VI 



INTRODUCTION. 



repeated vifits of his lliips to the Southern hemifphepc, 

 have very confiderably added to our flock o^ geographical 

 knowledge. 



I. 



The South Atlantic Ocean was the firft fcene of our ope- 

 rations. Falkland's Iflands had been hitherto barely known 

 to exift ; but their true pofition and extent, and every cir- 

 cumftancc which could render their exiftence of any con- 

 fequence, remained abfolutely undecided, till Byron vifited 

 them in 1764. And Captain Macbride, who followed him 

 thither two years after, having circumnavigated their coafts, 

 and taken a complete furvey, a chart of Falkland's Iflands has 

 been conftrucfted, with fo much accuracy, that the coafts of 

 Great Britain, itfelf, are not more authentically laid down 

 upon our maps. 



How little was really known of the iflands in the South 

 Atlantic, even fo late as the time of Lord Anfon, v/e have 

 the moft remarkable proofs, in the Fliftory of his voyage. 

 Unavoidably led into miflake, by the imperfetfl mate- 

 rials then in the poffeflion of the world, he had confldered 

 Pepys's Ifland, and Falkland Ifles, as diftincft places, diflant 

 from each other about five degrees of latitude *. Byron's 

 refearches have rectified this capital error; and it is now de- 

 cided, beyond all contradi6lion, that future navigators li-iH 

 m'lfp end their time, if they look for Pepys's Ifland in latitude 47° ; it 

 being noiv certain, that Pepys^s I/land is no other than thefe iflands 

 of Falkland f . 



* See Lord Anfon's Voyage, quarto edition, p. 91. 



t Thefe are Captain Cook's words. Preface to his Voyage, p. 14.. ; and the evi- 

 dence, on which he forms this judgment, may he met -with- in Hawkefworth's Journal 

 of Byron's Voyage, Vol, i. p. 23, 24. — 51, 52, <l, 54. 



2 Befides 



