PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
9 
known to him, has attached to these islands the names given to 
them by Marchand: he has had the liberality, however, to admit 
that they had been first discovered by the Americans; but notwith¬ 
standing this acknowledgment, he cannot devest himself of na¬ 
tional prejudice so far as to allow to them the names given by our 
countrymen. These substitutions (as Fleurien justly remarks) 
cannot but create confusion in the nomenclature of Geography, 
and, in the sequel give birth to uncertainties and doubts respect¬ 
ing the periods of discoveries. Fleurien in the discovery of this 
group claims for the French priority of the British, and in the 
discussion looses sight of any claim of ours: perhaps he has not 
considered us as rivals worthy of either of the great nations, and 
has attached to us no more merit than he would have given to one 
of the natives for being born there. The whole merit of a naviga¬ 
tor, he says, consists in finding what he seeks for, not in accidental 
discoveries: if so, where is the merit of captain Marchand’s find¬ 
ing this group, if he was previously ignorant of their existence. 
Yet monsieur Fluerien makes this discovery one of the most con¬ 
spicuous features of Marchand’s voyage, and exults no little that 
they should have been seen by a citizen of France, before they 
had been visited by a servant of the British government. Histo¬ 
ry and Geography willhotvever do justice to the discovery of Mr. 
Ingraham, and whatever names may be given to them by English 
or French partizans, posterity will know them only as Washing¬ 
ton’s Group. 
After this digression, which I have been led into from a sense 
of duty and justice to my countrymen, I shall proceed in my nar¬ 
rative. 
On the morning of the 24th, discovered tire island of Rooa- 
hooga (so called by the natives, but by us Adams’ Island) one 
of the Washington Group. Its aspect, on first making it, was little 
better than the barren and desolate islands we had been so long 
among; but on our nearer approach the fertile valleys, whose beau¬ 
ties were heightened by the pleasant streams and clusters of hou¬ 
ses, and intervened by groups of the natives on the hills inviting 
us to land, produced a contrast much to the advantage of the 
islands we w r ere now about visiting—indeed the extreme fertility 
of the soil, as it appeared to us after rounding the S.E. point of 
