Tasman’s voyage of discovery.

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fufficierit to warm the foul of any man who has the leaft regard for his country, with cou-rage fufficient to defpife the imputations that may be thrown upon him as a vifionaryprojector, for taking fo much pains about an affair that can tend fo little to his privateadvantage. We will now add a few words, with refpefl: to the advantages arifingfrom having thus digefted the hiftory of circumnavigators, from the earlieft account oftime to the prefent; and then Ihut up the whole with another fedftion, containing thelaft circumnavigation by Rear-Admiral Anfon, whofe voyage has at leafl fhewn, that,under a proper officer, Engliffi feamen are able to atchieve 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 fome debate, whether fcience Hands moreindebted to fpeculation or practice ; or, in other words, whether the greater difcoverieshave been made by men of deep ftudy, or perfons of great experience in the moltufeful parts of knowledge. But this, I think, is a propofition that admits of no difputeat all, that the nobleft difcoveries have been the refill t of a juft mixture of theory withpractice. It was from hence, that the very notion of failing round the earth took rife jand the ingenious Genoefe firft laid down this fyftem of the world, according to hisconception, and then added the proofs derived from experience. It is much to bedeplored, that we have not that plan of difcovery which the great Chriftopher Co-lumbus fent over thither by his brother Bartholomew to King Henry VII. , for if wehad we ffiould certainly find abundance of very curious observations, which mightftill be ufeful to mariners: for it appears clearly, from many little circumftances, thathe was a perfon of univerfal genius, and, until bad ufage obliged him to take manyprecautions, very communicative.

It was from this plan, as it had been communicated to the Portuguefe court, that thefamous Magellan came to have fo juft notions of the poffibility of failing by the weftto the Eaft: Indies; and there was a great deal of theory in the propofal made by thatgreat man to the Emperor Charles V. Sir Francis Drake was a perfon of the famegenius, and of a like general knowledge ; and it is very remarkable, that thefe threegreat feamen met alfo with the fame fate; by which I mean, that they were con-ftantly purfued by envy while they lived, which hindered fo much notice being takenof their difcourfes and difcoveries as they deferved. , But when the experience of fuc-ceeding times had verified many of their fayings, which had been confidered as vainand empty boaftings in their life-times, then pofterity began to pay a fuperftitiousregard to whatever could be collected concerning them, and to admire all they deli-vered as oraculous. Our other difcoverer, Candilh, was likewife a man of great partsand great penetration, as well as a great fpirit; he had, undoubtedly, a mighty geniusfor difcoveries ; but the prevailing notion of thofe times, that the only way to fervethe nation, was plundering the Spaniards, feems to have got the better of his defire tofind out unknown countries; and made him choofe to be known to pofterity, ratheras a gallant privateer than as an able feaman, though in truth he was both.

After thefe follow Schovten and Le Maire, who were fitted out to make difcoveries jand executed their commiffion with equal capacity and fuccefs. If Le Maire had livedto return to Holland, and to have digefted into proper order his own accounts,Ihould, without queftion, have received a much fuller and clearer, as well as a muchmore correct and fatisfa&ory detail of them, than we have at prefent: though thevoyage, as it is now publifhed, is, in all refpects, the beft, and the moft curious, °fthe circumnavigators. This was, very probably, owing to the ill ufage he met withfrom the Dutch Eaft India Company; which put Captain Schovten, and the relationsof Le Maire, upon giving the world the beft information they could of what had beeh