Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
CAPTAIN COOK IN NEW SOUTH WALES
This being the age of criticism, and not the time of taking for granted as a fact whatever one had heard from book or speech, an investigation of the story of Cook's Discovery of New South Wales may neither be unwelcome nor unexpected.
The story must have been deemed of consequence, when the Admiralty was willing to pay Dr. Hawkesworth six thousand guineas, or pounds, as reported, to write the account of that voyage in H.M.S. Endeavour.
Though even after its appearance some doubts were expressed as to its propriety, or even veracity, yet some allowance was made for professional jealousies, as well as for the paucity of information upon Australian matters, and the want of means either to substantiate or reject the assertions of the writer.
Objection was taken to the literary mode adopted. The author chose to make the narrative in the form of a personal record of events. The Captain was represented as speaking of himself, saying, "I saw," or "I did," &c. It was asserted by critics that to accomplish this personal mode of narration, there would necessarily arise some difficulties in the rearrangement of his sources of history. Was there not a little temptation in the adoption of that plan to alter, repress, or exaggerate facts, or even to invent trivial matters for accommodation?