FORMING A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF NAVIGATION,
DISCOVERY, AND COMMERCE, BY SEA AND LAND, FROM THE EARLIEST AGES TO THE
PRESENT TIME.
BY
ROBERT KERR, F.R.S. & F.A.S. EDIN.
ILLUSTRATED BY MAPS AND CHARTS.
VOL. I.
TO
HIS EXCELLENCY, THE HONOURABLE
SIR ALEXANDER COCHRANE, K.B.
VICE-ADMIRAL OF THE WHITE,
LATE COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF HIS MAJESTY'S NAVAL FORCES ON THE LEEWARD
ISLAND STATION,
NOW
GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE ISLAND OF GUADALOUPE, &C. &C. &C.
Dear Sir,
Unused to the adulatory language of dedications, I am well aware that
any such mode of address would offend your delicacy. While, therefore, I
gratify my own feelings by inscribing this work with your valued name, I
only use the freedom to assure your Excellency, that I have the honour
to be, with the warmest sentiments of respectful esteem and sincere
regard,
Dear Sir,
Your affectionate friend,
and gratefully devoted servant,
ROBERT KERR.
Edinburgh, 1st March 1811.
PREFACE.
In this enlightened age, when every department of science and literature is
making rapid progress, and knowledge of every kind excites uncommon
interest, and is widely diffused, this attempt to call the attention of the
public to a Systematic Arrangement of Voyages and Travels, from the
earliest period of authentic history to the present time, ought scarcely to
require any apology. Yet, on appearing before the tribunal of public
opinion, every author who has not cherished an unreasonable estimate of his
own qualifications, must necessarily be impressed with considerable anxiety
respecting the probable reception of his work; and may be expected to offer
some account of the plan and motives of what he proposes to lay before the
public.
The present work is the first of the kind that has ever been attempted in
Scotland: and though, as already avowed in the Prospectus, the Editor has
no wish to detract from the merits of similar publications, it might appear
an overstrained instance of false delicacy to decline a statement of the
circumstances which, he presumes to hope, will give some prospect of the
work being received with attention and indulgence, perhaps with favour. It
certainly is the only General History and Collection of Voyages and
Travels that has been hitherto attempted in the English language, upon any
arrangement that merits the appellation of a systematic plan. And
hence, should the plan adopted be found only comparatively good, in so far
the system of arrangement must be pronounced the best that has been as yet
devised. If this be conceded, and the fact is too obvious to require
extended proof or minute elucidation, the Editor shall not feel mortified
even if his arrangement may be considerably improved hereafter.
The only work on the subject that has the smallest pretensions to system,
and that is fanciful, involved, irregular, abrupt, and obscure, is PURCHAS
HIS PILGRIMS. Even admitting the plan of that work to be in itself
excellent; although it may be a General History, so far as it
extends, it certainly is in no respect a Complete Collection of
Voyages and Travels. In a very large proportion of that curious work, it is
the author who speaks to the reader, and not the traveller.
In the present work, wherever that could possibly be accomplished, it has
uniformly been the anxious desire of the Editor that the voyagers and
travellers should tell their own story: In that department of his labour,
his only object has been to assume the character of interpreter
between them and the readers, by translating foreign or antiquated language
into modern English. Sometimes, indeed, where no record remains of
particular voyages and travels, as written by the persons who performed
them, the Editor has necessarily had recourse to their historians. But, on
every such occasion, the most ancient and most authentic accessible sources
have been anxiously sought after and employed. In every extensive work, it
is of the utmost consequence that its various parts should be arranged upon
a comprehensive and perspicuously systematic plan. This has been
accordingly aimed at with the utmost solicitude in the present undertaking;
and the order of its arrangement was adopted after much deliberation, and
from a very attentive consideration of every general work of the same
nature that could be procured. If, therefore, the systematic order on which
it is conducted shall appear well adapted to the subject, after an
attentive perusal and candid investigation, the Editor confidently hopes
that his labours may bear a fair comparison with any similar publication
that has yet been brought forward.
In the short Prospectus of this work, formerly submitted to the public, a
very general enunciation only, of the heads of the intended plan, was
attempted; as that was then deemed sufficient to convey a distinct idea of
the nature, arrangement, and distribution of the proposed work. Unavoidable
circumstances still necessarily preclude the possibility, or the propriety
rather, of attempting to give a more full and complete developement of the
divisions and subdivisions of the systematic arrangement which is to be
pursued, and which circumstances may require some elucidation.
An extensive and minutely arranged plan was carefully devised and extended
by the Editor, before one word of the work was written or compiled, after
an attentive examination of every accessible former collection; That plan
has been since anxiously reconsidered, corrected, altered, and extended, in
the progress of the work, as additional materials occurred: yet the Editor
considers that the final and public adoption of his plan, in a positively
fixed and pledged systematic form, any farther than has been already
conveyed in the Prospectus, would have the effect to preclude the availment
of those new views of the subject which are continually afforded by
additional materials, in every progressive step of preparation for the
press. The number of books of voyages and travels, as well general as
particular, is extremely great; and, even if the whole were at once before
the Editor, it would too much distract his attention from the division or
department in which he is engaged for the time, to attempt studying and
abstracting every subdivision at once.
