2. The returns that are injurious to our manufactures, or growth of our own country, are printed calicoes, chintz, wrought silks, stuffs, of herbs and barks, block-tin, sugar, cotton, arrack, copper, and indigo.
3. The necessary or useful things are, pepper, saltpetre, dying-woods and dying-earths, drugs, lacs, such as shell-lac, stick-lac, &c., diamonds, some pearl, and raw-silk.
For all these we carry nothing or very little but money, the innumerable nations of the Indies, China, &c., despising our manufactures, and filling us with their own.
On the contrary, the people in the southern unknown countries, being first of all very numerous, and living in a temperate climate, which requires clothing, and having no manufactures, or materials for manufactures, of their own, would consequently take off a very great quantity of English woollen manufactures, especially when civilized by our dwelling among them, and taught the manner of clothing themselves for their ease and convenience; and, in return for these manufactures, it is evident we should have gold in specie, and perhaps spices, the best merchandise and return in the world.
I need say no more to excite adventurous heads to search out a country by which such an improvement might be made, and which would be such an increase of, or addition to, the wealth and commerce of our country.
Nor can it be objected here, that this nook of the country may not easily be found by any one but by us, who have been there before, and perhaps not by us again exactly; for, not to enter into our journal of observations for their direction, I lay it down as a foundation, that whoever sailing over the South Seas keeps a stated distance from the tropic, to the latitude of 56 to 60°, and steers eastward towards the Straits of Magellan, shall never fail to discover new worlds, new nations, and new inexhaustible funds of wealth and commerce, such as never were yet known to the merchants of Europe.
This is the true ocean called the South Sea; that part which we corruptly call so can be so in no geographical account, or by any rule, but by the mere imposition of custom, it being only originally called so, because they that sailed to it were obliged to go round the southernmost part of America to come into it; whereas it ought indeed to be called the West Sea, as it lies on the west side of America, and washes the western shore of that great continent for near eight thousand miles in length; to wit, from 56° south of the line to 70° north, and how much farther we know not; on this account I think it ought to be called the American Ocean, rather than with such impropriety the South Sea.
But this part of the world where we were may rightly be called the South Sea, by way of distinction, as it extends from India round the globe, to India again, and lies all south of the line even, for aught we know, to the very South Pole, and which, except some interposition of land, whether islands or continent, really surrounds the South Pole.
We were now in the very centre or middle of this South Sea, being, as I have said, in the latitude of 34° 20'; but having had such good success in our inquiry or search after new continents, I resolved to steer to the south and south-east, as far as till we should be interrupted by land or ice, determining to search this unknown part of the globe as far as nature would permit, that I might be able to give some account to my employers, and some light to other people that might come that way, whether by accident or by design.