VI 
INTRODUCTION. 
« 
have very confiderably added to our Rock of geographical 
knowledge. 
I. 
The South Atlantic Ocean was the firft fcene of our ope¬ 
rations. Falkland’s Illands had been hitherto barely known 
to exift; but their true petition and extent, and *every cir- 
cumftance which could render their exiftence of any con- 
fequence, remained abfolutely undecided, till Byron vilited 
them in 1764. And Captain Macbride, who followed him 
thither two years after, having circumnavigated their coafts, 
and taken a complete Purvey, a chart of Falkland’s Illands 
has been conftrudted, with fo much accuracy, that the coafts 
of Great Britain, itfelf, are not more authentically laid down 
upon our maps. 
How little was really known of the illands in the South 
Atlantic, even fo late as the time of Lord Anfon, we have 
the moft remarkable proofs, in the Hiftory of his voyage. 
Unavoidably led into miftake, by the imperfedt materials 
then in the poffeffion of the world, he had conlidered Pe- 
pys’s Illand, and Falkland Illes, as diftineft places, diftant 
from each other about five degrees of latitude *. Byron’s 
refearches have rectified this capital error; and it is now 
decided, beyond all contradidtion, that future navigators 
will mifpend their time, if they look for Pepys's IJland in lati¬ 
tude 47 0 ; it being now certain , that- Pepys's IJland is no other 
than thefe ijlands of Falkland!. 
Belides the determination of this conliderable point, other 
* See Lord Anfon’s Voyage, quarto edition, p. 91. 
■f Thefe are Captain Cook’s words. Preface to his Voyage , p. 14.; and the evidence, 
on which he forms this judgment, may be met with in Hawkefwerth’s Journal of Byron’s 
Voyage, Vol. i. p. 23, 24—51, 52, 53, 54. 
lands. 
