f human argument in its favour, and rest entirely on divine
evidence, for both the painful and the comfortable effects it produces
on their consciences. Any other, they are sure, may indeed furnish
matter for the display of ingenuity and learning, but will fall short of
that conviction which secures self-denied obedience to its
precepts.--E.]

6. Hitherto we have considered our voyages as having benefited the
_discoverers_. But it will be asked, Have they conveyed, or are they
likely ever to convey, any benefit to the _discovered_? It would afford
exquisite satisfaction to every benevolent mind, to be instructed in
facts, which might enable us, without hesitation, to answer this
question in the affirmative. And yet, perhaps, we may indulge
the pleasing hope, that, even in this respect, our ships have not sailed
in vain. Other discoveries of new countries have, in effect, been wars,
or rather massacres; nations have been no sooner found out, than they
have been extirpated; and the horrid cruelties of the conquerors of
Mexico and Peru can never be remembered, without blushing for religion
and human nature. But when the recesses of the globe are investigated,
not to enlarge private dominion, but to promote general knowledge; when
we visit new tribes of our fellow-creatures as friends; and wish only to
learn that they exist, in order to bring them within the pale of the
offices of humanity, and to relieve the wants of their imperfect state
of society, by communicating to them our superior attainments; voyages
of discovery planned with such benevolent views by George the Third, and
executed by Cook, have not, we trust, totally failed in this respect.
Our repeated visits, and long-continued intercourse with the natives of
the Friendly, Society, and Sandwich Islands, cannot but have darted some
rays of light on the infant minds of those poor people. The uncommon
objects they have thus had opportunities of observing and admiring, will
naturally tend to enlarge their stock of ideas, and to furnish new
materials for the exercise of their reason. Comparing themselves with
their visitors, they cannot but be struck with the deepest conviction
of their own inferiority, and be impelled, by the strongest motives, to
strive to emerge from it, and to rise nearer to a level with those
children of the Sun, who deigned to look upon them, and left behind so
many specimens of their generous and humane attention. The very
introduction of our u