Let us, however, do justice to these beginnings of discovery. To the Dutch, we must, at least, ascribe the merit of being our harbingers, though we afterward went beyond them in the road they had first ventured to tread. And with what success his majesty's ships have, in their repeated voyages, penetrated into the obscurest recesses of the South Pacific Ocean, will appear from the following enumeration of their various and very extensive operations, which have drawn up the veil that had hitherto been thrown over the geography of so great a proportion of the globe.
1. The several lands, of which any account had been given, as seen by any of the preceding navigators, Spanish or Dutch, have been carefully looked for, and most of them (at least such of them as seemed of any consequence) found out and visited; and not visited in a cursory manner, but every means used to correct former mistakes, and to supply former deficiencies, by making accurate enquiries ashore, and taking skilful surveys of their coasts, by sailing round them, who has not heard, or read, of the boasted Tierra Australia del Espiritu Santo of Quiros? But its bold pretensions to be a part of a southern continent, could not stand Captain Cook's examination, who sailed round it, and assigned it its true position and moderate bounds, in the Archipelago of the New Hebrides.[25]
[Footnote 25: Bougainville, in 1768, did no more than discover that the land here was not connected, but composed of islands. Captain Cook, in 1774, explored the whole group.--D.]
2. Besides perfecting many of the discoveries of their predecessors, our late navigators have enriched geographical knowledge with a long catalogue of their own. The Pacific Ocean, within the south tropic, repeatedly traversed, in every direction, was found to swarm with a seemingly endless profusion of habitable spots of land. Islands scattered through the amazing space of near fourscore degrees of longitude, separated at various distances, or grouped in numerous clusters, have, at their approach, as it were, started into existence; and such ample accounts have been brought home concerning them and their inhabitants, as may serve every useful purpose of enquiry; and, to use Captain Cook's words, who bore so considerable a share in those discoveries, have left little more to be done in that part.
3. Byron, Wallis, and Carteret had each of them contributed toward increasing our knowledge of the islands that exist in the Pacific Ocean, within the limits of the southern tropic; but how far that ocean reached to the west, what lands bounded it on that side, and the connection of those lands with the discoveries of former navigators, was still the reproach of geographers, and remained absolutely unknown, till Captain Cook, during his first voyage in 1770, brought back the most satisfactory decision of this important question. With a wonderful perseverance, and consummate skill, amidst an uncommon combination of perplexities and dangers, he traced this coast near two thousand miles, from the 38° of south latitude, cross the tropic, to its northern extremity, within 10° 1/2 of the equinoctial, where it was found to join the lands already explored by the Dutch, in several voyages from their Asiatic settlements, and to which they have given the name of New Holland. Those discoveries made in the last century, before Tasman's voyage, had traced the north and the west coasts of this land; and Captain Cook, by his extensive operations on its east side, left little to be done toward completing the full circuit of it. Between Cape Hicks, in latitude 38°, where his examination of this coast began, and that part of Van Diemen's Land, from whence Tasman took his departure, was not above fifty-five leagues. It was highly probable, therefore, that they were connected; though Captain Cook cautiously says, that he could not determine whether his New South Wales, that is, the east coast of New Holland, joins to Van Diemen's Land, or no. But what was thus left undetermined by the operations of his first voyage, was, in the course of his second, soon cleared up; Captain Furneaux, in the Adventure, during his separation from the Resolution (a fortunate separation as it thus turned out) in 1773, having explored Van Diemen's Land, from its southern point, along the east coast, far beyond Tasman's station, and on to the latitude 38°, where Captain Cook's examination of it in 1770 had commenced.
It is no longer, therefore, a doubt, that we have now a full knowledge of the whole circumference of this vast body of land, this fifth part of the world (if I may so speak), which our late voyages have discovered to be of so amazing a magnitude, that, to use Captain Cook's words, it is of a larger extent than any other country in the known world, that does not bear the name of a continent.[26]
[Footnote 26: What the learned editor asserts here, as to the full knowledge acquired by the voyages to which he alludes, must be restricted, as Captain Flinders very properly remarks, to the general extent of the vast region explored. It will not apply to the particular formation of its coasts, for this plain reason, that the chart accompanying the work, of which he was writing the introduction, represents much of the south coast as totally unknown. It is necessary to mention also, that what he says immediately before, in allusion to the discoveries made by Captain Furaeaux, must submit to correction. That officer committed some errors, owing, it would appear, to the imperfection of preceding accounts; and he left undetermined the interesting question as to the existence of a connection betwixt Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales. The opinion which he gave as to this point, on very insufficient data certainly, viz. that there is "no strait between them, but a very deep bay," has been most satisfactorily disproved, by the discovery of the extensive passage which bears the name of Flinders's friend, Mr Bass, the enterprising gentleman that accomplished it.--E.]
4. Tasman having entered the Pacific Ocean, after leaving Van Diemen's Land, had fallen in with a coast to which he gave the name of New Zealand. The extent of this coast, and its position in any direction but a part of its west side, which he sailed along in his course northward, being left absolutely unknown, it had been a favourite opinion amongst geographers, since his time, that New Zealand was a part of a southern continent, running north and south, from the 33° to the 64° of south latitude, and its northern, coast stretching cross the South Pacific to an immense distance, where its eastern boundary had been seen by Juan Fernandez, half a century before. Captain Cook's voyage in the Endeavour has totally destroyed this supposition. Though Tasman must still have the credit of having first seen New Zealand, to Captain Cook solely belongs that of having really explored it. He spent near six months upon its coasts in 1769 and 1770, circumnavigated it completely, and ascertained its extent and division into two islands. Repeated visits since that have perfected this important discovery, which, though now known to be no part of a southern continent, will probably, in all future charts of the world, be distinguished as the largest islands that exist in that part of the southern hemisphere.
5. Whether New Holland did or did not join to New Guinea, was a question involved in much doubt and uncertainty, before Captain Cook's sailing between them, through Endeavour Strait, decided it. We will not hesitate to call this an important acquisition to geography. For though the great sagacity and extensive reading of Mr Dalrymple had discovered some traces of such a passage having been found before, yet these traces were so obscure, and so little known in the present age, that they had not generally regulated the construction of our charts; the President de Brosses, who wrote in 1756, and was well versed in geographical researches, had not been able to satisfy himself about them; and Mons. de Bougainville, in 1768, who had ventured to fall in with the south coast of New Guinea, near ninety leagues to the westward of its south-east point, chose rather to work those ninety leagues directly to windward, at a time when his people were in such distress for provisions as to eat the seal-skins from off the yards and rigging, than to run the risk of finding a passage, of the existence of which he entertained the strongest doubts, by persevering in his westerly course. Captain Cook, therefore, in this part of his voyage (though he modestly disclaims all merit), has established, beyond future controversy, a fact of essential service to navigation, by opening, if not a new, at least an unfrequented and forgotten communication between the South Pacific and Indian Oceans.[27]
[Footnote 27: We are indebted to Mr Dalrymple for the recovery of an interesting document respecting a passage betwixt New Holland and New Guinea, discovered by Torres, a Spanish navigator, in 1606. It was found among the archives of Manilla, when that city was taken by the British, in 1762, being a copy of a letter which Torres addressed to the king of Spain, giving an account of his discoveries. The Spaniards, as usual, had kept the matter a profound secret, so that the existence of the strait was generally unknown, till the labours of Captain Cook, in 1770, entitled him to the merit here assigned. Captain Flinders, it must be remembered, is of opinion, that some suspicion of such a strait was entertained in 1644, when Tasman sailed on his second voyage, but that the Dutch, who were then engaged in making discoveries in these regions, were ignorant of its having been passed. Several navigators have sailed through Torres's Strait, as it has been justly enough named, since the time of Cook, and have improved our acquaintance with its geography. Of these may be mentioned Lieutenant (afterwards Rear-Admiral) Bligh, in 1789; Captain (afterwards Admiral) Edwards, in 1791; Bligh, a second time, accompanied by Lieutenant Portlock, in 1792; Messrs Bampton and Alt, in 1793; and Captain Flinders, in 1802-3. The labours of the last-mentioned gentleman in this quarter surpass, in utility and interest, those of his predecessors, and, if he had accomplished nothing else, would entitle his name to be ranked amongst the benefactors of geography. What mind is so insensible as not to regret, that after years of hardship and captivity, the very day which presented the public with the memorial of his services and sufferings, deprived him of the possibility of reaping their reward?--E.]