Xii INTRODUCTION. 
the name of the New Carolines ; but as the Miffionariesy 
who had unqueftionably been well informed of the poverty 
and nakednefs of them, apprehended that they were never 
likely to become an objedl worthy of the attention of the 
Spanijb monarchy, they were therefore, nearly from this pe¬ 
riod, neglefted; and even to this day little more is known of 
them, than that they occupy a certain fpace on the furface of 
the globe.—-But the Fifth division of them, far difbant from 
the reft, and inhabited by people who were branded with 
the imputation of being inhuman , favage, and enemies of 
mankind^ were, in confequenee, never fince enquired after; 
and, though laid down in fome late charts, under their ori¬ 
ginal Spani/h appellation of the Palos iflands, have con¬ 
tinued till now in total obfcurity.—They have, it is true, 
been feen, at different times, by fhips making the Eaflern 
palfage to and from China againft the monfoons ; yet no one 
appears to have ever landed there, or to have had any inter- 
courfe with the inhabitants ; nor have they lain in the track 
of any of the circumnavigators; Captain Carteret, in his 
courfe, approached them the neareft. 
From the above obfervations, and the great aflonifh- 
ment which the natives of Pelew difcovered on feeing white 
people , it feems beyond a doubt that the crew of the An¬ 
telope were the firft Europeans who had ever landed on 
thefe iflands; and it feems equally certain, that their neareff 
neighbours in the adjoining Archipelago knew nothing of 
them.—I therefore feel fome fatisfa< 5 tion in being the inftru- 
ment 
