FOR THE SOUTH LAND 
4i 
tinent, no conjecture can be well-grounded, being in a 
manner all undiscovered, except some small quillets on 
the borders of it; by which if we may judge of all the 
rest, we shall almost give the same judgment as of the 
other. The want of discovery in this age of ours wherein 
navigation hath beene perfected and cherished, is no small 
argument to prove it inferiour in commodities to other 
places : Neither had the slacknesse of the Spaniard given 
that occasion of complaint to Ferdinand de Quir , the late 
discoverer of some of these parts, had not the Spanish 
king thought such an expedition either altogether fruit- 
lesse or to little purpose. For who knowes not the Span- 
iard to bee a nation as covetous of richesse as ambitious 
to pursue forrane Soveraignty: as such who will more 
willingly expose the lives of their owne subjects, then 
loose the least title over other Countreys.” 
Halley, the English Astronomer Royal, had spent the 
whole year 1676 on St. Helena making systematic 
magnetic observations with a view to completing his 
theory of terrestrial magnetism which was published in 
the Philosophical Transactions in 1693. The theory met 
with keen opposition, and feeling the need of additional 
data to support his views, Halley applied to the govern- 
ment for the means of extending his observations farther 
into the Southern Hemisphere. This was granted, and 
the astronomer, invested with a captain’s commission, 
was placed in command of H. M. S. The Paramour Pink 
in 1699, with instructions to study the variation of the 
magnetic needle in different latitudes and to discover 
any of the new lands supposed to exist in the South At- 
lantic. The first purely scientific expedition by sea under 
the British or any other flag was in some ways unfor- 
tunate. 
