256 NEW ZEALAND TO AUSTRALIA CHAP, XI 
and September 1769, we met with signs of land, seaweed 
and a seal, which, though both of them are often seen at 
great distances from land, yet are not met with in open 
oceans, and we were at that time too far from the coast of 
New Zealand, and much too far from that of South America, 
to have supposed them to have come from either of these. 
The body of this land must, however, be situated in very 
high latitudes; a part of it may indeed come to the north- 
ward, within our track; but as we never saw any signs of 
land except at the time mentioned above, although I made 
it my particular business (as well as I believe did most of 
us) to look out for such, it must be prodigiously smaller in 
extent than the theoretical continent-makers have supposed 
it to be. We have by our track proved the absolute falsity 
of over three-fourths of their positions; and the remaining 
part cannot be much relied upon, but above all we have 
taken from them their finest groundwork, in proving New 
Zealand to be an island, which I believe was looked upon, 
even by the most thoughtful people, to be in all probability 
at least a part of some vast country. All this we have 
taken from them: the land seen by Juan Fernandez, the 
land seen by the Dutch squadron under L’Hermite, signs of a 
continent seen by Quiros, and the same by Roggeween, etc. 
etc., have by us been proved not to be at all related toa 
continent. As for their reasoning about the balancing of 
the two poles, which always appeared to me to be a most 
childish argument, we have already shorn off so much of 
their supposed counterbalancing land, that by their own 
account the south pole would already be too light, unless 
what we have left should be made of very ponderous 
materials. As much fault as I find with these gentlemen 
will, however, probably recoil on myself, when I, on so light 
grounds as those I have mentioned, again declare it to be 
my opinion that a southern continent exists, an opinion in 
favour of which I am strongly prepossessed. But foolish 
and weak as all prepossessions must be thought, I would not 
but declare myself so, lest I might be supposed to have 
stronger reasons which I concealed. 
