VOYAGE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 5 



interested motives, it is natural to attempt to confine, 

 within some narrow circle, the advantages which 

 might have been derived to the world at large by an 

 unreserved disclosure of all that had been effected. 

 And, upon this principle, it has too frequently been 

 considered as sound policy, perhaps, in this country, 

 as well as amongst some of our neighbours, to affect 

 to draw a veil of secrecy over the result of enter- 

 prizes to discover and explore unknown quarters of 

 the globe. It is to the honour of the present reign, 

 that more liberal views have been now adopted. Our 

 late voyages, from the very extensive objects pro- 

 posed by them, could not but convey useful inform- 

 ation to every European nation ; and, indeed, to 

 every nation, however remote, which cultivates com- 

 merce, and is acquainted with navigation : and that 

 information has most laudably been afforded. The 

 same enlarged and benevolent spirit, which ordered 

 these several expeditions to be undertaken, has also 

 taken care that the result of their various discoveries 

 should be authentically recorded. And the trans- 

 actions of the five first voyages round the world 

 having, in due time, been communicated*, under the 

 authority of his Majesty's naval minister; those of 

 the sixth, which, besides revisiting many of the 

 former discoveries in the Southern, carried its 

 operations into untrodden paths in the Northern 

 hemisphere, are, under the same sanction, now sub- 

 mitted to the public in these volumes. 



One great plan of nautical investigation having 

 been pursued throughout, it is obvious, that the se- 

 veral voyages have a close connection, and that an 

 exact recollection of what had been aimed at, and 

 effected, in those that preceded, will throw con- 



* The account of the four first of these voyages, compiled by 

 Dr. Hawkesworth, from the Journals of the several commanders, 

 was published in 1772, in three volumes quarto ; and Captain 

 Cook's own account of the fifth, in 1777, in two volumes quarto* 



b3 



