There Is Reason To Think Then, As Captain Cook Afterwards Notices, That These Are The Same Sort Of People, If Not The Same Individuals, That Were Seen On The Following Day.

- E.

[6] "Quiros had great reason to extol the beauty and fertility of this country; it is indeed, to appearance, one of the finest in the world. Its riches in vegetable productions would doubtless have afforded the botanist an ample harvest of new plants, as, next to New Zealand, it was the largest island we had hitherto seen, and had the advantage of having never been examined by other naturalists. But the study of nature was only the secondary object in this voyage, which, contrary to its original intent, was so contrived in the execution as to produce little more than a new track on the chart of the southern hemisphere. We were therefore obliged to look upon those moments, as peculiarly fortunate, when the urgent wants of the crew, and the interest of the sciences, happened to coincide." - G.F.

This language is by no means to be imputed to any thing like disrespect towards Captain Cook, who seems to have stood very high in the author's estimation; it is, in fact, the natural expression of disappointment at the unexpected and unintended failure of a favourite speculation, without any reference to the moral agents by whom it had been immediately occasioned. It does, however, seem to imply censure of those, who, in planning the expedition, were far more anxious to make discoveries, than to extend their importance by the labours of the naturalist. Considering then from whom it comes, a liberal interpreter would concede a little allowance to its poignancy of complaint. Men very naturally attach superior importance to studies which have long and almost exclusively engrossed their own attention, and are exceedingly apt to ascribe to ignorance, or something still more dishonourable, that indifference to them which those who are in power seem to manifest. Much self-denial, as well as much liberal observation, is required, to overcome such evil surmisings, and to induce a candid construction of the conduct that thwarts our own sanguine prospects. These perhaps are rarely to be met with in young men, who, in general, are intolerant in proportion to the really honest industry they exercise in particular pursuits, and their consciousness of the disinterestedness by which they are actuated. But time accomplishes two great things for those who are capable of improvement; it demonstrates the erroneousness of many of the judgments they had formed of the human character and conduct, and it discloses within their own breasts, several very disquieting principles and mortifying drawbacks, which necessitate them to lower the estimate they had made of their own excellence. Where, from uncommon circumstances, this tuition has never been applied, we shall find at forty, the same petulance and conceit which characterised the clever, it may be, but certainly foolish youth of eighteen; and some persons there are, who, not quite ignorant of the process, are so much enraged at it, that they continue through life to display the same offensive appearances, out of mere spite, and because they have not the honesty to acknowledge that they ever stood in need of instruction.

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