n to the ingenious reveries of Campbell, de Brosses, and de
Buffon? or hope to establish an intercourse with such a continent as
Manpertuis's fruitful imagination had pictured? A continent equal, at
least, in extent, to all the civilized countries in the known northern
hemisphere, where new men, new animals, new productions of every kind,
might be brought forward to our view, and discoveries be made, which
would open inexhaustible treasures of commerce?[48] We can now boldly
take it upon us to discourage all expeditions, formed on such reasonings
of speculative philosophers, into a quarter of the globe, where our
persevering English navigator, instead of this promised fairy land,
found nothing but barren rocks, scarcely affording shelter to penguins
and seals; and dreary seas, and mountains of ice, occupying the immense
space allotted to imaginary paradises, and the only treasures there to
be discovered, to reward the toil, and to compensate the dangers, of the
unavailing search.

[Footnote 48: See Maupertuis's Letter to the King of Prussia. The author
of the Preliminary Discourse to Bougainville's _Voyage aux Isles
Malouines_, computes that the southern continent (for the existence of
which, he owns, we must depend more on the conjectures of philosophers,
than on the testimony of voyagers) contains eight or ten millions of
square leagues.--D.]

Or, if we carry our reflections into the northern hemisphere, could Mr
Dobbs have made a single convert, much less could he have been the
successful solicitor of two different expeditions, and have met with
encouragement from the legislature, with regard to his favourite passage
through Hudson's Bay, if Captain Christopher had previously explored its
coasts, and if Mr Hearne had walked over the immense continent behind
it? Whether, after Captain Cook's and Captain Clerke's discoveries on
the west side of America, and their report of the state of Beering's
Strait, there can be sufficient encouragement to make future attempts to
penetrate into the Pacific Ocean in any northern direction, is a
question, for the decision of which the public will be indebted to this
work.

2. But our voyages will benefit the world, not only by discouraging
future unprofitable searches, but also by lessening the dangers and
distresses formerly experienced in those seas, which are within the line
of commerce and navigation, now actually subsisting. In how many
instances have the mistakes of former n