True
Cause of Cook's Murder in Hawaii told by Ledyard--Russia becomes
Jealous of his Explorations

It seems impossible that after all his arduous labors and death, to
prove his convictions, Bering's conclusions should have been rejected
by the world of learning. Surely his coasting westward, southwestward,
abreast the long arm of Alaska's peninsula for a thousand miles, should
have proved that no open sea--no Northeast Passage--was here, between
Asia and America. But no! the world of learning said fog had obscured
Bering's observations. What he took for the mainland of America had
been only a chain of islands. Northward of those islands was open sea
between Asia and Europe, which might afford direct passage between East
and West without circumnavigating the globe. In fact, said Dr.
Campbell, {173} one of the most learned English writers of the day,
"Nothing is plainer than that his (Bering's) discovery does not warrant
any such supposition as that he touched the great continent making part
of North America."

The moonshine of the learned men in France and Russia was even wilder.
They had definitely proved, _even if there were no Gamaland_--as
Bering's voyage had shown--then there must be a southern continent
somewhere, to keep the balance between the northern and southern
hemispheres; else the world would turn upside down. And there must
also be an ocean between northern Europe and northern Asia, else the
world would be top-heavy and turn upside down. It was an age when the
world accepted creeds for piety, and learned moonshine instead of
scientific data; when, in a word, men refused to bow to fact!

All sorts of wild rumors were current. There was a vast continent in
the south. There was a vast sea in the north. Somewhere was the New
Albion, which Francis Drake had found north of New Spain. Just north
of the Spanish possessions in America was a wide inlet leading straight
through from the Pacific to the Atlantic, which an old Greek
pilot--named Juan de Fuca--said he had traversed for the viceroy of New
Spain.

Even stolid-going England was infected by the rage for imaginary oceans
and continents. The Hudson's Bay Fur Company was threatened with a
withdrawal {174} of its charter because it had failed to find a
Northwest Passage from Atlantic to Pacific. Only four years after the
death of Bering, an act of Parliament offered a reward of twenty
thousand pounds to the officers and crew of any ships dis