APR. 1771 BOUGAINVILLE’S VOYAGE 431 
of our discoveries. Should the French have published an 
account of Mr. De Bougainville’s voyage before that of the 
second Dolphin,! how infallibly will they claim the discovery 
of Cypre, or Otahite, as their own, and treat the Dolphin’s 
having seen it as a fiction, which we are enabled to set forth 
with some show of truth, as the Endeavour really did see it, 
a twelvemonth, however, after Mr. De Bougainville. If 
England choose to assert her prior claim to it, as she may 
hereafter do if the French settle, it may be productive of 
very disagreeable consequences. 
1 4.e. the second voyage of the Dolphin, under Wallis (g.v. p. li.) No 
important discoveries were made on the Dolphin’s first voyage under Byron. 
