Except some discoveries on the western and northern coasts of New Holland, no important voyage to the Pacific Ocean was undertaken till 1642, when Captain Tasman sailed from Batavia, with two ships belonging to the Dutch East India Company, and discovered Van Diemen’s Land;—a small part of the western coast of New Zealand;—the Friendly Isles;—and those called Prince William’s.
Thus far I have thought it best not to interrupt the progress of discovery in the South Pacific Ocean, otherwise I should before have mentioned, that Sir Richard Hawkins in 1594, being about fifty leagues to the eastward of the river Plate, was driven by a storm to the eastward of his intended course, and when the weather grew moderate, steering towards the Straits of Magalhaens, he unexpectedly fell in with land; about sixty leagues of which he coasted, and has very particularly described. This he named Hawkins’s Maiden Land, in honour of his royal mistress, Queen Elizabeth, and says it lies some threescore leagues from the nearest part of South America.
This land was afterwards discovered to be two large islands by Captain John Strong, of the Farewell, from London, who, in 1689, passed through the Strait which divides the eastern from the western of those islands. To this Strait he gave the name of Falkland’s Sound, in honour of his patron, Lord Falkland; and the name has since been extended, through inadvertency, to the two islands it separates.
Having mentioned these islands, I will add, that future navigators will mispend their time, if they look for Pepys’s island in 47° South; it being now certain, that Pepys’s island is no other than these islands of Falkland.
In April, 1675, Anthony la Roche, an English merchant, in his return from the South Pacific Ocean, where he had been on a trading voyage, being carried, by the winds and currents, far to the East of Strait La Maire, fell in with a coast, which may possibly be the same with that which I visited during this voyage, and have called the Island of Georgia.
Leaving this land, and sailing to the north, La Roche, in the latitude of 45° South, discovered a large island, with a good port, towards the eastern part, where he found wood, water, and fish.
In 1699, that celebrated astronomer Dr. Edmund Halley was appointed to the command of his Majesty’s ship the Paramour Pink, on an expedition for improving the knowledge of the longitude, and of the variation of the compass; and for discovering the unknown lands supposed to lie in the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean. In this voyage he determined the longitude of several places; and after his return, constructed his Variation Chart, and proposed a method of observing the longitude at sea, by means of the appulses, and occultations of the fixed stars. But, though he so successfully attended to the two first articles of his instructions, he did not find any unknown southern land.
The Dutch, in 1721, fitted out three ships to make discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean, under the command of Admiral Roggewein. He left the Texel on the 21st of August, and arriving in that ocean, by going round Cape Horn, discovered Easter island; probably seen before, though not visited by Davis[[1]];—then, between 14° 41ʹ and 15° 47ʹ South latitude, and between the longitude of 142° and 150° West, fell in with several other islands, which I take to be some of those seen by the late English navigators.—He next discovered two islands in latitude 15° South, longitude 170° West, which he called Baumen’s islands;—and, lastly, Single island, in latitude 13° 41ʹ South, longitude 171° 30ʹ West.—These three islands are, undoubtedly, the same that Bougainville calls the Isles of Navigators.
In 1738, the French East India Company sent Lozier Bouvet with two ships, the Eagle and Mary, to make discoveries in the South Atlantic Ocean. He sailed from Port L’Orient on the 19th of July, in that year; touched at the island of St. Catharine; and from thence shaped his course towards the S. E.
On the 1st of January, 1739, he discovered land, or what he judged to be land, in the latitude 54° South, longitude 11° East. It will appear in the course of the following narrative, that we made several attempts to find this land without success. It is, therefore, very probable, that what Bouvet saw was nothing more than a large ice-island. From hence he stood to the East, in 51° of latitude, to 35° of East longitude: after which the two ships separated; one going to the island of Mauritius, and the other returning to France.