unobtrusive and visually, mostly confined to the verso.

Edizione: an english soldier, adventurer and jacobite conspirator, bernardi's involvement in an assassination plot against william iii led to his subsequent forty-year imprisonment, without proper trial, in newgate. while the principal conspirators were executed, bernardi and five others were held without coming to trial, initially for a year ostensibly to gather further evidence. however, their continued imprisonment was sanctioned by subsequent acts, even after william iii's death. bernardi's life in prison was made difficult by effects of the old wounds he had sustained in the 1670s. bernardi also complained that his confinement in the "dismal and loathsome" gaol had cost him "above seven hundred pounds for his lodging".