xxxvi 



PREFACE. 



blame. The conduct of Captain Porter has been 

 exhibited to the world, as having no justification 

 whatever, either in the exigencies of his own situa- 

 tion, or the example of preceding navigators. Jus- 

 tice to himself, regard to the interests of that service 

 to which he considers it his highest honour to be- 

 long, demand that the author should test the claims 

 of those who have been arrayed against him with a 

 view to wound his own feelings, and the reputation 

 of his country. 



There is no man whose claims as a discoverer have 

 been so extravagantly overrated as those of Captain 

 Cook. Second only to Columbus, the discoverer of 

 a world, he stands in the boastful and deceptive 

 annals of his country, an example ol science, skill, 

 enterprise, patience, perseverance, justice, and hu- 

 manity ; and were the great majority of Americans 

 or English to be asked, who it v^'as that outstripped 

 all others except Columbus, in the extent and vari- 

 ety of his discoveries, they would answer, without 

 hesitation, captain James Cook. This widely ex- 

 tended delusion is one e^mong the many proofs of the 

 facility with which unblushing arrogance, and un- 

 bounded pretension can impose upon the credulity of 

 the mass of mankind. Nothing is more certain, and 

 the fact shall be demonstrated by authorities so vari- 

 ous as not to admit of a doubt, than that if we allow 

 to the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the 

 French, and the Russians, what really belongs to them, 

 there will remain nothing to captain Cook, but the 

 merit of having sought and found those Islands and 

 countries claimed bj himself and his admirers as his 

 own discoveries, by merely following the track, and 

 pursuing the directions of preceding navigators. Qui- 

 ros, Mendanci, Schouten, Tasman, Le Maire, Bou- 

 gainville, Bhering, and others, preceded him every 

 where in his course, and removed all doubts and 



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