o 



140 COOKS VOYAGE TO DEC. 



My instructions directing me to examine it, with a 

 view to discover a good harbour, I proceeded in 



we are sure, from a variety of circumstances, he had never heard 

 of from any other quarter, he missed an opportunity of learning 

 at TenerifFe. He expresses his being sorry, as we have just read, 

 that he did not know sooner that there tvas on board the frigate an 

 officer xvho had been tvith Kerguelen, as he might have obtained from 

 )um more interesting information about this land than its situation. 

 And, indeed, if he had conversed with that officer he might have 

 obtained information more interesting than he was aware of; he 

 might have learnt that Kerguelen had actually visited this southern 

 land a second time, and that the little isle of which he then re- 

 ceived the name and position from the Chevalier de Borda, was a 

 discovery of this later voyage. But the account conveyed to him 

 being, as the reader will observe, unaccompanied with any date, 

 or other distinguishing circumstance, he left TenerifFe, and arrived 

 on the coasts of Kerguelen's Land, under a full persuasion that it 

 had been visited only once before. And, even with regard to the 

 operations of that first voyage, he had nothing to guide him, but 

 the very scanty materials afforded to him by Baron Plettenberg 

 and Monsieur Crozet. 



The truth is, the French seem, for some reason or other, not 

 surely founded on the importance of Kerguelen's discovery, to 

 have been very shy of publishing a full and distinct account of it. 

 No such account had been published while Captain Cook lived. 

 Nay, even after the return of his ships in 1780, the gentleman 

 who obligingly lent his assistance to give a view of the prior ob- 

 servations of the French, and to connect them on the same chart 

 with those of our author, though his assiduity in procuring geo- 

 graphical information can be equalled only by his readiness in 

 communicating it, had not, it should seem, been able to procure 

 any materials for that purpose, but such as mark the operations of 

 the first French voyage ; and even for these, he was indebted to a 

 MS. drawing. 



But this veil of unnecessary secrecy is at length drawn aside. 

 Kerguelen himself has, very lately, published the journal of his 

 proceedings in two successive voyages in the years 1772 and 1773 ; 

 and has annexed to his Narrative a chart of the coasts of this land, 

 as far as he had explored them in both voyages. Monsieur de 

 Pages also, much about the same time, favoured us with another 

 account of the second voyage, in some respects fuller than Ker- 

 guelen's own, on board whose ship he was then an officer. 



From these sources of authentic information we are enabled to 

 draw every necessary material to correct what is erroneous, and 

 to illustrate what, otherwise, would have remained obscure, in this 

 part of Captain Cook's Journal. We shall take occasion to do 

 this in separate notes on the passages as they occur, and conclude 



