“The agents of the company shall not sail beyond the southernmost parts of Terra del Fuego, except through the Straits of Magellan, or round Terra del Fuego; nor go from thence to any part of the East Indies, nor return to Great Britain, or any port or place, unless through the said straits, or by Terra del Fuego: nor shall they trade in East India goods, or in any places within the limits granted to the united company of merchants of England trading to East India (such India goods excepted as shall be actually exported from Great Britain, and also such gold, silver, wrought plate, and other goods and commodities, which are the produce, growth, or manufactures of the West Indies, or continent of America): neither shall they send ships, or use them or any vessel, within the South Seas, from Terra del Fuego to the northernmost parts of America, above three hundred leagues to the westward of, and distant from the land of Chili, Peru, Mexico, California, or any other the lands or shores of Southern or Northern America, between Terra del Fuego and the northernmost part of America, on pain of the forfeiture of the ships and goods; one-third to the crown, and the other two-thirds to the East India Company.”
But the reader will observe that I mentioned the East India and African Companies before; and that I now mention the South Sea Company, on a supposition that the two former may refuse it. In that case, I presume, the legislature will make the same distinction that the States of Holland did, and not suffer the private advantage of any particular company to stand in competition with the good of a whole people. It was upon this principle that I laid it down as a thing certain, that the African company would be allowed to settle the island of Madagascar, though it lies within the limits of the East India Company’s charter, in case it should be found necessary for the better carrying on of this trade. It is upon the same principle I say this southern continent lies within the intention of the South Sea Company’s charter, because, I presume, the intent of that charter was to grant them all the commerce in those seas, not occupied before by British subjects; for, if it were otherwise, what a condition should we be in as a maritime power? If a grant does not oblige a company to carry on a trade within the limits granted to that company, and is, at the same time, of force to preclude all the subjects of this nation from the right they before had to carry on a trade within those limits, such a law is plainly destructive to the nation’s interest and to commerce in general. I therefore suppose, that, if the South Sea Company should think proper to revive their trade in the manner I propose, this proviso would be explained by Parliament to mean no more than excluding the South Sea Company from settling or trading in or to any place at present settled in or traded to by the East India Company: for, as this interpretation would secure the just rights of both companies, and, at the same time reconcile the laws for establishing them to the general interest of trade and the nation, there is the greatest reason to believe this to be the intention of the legislature. I have been obliged to insist fully upon this matter, because it is a point hitherto untouched, and a point of such high importance, that, unless it be understood according to my sense of the matter, there is an end of all hopes of extending our trade on this side, which is perhaps the only side on which there is the least probability that it ever can be extended; for, as to the north-west passage into the South Seas, that seems to be blocked up by the rights of another company; so that, according to the letter of our laws, each company is to have its rights, and the nation in general no right at all.
If, therefore, the settling of this part of Terra Australis should devolve on the South Sea Company, by way of equivalent for the loss of their Assiento contract, there is no sort of question but it might be as well performed by them as by any other, and the trade carried on without interfering with that which is at present carried on, either by the East India or African Companies. It would indeed, in this case, be absolutely necessary to settle Juan Fernandez, the settlement of which place, under the direction of that company, if they could, as very probably they might, fall into some share of the slave-trade from New Guinea, must prove wonderfully advantageous, considering the opportunity they would have of vending those slaves to the Spaniards in Chili and Peru. The settling of this island ought to be performed at once, and with a competent force, since, without doubt, the Spaniards would leave no means unattempted to dispossess them: yet, if a good fortification was once raised, the passes properly retrenched, and a garrison left there of between three and five hundred men, it would be simply impossible for the Spaniards to force them out of it before the arrival of another squadron from hence. Neither do I see any reason why, in the space of a very few years, the plantation of this island should not prove of as great consequence to the South Sea Company as that of Curacao to the Dutch West India Company, who raise no less than sixty thousand florins per annum for licensing ships to trade there.
From Juan Fernandez to Van Diemen’s Land is not above two months’ sail; and a voyage for discovery might be very conveniently made between the time that a squadron returned from Juan Fernandez, and another squadron’s arrival there from hence. It is true that, if once a considerable settlement was made in the most southern part of Terra Australis, the company might then fall into a large commerce in the most valuable East India goods, very probably gold, and spices of all sorts: yet I cannot think that even these would fall within the exclusive proviso of their charter; for that was certainly intended to hinder their trading in such goods as are brought hither by our East India Company; and I must confess I see no difference, with respect to the interest of that company, between our having cloves, cinnamon, and mace, by the South Sea Company’s ships from Juan Fernandez, and our receiving them from Holland, after the Dutch East India Company’s ships have brought them thither by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. Sure I am they would come to us sooner by some months by the way of Cape Horn. If this reasoning does not satisfy people, but they still remain persuaded that the South Sea Company ought not to intermeddle with the East India trade at all, I desire to know why the West India merchants are allowed to import coffee from Jamaica, when it is well known that the East India Company can supply the whole demand of this kingdom from Mocha? If it be answered that the Jamaica coffee comes cheaper, and is the growth of our own plantations, I reply, that these spices will not only be cheaper, but better, and be purchased by our own manufacturers; and these, I think, are the strongest reasons that can be given.
If it be demanded what certainty I have that spices can be had from thence, I answer, all the certainty that in a thing of this nature can be reasonably expected: Ferdinand de Quiros met with all sorts of spices in the country he discovered; William Schovten, and Jacques le Maire, saw ginger and nutmegs; so did Dampier; and the author of Commodore Roggewein’s Voyage asserts, that the free burgesses of Amboyna purchase nutmegs from the natives of New Guinea for bits of iron. All, therefore, I contend for, is that these bits of iron may be sent them from Old England.
The reason I recommend settling on the south coast of Terra Australis, if this design should be prosecuted, from Juan Fernandez, rather than the island of New Britain, which I mentioned before, is, because that coast is nearer, and is situated in a better and pleasanter climate. Besides all which advantages, as it was never hitherto visited by the Dutch, they cannot, with any colour of justice, take umbrage at our attempting such a settlement. To close then this subject, the importance of which alone inclined me to spend so much of mine and the reader’s time about it:
It is most evident, that, if such a settlement was made at Juan Fernandez, proper magazines erected, and a constant correspondence established between that island and the Terra Australis, these three consequences must absolutely follow from thence: 1. That a new trade would be opened, which must carry off a great quantity of our goods and manufactures, that cannot, at present, be brought to any market, or at least, not to so good a market as if there was a greater demand for them. 2. It would render this navigation, which is at present so strange, and consequently so terrible, to us, easy and familiar; which might be attended with advantages that cannot be foreseen, especially since there is, as I before observed, in all probability another southern continent, which is still to be discovered. 3. It would greatly increase our shipping and our seamen, which are the true and natural strength of this country, extend our naval power, and raise the reputation of this nation; the most distant prospect of which is sufficient to warm the soul of any man who has the least regard for his country, with courage sufficient to despise the imputations that may be thrown upon him as a visionary projector, for taking so much pains about an affair that can tend so little to his private advantage. We will now add a few words with respect to the advantages arising from having thus digested the history of circumnavigators, from the earliest account of time to the present, and then shut up the whole with another section, containing the last circumnavigation by Rear-Admiral Anson, whose voyage has at least shown that, under a proper officer, English seamen are able to achieve as much as they ever did; and that is as much as was ever done by any nation in the world.
It is a point that has always admitted some debate, whether science stands more indebted to speculation or practice; or, in other words, whether the greater discoveries have been made by men of deep study, or persons of great experience in the most useful parts of knowledge. But this, I think, is a proposition that admits of no dispute at all, that the noblest discoveries have been the result of a just mixture of theory with practice. It was from hence that the very notion of sailing round the earth took rise; and the ingenious Genoese first laid down this system of the world, according to his conception, and then added the proofs derived from experience. It is much to be deplored that we have not that plan of discovery which the great Christopher Columbus sent over thither by his brother Bartholomew to King Henry VII., for if we had we should certainly find abundance of very curious observations, which might still be useful to mariners: for it appears clearly, from many little circumstances, that he was a person of universal genius, and, until bad usage obliged him to take many precautions, very communicative.
It was from this plan, as it had been communicated to the Portuguese court, that the famous Magellan came to have so just notions of the possibility of sailing by the West to the East Indies; and there was a great deal of theory in the proposal made by that great man to the Emperor Charles V. Sir Francis Drake was a person of the same genius, and of a like general knowledge; and it is very remarkable that these three great seamen met also with the same fate; by which I mean, that they were constantly pursued by envy while they lived, which hindered so much notice being taken of their discourses and discoveries as they deserved. But when the experience of succeeding times had verified many of their sayings, which had been considered as vain and empty boastings in their lifetimes, then prosperity began to pay a superstitious regard to whatever could be collected concerning them, and to admire all they delivered as oraculous. Our other discoverer, Candish, was likewise a man of great parts and great penetration, as well as of great spirit; he had, undoubtedly, a mighty genius for discoveries; but the prevailing notion of those times, that the only way to serve the nation was plundering the Spaniards, seems to have got the better of his desire to find out unknown countries; and made him choose to be known to posterity rather as a gallant privateer than as an able seaman, though in truth he was both.
After these follow Schovten and Le Maire, who were fitted out to make discoveries; and executed their commission with equal capacity and success. If Le Maire had lived to return to Holland, and to have digested into proper order his own accounts, we should, without question, have received a much fuller and clearer, as well as a much more correct and satisfactory detail of them than we have at present: though the voyage, as it is now published, is in all respects the best, and the most curious of all the circumnavigators. This was, very probably, owing to the ill-usage he met with from the Dutch East India Company; which put Captain Schovten, and the relations of Le Maire, upon giving the world the best information they could of what had been in that voyage performed. Yet the fate of Le Maire had a much greater effect in discouraging, than the fame of his discoveries had in exciting, a spirit of emulation; so that we may safely say, the severity of the East India Company in Holland extinguished that generous desire of exploring unknown lands, which might otherwise have raised the reputation and extended the commerce of the republic much beyond what they have hitherto reached. This is so true that for upwards of one hundred years we hear of no Dutch voyage in pursuit of Le Maire’s discoveries; and we see, when Commodore Roggewein, in our own time, revived that noble design, it was again cramped by the same power that stifled it before; and though the States did justice to the West India Company, and to the parties injured, yet the hardships they suffered, and the plain proof they gave of the difficulties that must be met with in the prosecution of such a design, seem to have done the business of the East India Company, and damped the spirit of discovery, for perhaps another century, in Holland.