& INTRODUCTION TO THE 



siderable light on our period. With a view, there- 

 fore, to assist the reader in forming a just estimate 

 of the additional information conveyed by this pub- 

 lication, it may not be improper to lay before him a 

 short, though comprehensive, abstract of the prin- 

 cipal objects that had been previously accomplished, 

 arranged in such a manner, as may serve to unite, 

 into one point of view, the various articles which lie 

 scattered through the voluminous Journals already in 

 the hands of the public ; those compiled by 

 Dr. Hawkesworth ; and that which was written bv 

 Captain Cook himself. By thus shewing what had 

 been former! v done, how much still remained for sub- 

 sequent examination, will be more apparent; and it 

 will be better understood on what grounds, though 

 the ships of his Majesty had already circumnavigated 

 the world five different times, in the course of about 

 ten years, another voyage should still be thought ex- 

 pedient. 



There will be a farther use in giving such an ab- 

 stract a place in this Introduction. The plan of 

 discovery, carried on in so many successive expe- 

 ditions, being now, we may take upon us to say, in a 

 great measure completed; by summing up the final 

 result, we shall be better able to do justice to the 

 benevolent purposes it was designed to answer ; and 

 a solid foundation will be laid, on which we may 

 build a satisfactory answer to a question, sometimes 

 asked by a peevish refinement and ignorant male- 

 volence, What beneficial consequences, if any, have 

 followed, or are likely to follow, to the discoverers, 

 or to the discovered, to the common interests of hu- 

 manity, or to the increase of useful knowledge, from 

 all our boasted attempts to explore the distant re- 

 cesses of the globe ? 



The general object of the several voyages round 

 the world, undertaken by the command of his Ma- 

 jesty, prior to that related in this work, was to search 



