14. Gerard Boate, Ireland’s Naturall History. Being a true and ample Description of its Situation, Greatness, Shape, and Nature (London, 1652).

The Dutch medic Gerard Boate (1604–50) was one of the ‘Adventurers’ who contributed money towards the reconquest of Ireland by the English parliament during the Civil Wars of the 1640s.

Boate’s Naturall History was intended to increase interest in the Adventurers’ fund-raising and encourage new settlers to emigrate to Ireland.

Boate’s book was dedicated to Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law Charles Fleetwood. This copy was purchased in October 1925 to replace a book first listed as missing from Marsh’s Library in 1780.