ADDRESS. 19 



however, can claim the high distinction of a rank second only to 

 Columbus, since he performed that which, though often attempted, 

 had never been accomplished. 



When the particulars of this voyage became known, they pro- 

 duced, as was naturally to have been expected, much excitement 

 among the commercial nations of Europe, who were disposed to 

 look upon it as conferring a common benefit; while the jealous 

 and narrowminded court of Seville, wished to retain this new 

 route to the Moluccas as an acquisition exclusively its own. But 

 the maritime spirit was too thoroughly awakened among its rivals 

 to be repressed by any cunning devices of a jealous policy, or the 

 use of military force. The Hollanders soon doubled Cape Horn, 

 and the extent of the new world in the Southern Hemisphere, 

 with a number of its accessory islands, was accurately ascertained. 



England rose like a sleeping leviathan from the depths of the 

 ocean, and after many struggles, became undisputed mistress of 

 the seas. In her long and hard contested endeavours to obtain 

 the mastery on the deep with Spain, Portugal, Holland, and 

 France, the science of navigation and ship-building received its 

 greatest improvements ; and the knowledge of ports, islands, 

 rocks, and shoals, which was acquired for the furtherance of 

 mutual destruction, became invaluable on the return of peace, in 

 the prosecution of commerce and the arts of peace. 



The more recent voyagers have not had before them the same 

 wide field for adventure, but they have not gained the less honour, 

 for they carried with them more science and more humanity. 

 The names of Cook, Byron, Wallis, Vancouver, Bligh, Flinders, 

 and the lamented La Perouse, are entwined with the earliest 

 associations of our youth ; and their contributions to our knowl 

 edge of the islands of the Pacific and their " dusky tribes," are 

 various and invaluable. It was at this period when war, with all 

 its desolating effects, was raging between France and England, 

 that each of these countries sent out an expedition, whose sole 



