INTRODUCTION. 



them in the road they had firfl ventured to tread. And with 

 what fuccefs his Majefty's fhips have, in their repeated 

 voyages, penetrated into the obfeureft recefles of the South 

 Pacific Ocean, will appear fromthe following enumeration 

 of their various and very extenfive operations, which have 

 drawn up the veil that had hitherto' been thrown over the 

 geography of fo great a proportion of the globe. 



1. The feveral lands, of which any account had been 

 given, as feen by any of the preceding navigators, Spanifh 

 or Dutch, have been carefully looked for; and moft of 

 them (at leafl; fuch as feemed to be of any confequence) 

 found out and vifited ; and not vifiied in a curfory manner, 

 but every means ufed to correcft former miftakes, and to 

 I'upply former deficiencies, by making accurate inquiries 

 afhore, and taking ikilful furveys of their coafts, by failing 

 round them. Who has not heard, or read, of the boafled 

 Tierra Aujlralla del Ejpiritu Santo of Quiros ? But its bold pre- 

 tenfions to be a part of a Southern continent, could not 

 ftand Captain Cook's examination, who failed round it, 

 and afligned it its true pofition and moderate bounds, in the 

 Archipelago of the New Hehrides *» 



2. Befides perfecting many of the- difcoveries of theic 

 predecefTors, our late navigators have enriched geo- 

 graphical knowledge with a long catalogue of theit 

 own. The. Pacific Ocean, within the South tropic, re- 

 peatedly traverfed, in every direcftion, was found to 



■fwarm with a feemingly endlefs profufion of habitable 

 fpots of land. IHands fcatteced through theiamazing fpace 



* Bougainville, in 1768, didno more than difcover that the land here was not con- 

 nefled, but compofed of iflands. Captain Cook, in 1774, explored the whole group* 

 See Cook's Voyage, Vol. ii. p. 96. . 



XUl 



