INTRODUCTION. 
lxxv 
doubt from the mind of the moll fcrupulous inquirer after 
truth. 
There are other doubts of a more important kind, which, 
it may be hoped, will now no longer perplex the ignorant, 
or fumilh matter of cavil to the ill-intentioned. After the 
great difcovery, or at leall the full confirmation of the great 
difcovery, of the vicinity of the two continents of Alia and 
America, we trull that we lhall not, for the future, be ridi¬ 
culed, for believing that the former could ealily furnifh its 
inhabitants to the latter. And thus, to all the various good 
purpofes already enumerated, as anfwered by our late voy¬ 
ages, we may add this lall, though not the leall important, 
that they have done fervice to religion, by robbing infide¬ 
lity of a favourite obje6tion to the credibility of the Mofaic 
account of the peopling of the earth*. 
6 . Hitherto we have confidered our voyages as having be¬ 
nefited the difcover ers. But it will be alked, Have they con¬ 
veyed, or are they likely ever to convey, any benefit to the 
difcovered ? It would afford exquifite fatis faction to every 
benevolent mind, to be inllru6led in fa£ts, which might 
enable us, without hefitation, to anfwer this queltion in the 
affirmative. And yet, perhaps, we may indulge the pleaf- 
ing hope, that, even in this refpetfl, our fhips have not 
* A contempt of Revelation is generally the refult of ignorance, conceited of its pof- 
feffing fuperior knowledge. Obferve how the Author of Recherches Philofophiques fur let 
Americains , exprefles himfelf on this very point. « Cette diftance que Mr. Antermony 
« veut trouver fi peu importante, eft a-peu-pres de huh cent lieues Gauloifes au trovers d'un 
« ocean perilleux , et impoflible a franchir avec des canots auffi chetifs et auffi fragiles que 
« le font, au rapport d’Yfbrand Ides, les chaloupes des Tungufes,” &c. &c. T. i. 
p. 156. Had this writer known that the two continents are not above thirteen leagues 
"(inftead of eight hundred) diftant from each other, and that, even in that narrow fpace of 
fea, there are intervening iflands, he would not have ventured to urge this argument in 
oppofition to Mr. Bell s notion of the quarter from which North America received its 
original inhabitants. 
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