V 
M 
INTRODUCTION. 
conikleration, to give full fatisfaCtion to thofe who poffefs 
an enlarged way of thinking, that a variety of ufeful pur- 
poies muft have been effected by thefe refearches. But 
there are others, no doubt, who, too diffident of their own 
abilities, or too indolent to exert them, would wiffi to have 
their reflections afiifted, by pointing out what thofe ufeful 
purpofes are. For the fervice of fuch, the following enu¬ 
meration of particulars is entered upon. And if there 
lhould be any, who affecft to undervalue the plan or the 
execution of our voyages, what fhall now be offered, if it 
do not convince them, may, at leaft, check the influence of 
their unfavourable deciflon. 
i. It may be fairly conlidered, as one great advantage 
accruing to the world from our late furveys of the globe, 
that they have confuted fanciful theories, too likely to give 
birth to impracticable undertakings. 
After Captain Cook’s perfevering and fruitlefs traverfes 
through every corner of the Southern hemifphere, who, for 
the future, will pay any attention to the ingenious reveries of 
Campbell, de Broffes, and de Bufton ? or hope to eftablilh an 
intercourle with fuch a continent as Maupertuis’s fruitful 
imagination had pictured ? A continent equal, at leaft, in ex¬ 
tent, to all the civilized countries in the known Northern 
hemifphere, where new men, new animals, new productions 
of every kind, might be brought forward to our view, and 
difcoveries be made, which would open inexhauftible trea- 
fures of commerce *. We can now boldly take it upon us 
•* See Maupertuis’s Letter to the King of Pruilia. The author of the Preliminary 
Difcourfe to Bougainville’s Voyage aux JJles Malouines ., computes that the Southern con¬ 
tinent (for the exigence of which, he owns, we muft depend more on the conjectures of 
philofophers, than on the teftimony of voyagers) contains eight or ten millions of fquare 
leagues. 
to 
