TO THE

KIN G.

SIR,

A

FTER the great improvements that have been made in Navigation fince the discovery of America, it may well be thought ftrange that a very confiderable part of the globe on which we live fhould ftill have remained unknown; that it fhould ftill have been the subject of fpeculation, whether a great portion of the Southern Hemifphere is land or water; and, even where land had been discovered, that neither its extent nor figure should A 2 have

TRANSFER FROM C. O. MAY

have been ascertained. But the cause has probably been, that fovereign Princes have feldom any other motive fór attempting the difcovery of new countries than to conquer them, that the advantages of conquering countries which muft first be difcovered are remote and uncertain, and that ambition has always found objects nearer home.

It is the diftinguishing characteristic of Your Majefty to act from more liberal motives; and having the best fleet, and the bravest as well as most able navigators in Europe, Your Majesty has, not with a view to the acquifition of treafure, or the extent of dominion, but the improvement of commerce and the increase and diffufion of knowledge, undertaken what has fo long been neglected; and under Your Majefty's aufpices, in little more than feven years, difcoveries have been made far greater than those

of

of all the navigators in the world collectively from the expedition of Columbus to the present time.

To have been appointed to record them, and permitted to infcribe the Narrative to Your Majefty, is an honour, the sense of which will always be retained with the warmeft gratitude, by

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