tions, and unruly behaviour of the English
sailors, but purely from the want of prudence, and right management,
and, in short, from the want of experience and capacity of such as
are entrusted with the command of them; an expedition, in a word, that
puts it beyond all doubt that the British nation is, at this day,
as capable of undertaking as great things, and of performing them as
successfully, as ever were done by their ancestors; and, consequently,
an expedition that must convince not only us, but all Europe, that
if our maritime force be not employed in undertakings of the most
important nature, it is not owing to the degeneracy or our seamen, nor
to be imputed to our want of able or daring commanders, which is not
my business, and which indeed surpasses my abilities, to discover.

"We are now to close this general subject of circumnavigations, which
relates to the whole world. It is true, that all the circumnavigators
did not propose, and that several of them did not make, any
discoveries; yet all their voyages are of great, though not of equal
importance, down to this last. For, by comparing that by Magellan,
which was the first, with this by Mr Anson, we shall find them to
differ in many respects, especially in the conclusion; that by Mr
Anson being by far the longer of the two. Some of them, also, took
quite a different route from others. As, for instance, Le Maire and
Roggewein, who never ran at all into the northern latitudes, but
sailed directly through the South Seas to the coast of New Guinea, and
thence to the island of Java; which is a much shorter course than
by way of California to the Philippines. From hence it very clearly
appears, that the passage to the East Indies by the South Seas is
shorter than that by the Cape of Good Hope;[3] of which the reader
will be convinced by considering the following particulars. Captain
Woods Rogers, in the Duke, sailed From the coast of Ireland and
doubled Cape Horn in four months; and Le Maire sailed from Juan
Fernandez to New Guinea and the Moluccas in three months; so that this
voyage takes up but seven months in the whole; whereas the Dutch, when
the chief emporium of their eastern commerce was fixed at Amboina,
thought it a good passage thither from Holland, if performed in ten or
eleven months.[4] It is from these stupendous voyages, that not only
the greatest discoveries have been made in general geography, but
from which all future discoveries must be expecte