1778. THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 231 



amuse themselves in tracing the migrations of the 

 various tribes or families that have peopled the globe, 

 by the most convincing of all arguments, that drawn 

 from affinity of language. 



How shall we account for this nation's having 

 spread itself in so many detached islands, so widely 

 disjoined from each other, in every quarter of the 

 Pacific Ocean ! We find it from New Zealand in the 

 south, as far as the Sandwich Islands to the north ! 

 And in another direction, from Easter Island to the 

 Hebrides ! That is, over an extent of sixty degrees of 

 latitude or twelve hundred leagues north and south ! 

 And eighty-three degrees of longitude, or sixteen 

 hundred and sixty leagues east and west ! How 

 much farther in either direction its colonies reach 

 is not known ; but what we know already, in 

 consequence of this and our former voyage, warrants 

 our pronouncing it to be, though perhaps not the 

 most numerous, certainly, by far, the most extensive 

 nation upon earth.* 



Had the Sandwich Islands been discovered at an 

 early period by the Spaniards, there is little doubt 

 that they would have taken advantage of so excel- 

 lent a situation, and have made use of Atooi or some 

 other of the islands as a refreshing place, in the 

 ships that sail annually from Acapulco for Manilla. 

 They lie almost midway between the first place and 

 Guam one of the Ladrones, which is at present their 

 only port in traversing this vast ocean ; and it would 

 not have been a week's sail out of their common 

 route, to have touched at them, which could have 

 been done without running the least hazard of losing 

 the passage, as they are sufficiently within the verge 

 of the easterly trade-wind. An acquaintance with 

 the Sandwich Islands would have been equally fa- 

 vourable to our Buccaneers, who used sometimes to 

 pass from the coast of America to the Ladrones, 



* See more about the great extent of the colonies of this nation, 

 in the Introductory Preface. 



Q, 4 



