A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) by Robert Kerr

R >> Robert Kerr >> A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18)

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III. If the correct information, thus obtained, about every part of this
celebrated strait, should deter future adventurers from involving
themselves in the difficulties and embarrassments of a labyrinth, now
known to be so intricate, and the unavoidable source of danger and
delay, we have the satisfaction to have discovered, that a safer and
more expeditious entrance into the Pacific Ocean, may be reasonably
depended upon. The passage round Cape Horn has been repeatedly tried,
both from the east and from the west, and stript of its terrors. We
shall, for the future, be less discouraged by the labours and distresses
experienced by the squadrons of Lord Anson and Pizarro, when we
recollect that they were obliged to attempt the navigation of those seas
at an unfavourable season of the year; and that there was nothing very
formidable met with there when they were traversed by Captain Cook.

To this distinguished navigator was reserved the honour of being the
first, who, from a series of the most satisfactory observations,
beginning at the west entrance of the Strait of Magalhaens, and carried
on with unwearied diligence, round Tierra del Fuego, through the Strait
of Le Maire, has constructed a chart of the southern extremity of
America, from which it will appear, how much former navigators must have
been at a loss to guide themselves; and what advantages will be now
enjoyed by those who shall hereafter sail round Cape Horn.

IV. As the voyages of discovery, undertaken by his majesty's command,
have facilitated the access of ships into the Pacific Ocean, they have
also greatly enlarged our knowledge of its contents.

Though the immense expanse usually distinguished by this appellation,
had been navigated by Europeans for near two centuries and a half, by
far the greater part of it, particularly to the south of the equator,
had remained, during all this time, unexplored.

The great aim of Magalhaens, and of the Spaniards in general, its first
navigators, being merely to arrive, by this passage, at the Moluccas,
and the other Asiatic spice islands, every intermediate part of the
ocean that did not lie contiguous to their western track, which was on
the north side of the equator, of course escaped due examination. And if
Mendana and Quiros, and some nameless conductors of voyages before them,
by deviating from this track, and steering westward from Callao, within
the southern tropic, were so fortunate as to meet with various islands
there, and so sanguine as to consider those islands as marks of the
existence of a neighbouring southern continent, in the exploring of
which they flattered themselves they should rival the fame of De Gama
and Columbus, these feeble efforts never led to any effectual disclosure
of the supposed hidden mine of a New World. On the contrary, their
voyages being conducted without a judicious plan, and their discoveries
being left imperfect without immediate settlement, or subsequent
examination, and scarcely recorded in any well-authenticated or accurate
narrations, had been almost forgot; or were so obscurely remembered, as
only to serve the purpose of producing perplexing debates about their
situation and extent, if not to suggest doubts about their very
existence.

It seems, indeed, to have become a very early object of policy in the
Spanish councils, to discontinue and to discourage any farther
researches in that quarter. Already masters of a larger empire on the
continent of America than they could conveniently govern, and of richer
mines of the precious metals on that continent than they could convert
into use, neither avarice nor ambition furnished reasons for aiming at a
fresh accession of dominions. And thus, though settled all along the
shores of this ocean, in a situation so commodious for prosecuting
discoveries throughout its wide extent, the Spaniards remained satisfied
with a coasting intercourse between their own ports; never stretching
across the vast gulph that separates that part of America from Asia, but
in an unvarying line of navigation, perhaps in a single annual ship,
between Acapulco and Manilla.

The tracks of other European navigators of the South Pacific Ocean,
were, in a great measure, regulated by those of the Spaniards, and
consequently limited within the same narrow bounds. With the exception,
perhaps, of two instances only, those of Le Maire and Roggewein, no
ships of another nation had entered this sea, through the Strait of
Magalhaens, or found Cape Horn, but for the purposes of trade with the
Spaniards, or of hostility against them, purposes which could not be
answered, without precluding any probable chance of adding much to our
stock of discovery. For it was obviously incumbent on all such
adventurers, to confine their cruises within a moderate distance of the
Spanish settlements, in the vicinity of which alone they could hope to
exercise their commerce, or to execute their predatory and military
operations. Accordingly, soon after emerging from the strait, or
completing the circuit of Tierra del Fuego, they began to hold a
northerly course, to the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, their
usual spot of rendezvous and refreshment. And after ranging along the
continent of America, from Chili to California, they either reversed
their course back to the Atlantic, or, if they ventured to extend their
voyage by stretching over to Asia, they never thought of trying
experiments in the unfrequented and unexplored parts of the ocean, but
chose the beaten path (if the expression may be used,) within the limits
of which it was likely that they might meet with a Philippine galleon,
to make their voyage profitable to themselves; but could have little
prospect, if they had been desirous, of making it useful to the public,
by gaining any accession of new land to the map of the world.

By the natural operation of these causes, it could not but happen, that
little progress should be made toward obtaining a full and accurate
knowledge of the South Pacific Ocean. Something, however, had been
attempted by the industrious, and once enterprising, Dutch, to whom we
are indebted for three voyages, undertaken for the purposes of
discovery; and whose researches, in the southern latitudes of this
ocean, are much better ascertained than are those of the earlier Spanish
navigators above mentioned.

Le Maire and Schouten, in 1616, and Roggewein, in 1722, wisely judging
that nothing new could be gained by adhering to the usual passage on the
north side of the Line, traversed this ocean from Cape Horn to the East
Indies, crossing the south tropic, a space which had been so seldom, and
so ineffectually, visited; though popular belief, fortified by
philosophical speculation, expected there to reap the richest harvest of
discovery.

Tasman, in 1642, in his extensive circuit from Batavia, through the
South Indian Ocean, entered the South Pacific, at its greatest distance
from the American side, where it never had been examined before. And his
range, continued from a high southern latitude, northward to New Guinea,
and the islands to the east of it near the equator, produced
intermediate discoveries, that have rendered his voyage memorable in the
annals of navigation.

But still, upon the whole, what was effected in these three expeditions,
served only to shew how large a field was reserved for future and more
persevering examination. Their results had, indeed, enabled geographers
to diversify the vacant uniformity of former charts of this ocean by the
insertion of some new islands. But the number, and the extent of these
insertions, were so inconsiderable, that they may be said to appear

Rari, nantes in gurgite vasto.

And, if the discoveries were few, those few were made very imperfectly.
Some coasts were approached, but not landed upon; and passed without
waiting to examine their extent and connection with those that might
exist at no great distance. If others were landed upon, the visits were,
in general, so transient, that it was scarcely possible to build upon a
foundation so weakly laid, any information that could even gratify idle
curiosity, much less satisfy philosophical enquiry, or contribute
greatly to the safety, or to the success, of future navigation.

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 deg. of south latitude, cross the tropic, to its northern
extremity, within 10 deg. 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 deg., 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 deg., 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 deg. to the 64 deg. 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.]

6. One more discovery, for which we are indebted to Captain Carteret, as
similar in some degree to that last mentioned, may properly succeed it,
in this enumeration. Dampier, in sailing round what was supposed to be
part of the coast of New Guinea, discovered it to belong to a separate
island, to which he gave the name of New Britain. But that the land
which he named New Britain should be subdivided again into two separate
large islands, with many smaller intervening, is a point of geographical
information, which, if ever traced by any of the earliest navigators of
the South Pacific, had not been handed down to the present age: And its
having been ascertained by Captain Carteret, deserves to be mentioned as
a discovery, in the strictest sense of the word; a discovery of the
utmost importance to navigation. St George's Channel, through which his
ship found a way, between New Britain and New Ireland, from the Pacific
into the Indian Ocean, to use the Captain's own words, "is a much better
and shorter passage, whether from the eastward or westward, than round
all the islands and lands to the northward."[28]

[Footnote 28: The position of the Solomon Islands, Mendana's celebrated
discovery, will no longer remain a matter in debate amongst geographers,
Mr Dalrymple having, on the most satisfactory evidence, proved, that
they are the cluster of islands which comprises what has since been
called New Britain, New Ireland, &c. The great light thrown on that
cluster by Captain Carteret's discovery, is a strong confirmation of
this.--See Mr Dalrymple's Collection of Voyages, vol. i. p. 162-3.--D.]

V. The voyages of Byron, Wallis, and Carteret, were principally confined
to a favourite object of discovery in the South Atlantic; and though
accessions to geography were procured by them in the South Pacific, they
could do but little toward giving the world a complete view of the
contents of that immense expanse of ocean, through which they only held
a direct track, on their way homeward by the East Indies. Cook, indeed,
who was appointed to the conduct of the succeeding voyage, had a more
accurate examination of the South Pacific entrusted to him. But as the
improvement of astronomy went hand in hand, in his instructions, with
that of geography, the Captain's solicitude to arrive at Otaheite time
enough to observe the _transit_ of Venus, put it out of his power to
deviate from his direct track, in search of unknown lands that might lie
to the south-east of that island. By this unavoidable attention to his
duty, a very considerable part of the South Pacific, and that part where
the richest mine of discovery was supposed to exist, remained unvisited
and unexplored, during that voyage in the Endeavour. To remedy this, and
to clear up a point, which, though many of the learned were confident
of, upon principles of speculative reasoning, and many of the unlearned
admitted, upon what they thought to be credible testimony, was still
held to be very problematical; if not absolutely groundless, by others
who were less sanguine or more incredulous; his majesty, always ready to
forward every enquiry that can add to the stock of interesting knowledge
in every branch, ordered another expedition to be undertaken. The signal
services performed by Captain Cook, during his first voyage, of which we
have given the outlines, marked him as the fittest person to finish an
examination which he had already so skilfully executed in part.
Accordingly, he was sent out in 1772, with two ships, the Resolution and
Adventure, upon the most enlarged plan of discovery known in the annals
of navigation. For he was instructed not only to circumnavigate the
globe, but to circumnavigate it in high southern latitudes, making such
traverses, from time to time, into every corner of the Pacific Ocean not
before examined, as might finally and effectually resolve the
much-agitated question about the existence of a southern continent, in
any part of the southern hemisphere accessible by navigation.

The ample accessions to geography, by the discovery of many islands
within the tropic in the Pacific Ocean, in the course of this voyage,
which was carried on with singular perseverance, between three and four
years, have been already stated to the reader. But the general search
now made, throughout the whole southern hemisphere, as being the
principal object in view, hath been reserved for this separate article.
Here, indeed, we are not to take notice of lands that have been
discovered, but of seas sailed through, where lands had been supposed to
exist. In tracing the route of the Resolution and Adventure, throughout
the South Atlantic, the South Indian, and the South Pacific Oceans that
environ the globe, and combining it with the route of the Endeavour, we
receive what may be called ocular demonstration, that Captain Cook, in
his persevering researches, sailed over many an extensive continent,
which, though supposed to have been seen by former navigators, at the
approach of his ships, sunk into the bosom of the ocean, and, "like the
baseless fabric of a vision, left not a rack behind."[29] It has been
urged, that the existence of a southern continent is necessary to
preserve an _equilibrium_ between the two hemispheres. But however
plausible this theory may seem at first sight, experience has abundantly
detected its fallacy. In consequence of Captain Cook's voyage, now under
consideration, we have a thorough knowledge of the state of the southern
hemisphere, and can pronounce with certainty, that the _equilibrium_ of
the globe is effectually preserved, though the proportion of sea
actually sailed through, leaves no sufficient space for the
corresponding mass of land; which, on speculative arguments, had been
maintained to be necessary.[30]

[Footnote 29: A very long note in the original is occupied by Mr Wales's
reply to the observations of Monsieur le Monier, in the memoirs of the
French Academy of Sciences for 1776, respecting what Captain Cook
alleged in the account of his second voyage, of the non-existence of
Cape Circumcision, said to have been discovered by Bouvet in 1738. As
the subject, though exceedingly well treated by Mr Wales, is in itself
of scarce any importance, and has long lost interest among scientific
enquirers, who rest perfectly content with Captain Cook's examination,
there appeared no inducement whatever to retain the note. The reader, it
is confidently presumed, will be satisfied with what was said of it in
the account of the former voyage.--E.]