XU 
INTRODUCTION. 
“ In this country, the worship of the Almighty is the profession of 
all. We poor creatures are in nothing equal to you. Having, how¬ 
ever, a few things in hand, I send them to you as tokens of remem¬ 
brance, and hope for your acceptance of them.” 
This letter appears to have been laid before the Council on the same 
day that it was received : they yielded, without hesitation, to the 
intercession of the Lama, and consented to a peace with the Booteeas, 
upon the easy terms of replacing the dominion of each government, 
within its former boundaries. The Governor himself more readily 
embraced the opportunity, which he thought this occurrence afforded, 
of extending the British connexion to a quarter of the world, with 
which we had hitherto no intercourse, and of opening new sources of 
commerce, of which our provinces stood greatly in need, to replace 
the vast drains which were annually made of their wealth and manu¬ 
factures, in supplying the wants of our other establishments, and the 
commercial investments of the Company. What specific articles of 
trade might be drawn from the northern countries, or what physical 
or political accommodations, or difficulties, might be found to promote 
or obstruct it, were even beyond conjecture; but under such circum¬ 
stances, it seemed an object of much curiosity, well deserving the 
attention of government, to explore an unknown region, for the pur¬ 
pose of discovering, in the first instance, what was the nature of its 
productions; as it would afterwards be, when that knowledge was 
