On the 12th of December, Captain Cook entered the loose and floating ice, in latitude 62° 10'; on the 21st he met with icebergs in latitude 67°; and by the end of the month he returned to latitude 58°. On the 26th of January in the following year, he again penetrated within the Antarctic circle, and on the 30th, had got as far as latitude 71° 16'. This was the utmost point to which he was able to penetrate; and he was so fully persuaded, not only of the impracticability of being able to sail further to the south, but also of remaining in that latitude, that he returned to the northward the very same day, deeming it, as he expresses it, a dangerous and rash enterprize to struggle with fields of ice. "I," he continues, "who had ambition not only to go farther than any one before, but as far as it was possible for man to go, was not sorry to meet with this interruption." The existence of a southern continent was thus considered by Captain Cook, and all other geographers, as disproved to an almost absolute certainty.
In this voyage Captain Cook also obtained a correct knowledge of the land discovered by La Roche in 1675, and gave to it the name of New Georgia; he discovered, too, Sandwich land, which was then supposed to be the nearest land to the South Pole; he ascertained the extent of the Archipelago, of the New Hebrides, which had been originally seen by Quiros, and superficially examined by Bougainville. New Caledonia, and many of the islands among the groupe to which he gave the name of the Friendly Islands, were also among the fruits of this voyage.
The French government had sent out an expedition, about the same time that Captain Cook sailed in quest of a southern continent, on a similar pursuit. A French navigator some time before had stated that he had discovered land, having been driven far to the south, off the Cape of Good Hope. This supposed land the expedition alluded to was also to look after. The person selected to conduct it, M. De Kerguelen, does not seem to have been well chosen or qualified for such an enterprize; for after having discovered land, situated in 49° south latitude, and 69° east longitude from Greenwich, he returned rather precipitately to France, without having explored this land, concluding very rashly, and without any sufficient grounds, that the Terra Australis was at length ascertained to exist, and its exact situation determined. He was received and treated in France as a second Columbus: but as the French court seems to have had some doubts on the extent and merit of his alleged discoveries, notwithstanding the reception which it gave him, he was sent out a second time, with two ships of war of 64 and 32 guns each, and 700 men, to complete his discovery and take possession of this new continent. But he soon ascertained, what indeed he might and ought to have ascertained in his first voyage, that what he deemed and represented to be the Terra Australis was only a dreary and inhospitable island, of small size, so very barren and useless, that it produces no tree or even shrub of any kind, and very little grass. On such an island, in such a part of the globe, no inhabitants could be looked for; but it is even almost entirely destitute of animals; and the surrounding sea is represented as not more productive than the land. The French navigator was unable to find safe anchorage in this island, though it abounded in harbours; to this miserable spot he gave his own name. It was afterwards visited by Captain Cook, in his third voyage, and also by Peyrouse.
As the southern ocean, in as high a latitude as the climate and the ice rendered accessible and safe, had been as it were swept carefully, extensively, and minutely, by Captain Cook, and some subsequent navigators, without discovering land of any considerable extent, it was naturally supposed that no southern continent or even large island existed.
In the year 1819, however, this disbelief was partly destroyed by an unexpected and singular discovery. Mr. Smith, who commanded a vessel trading between Rio Plato and Chili, was naturally desirous to shorten, as much as possible, his passage round Cape Horn. With this object in view, he ran to a higher latitude than is usual in such voyages; and in latitude 62° 30' and in longitude 60° west, he discovered land. This was in his voyage out to Chili; but as he could not then spare the time necessary to explore this land, he resolved to follow the same course on his return voyage, and ascertain its extent, nature, &c. This he accordingly did; and likewise on a subsequent voyage. "He ran in a westward direction along the coasts, either of a continent or numerous islands, for 200 or 300 miles, forming large bays, and abounding with the spermaceti whale, seals, &c. He took numerous soundings and bearings, draughts and charts of the coast." He also landed and took possession of the country in the name of his sovereign, and called his acquisition New South Shetland. He represents the climate as temperate, the coast mountainous, apparently uninhabited, but not destitute of vegetation, as he observed firs and pines in many places; and on the whole, the country appeared to him very much like the coast of Norway.
It may seem extraordinary that land of this extent should not have been discovered by any former navigator; but the surprise will cease, when we reflect that though Captain Cook penetrated much further to the south than the latitude of New South Shetland, yet his meridian was 45 degrees farther to the west, and that he thus left a large expanse of sea unexplored, on the parallel of 62° between that and Sandwich land, the longitude of which is 22° west. He indeed likewise reached 67° south latitude: but this was in longitude from 137° to 147° west. Now the longitude of New South Shetland being 60° west, it is evident that Captain Cook in his first attempt, left unexplored the whole extent of longitude from 28°, the longitude of Sandwich land, to 60°, the longitude of New South Shetland; and in his second attempt, he was still further from the position of this new discovered land. Peyrouse reached no higher than 60° 30' latitude, and Vancouver only to 55°. Thus we clearly see that this land lay out of the track, not only of those navigators, whose object being to get into the Pacific by the course best known, pass through the Straits of Magellan and Le Maire, or keep as near Cape Horn as possible, but also of those who were sent out expressly to search for land in a high southern latitude.
The intelligence of the discovery of New South Shetland, and that its coasts abounded in Spermaceti whales, and in seals, quickly and powerfully roused the commercial enterprise both of the British and the Americans. In the course of a short time, numerous ships of both these nations sailed to its coasts; but from their observations and experience, as well as from a survey of it which was undertaken by the orders of one of His Majesty's naval officers, commanding on the southwest coast of America, it was soon ascertained that it was a most dangerous land to approach and to continue near. Its sterility and bleak and forbidding appearance, from all the accounts published respecting it, are scarcely equalled, certainly are not surpassed, in the most inhospitable countries near the North Pole; while ships are suddenly exposed to most violent storms, from which there is little chance of escaping, and in which, during one of the seal-catching seasons, a great number were lost.
There are, however, counterbalancing advantages: the seals were, at least during the first seasons, uncommonly numerous, and taken with very little trouble or difficulty, so that a ship could obtain a full cargo in a very short time; but, in consequence of a very great number of vessels which frequented the coasts for the purpose of taking these animals, they became soon less numerous, and were captured with less ease. The skins of these seals fetched a very high price in the China market; the Chinese, especially in the more northern parts of that vast and populous empire, use these skins for various articles of their dress; and the seal skins of New South Shetland being much finer and softer than those which were obtained in any other part of the world, bore a proportionably higher price in the China market. But the English could not compete with the Americans in this lucrative trade; for in consequence of the charter of the East India Company, the English ships were obliged to bring their cargoes of skins to England; here they were sold, and as none but the East India Company could export them to China, and consequently none except the Company would purchase; they in fact had the monopoly of them, and obtained them at their own price. The English indeed might take them directly from New South Shetland to Calcutta, whence they might be exported in country ships to China; but even in this case, which was not likely to happen, as few vessels, after having been employed in catching seals off such a boisterous coast, were prepared or able to undertake a voyage to Calcutta; much unnecessary expence was incurred, additional risk undergone, and time consumed. To these disadvantages in the sale of their seal skins, the Americans were not exposed; they brought them into some of their own ports, and thence shipped them directly and immediately to China.
The last navigator whom we noticed as having added to our knowledge respecting New Holland, was Dampier, who in this portion of the globe, not only discovered the Strait that separates New Guinea from New Britain, but also surveyed the north-west coast of New Holland; and, contrary to the Dutch charts, laid down De Witt's land as a cluster of islands, and gave it as his opinion that the northern part of New Holland was separated from the lands to the southward by a strait. Scarcely any thing was added to the geography of this portion of the globe, between the last voyage of Dampier, and the first voyage of Cook. One of the principal objects of this voyage of our celebrated navigator, was to examine the coast of New Holland; and he performed this object most completely, so far as the east coast was concerned, from the 38th degree of latitude to its northern extremity; he also proved that it was separated from New Guinea, by passing through the channel, which he called after his ship, Endeavour Strait. In the year 1791, Captain Vancouver explored 110 leagues of the south-west coast, where he discovered King George's Sound, and some clusters of small islands. In the same year two vessels were dispatched from France in search of La Peyrouse; in April 1792, they made several observations on Van Dieman's Land, the south cape of which they thought was separated from the main land; they also discovered a great harbour. In the subsequent year 1793, they again made the coast of New Holland, near Lewin's Land, and they ascertained that the first discoveries had been extremely accurate in the latitudes which they had assigned to this part of it.
In consequence of the British forming a settlement at Botany Bay, much additional information was gained, not only regarding the interior of New Holland, in the vicinity of the settlement, but also regarding part of its coast: the most interesting and important discovery relative to the latter was made towards the end of the year 1797, by Mr. Bass, surgeon of His Majesty's ship Reliance. He made an excursion in an open boat to the southward of Port Jackson, as far as 40 degrees of south latitude, and visited every opening in the coast in the course of his voyage: he observed sufficient to induce him to believe that Van Dieman's Land was no part of New Holland. Soon after the return of Mr. Bass, the governor of the English colony sent out him and Captain Flinders, then employed as a lieutenant of one of His Majesty's ships on the New South Wales station, with a view to ascertain whether Mr. Bass's belief of the separation of Van Dieman's Land was well founded. They embarked on board a small-decked boat of 25 tons, built of the fir of Norfolk island. In three months they returned to Port Jackson, after having circumnavigated Van Dieman's Land, and completed the survey of its coasts. The strait that separates it from New Holland was named by the governor, Bass's Strait. The importance of this discovery is undoubted. In voyages from New Holland to the Cape of Good Hope, considerable time is gained by passing through it, instead of following the former course. In the year 1800, Captain Flinders was again sent out by the governor, to examine the coast to the northward of Port Jackson; of this nothing more was known but what the imperfect notices given of it by Captain Cook supplied. In this voyage he completely examined all the creeks and bays as far to the northward as the 25th degree of latitude, and more particularly Glasshouse and Harvey's Bays. The English government at length resolved that they would wipe off the reproach, which, as Captain Flinders observes, was not without some reason attributed to them, "that an imaginary line of more than 250 leagues of extent, in the vicinity of one of their colonies, should have been so long suffered to remain traced upon the charts, under the title of UNKNOWN COAST," and they accordingly appointed him to the command of an expedition fitted out in England for this purpose.