P KEF ACE. 



xxxix 



discoveries which the world seems almost to have 

 forgotten, but of which there still remain sufficient 

 proofs. This celebrated navigator appears indeed 

 to have traversed the ocean, appropriati ng to him- 

 self almost every thing that fell in his way ; naming 

 the discoveries of others, as suhed his inten st or 

 his caprice; taking formal possession of countries, 

 not only claimed by other European p( wers, but 

 inhabited by numerous nations, among hom he 

 hardly ventured to trust his people, and decking 

 himself with the spoils of ages. That Cook was 

 a bold and skilful seaman, no one will deny : but he 

 who seeks in his history for higher claims to dis- 

 tinction, will seek in vain, provided he divests 

 himself of a subserviency to early impressions, 

 derived from books calculated and intended to 

 deceive.* 



The author has been bitterly stigmatized by the 

 Reviewer, for the voluptuous descriptions given by 

 him of the beauty of the women of Madison's 

 Island ; the free intercourse permitted between 

 them and his sailors; aid, above all, with wan- 

 ton cruelty towards the inhabitants of the Ty- 

 pee valley. These charges have been made by a 

 British Reviewer ; and the author, in order at least 

 to palHate, if not justify, his language and conduct, 

 will resort to the example of those very navigators, 

 who have been held up by him, as objects of 

 respect and veneration throughout the civiHzed 

 world. The following is the passage in the Review 

 relating to the women of the Island : 



" On their arrival off Rooahooga island, the Riou of the 

 the English, and Jeflferson of Captain Porter, a few natives^ 

 who came off in a canoe, invited them to the shore, assuring 

 them, ' by the most expressive gesticulations, that the va- 



* See Dalrymple on the Spanish Discoveries before 1595, p. 40, kc. 



