ost famous explorer
of his age.

The following is Smith's letter:--

MY LORD--I send you enclosed Quiros's memorial, presented to
Philip the Second after his return from his voyage,
translated from the Spanish in which it is published in
Purchass. The voyage itself is long, obscure, and difficult
to be understood, except by those who are particularly
acquainted with the geography and navigation of those
countries, and upon looking over a great number of
Dalrymple's papers I imagined this was what you would like
best to see. He is besides just finishing a geographical
account of all the discoveries that have yet been made in
the South Seas from the west coast of America to Tasman's
discoveries. If your lordship will give him leave, he would
be glad to read this to you himself, and show you on his map
the geographical ascertainment of the situation of each
island. I have seen it; it is extremely short; not much
longer than this memorial of Quiros. Whether this may be
convenient for your lordship I know not; whether this
continent exists or not may perhaps be uncertain; but
supposing it does exist, I am very certain you never will
find a man fitter for discovering it, or more determined to
hazard everything in order to discover it. The terms that he
would ask are, first, the absolute command of the ship, with
the naming of all the officers, in order that he may have
people who both have confidence in him and in whom he has
confidence; and secondly, that in case he should lose his
ship by the common course of accidents before he gets into
the South Sea, that the Government will undertake to give
him another. These are all the terms he would insist upon.
The ship properest for such an expedition, he says, would be
an old fifty-gun ship without her guns. He does not,
however, insist upon this, as a _sine qua non_, but will go
in any ship from an hundred to a thousand tons. He wishes to
have but one ship with a good many boats. Most expeditions
of this kind have miscarried from one ship's being obliged
to wait for the other, or losing time in looking out for the
other.

Within these two days I have looked over everything I can
find relating to the Roman Colonys. I have not yet found
anything of much consequence. They were govern