If It Be Demanded What Certainty I Have That Spices Can Be Had From
Thence, I Answer, All The Certainty That In A Thing Of This Nature
Can Be Reasonably Expected:
Ferdinand de Quiros met with all sorts
of spices in the country he discovered; William Schovten, and
Jacques le
Maire, saw ginger and nutmegs; so did Dampier; and the
author of Commodore Roggewein's Voyage asserts, that the free
burgesses of Amboyna purchase nutmegs from the natives of New Guinea
for bits of iron. All, therefore, I contend for, is that these bits
of iron may be sent them from Old England.
The reason I recommend settling on the south coast of Terra
Australis, if this design should be prosecuted, from Juan Fernandez,
rather than the island of New Britain, which I mentioned before, is,
because that coast is nearer, and is situated in a better and
pleasanter climate. Besides all which advantages, as it was never
hitherto visited by the Dutch, they cannot, with any colour of
justice, take umbrage at our attempting such a settlement. To close
then this subject, the importance of which alone inclined me to
spend so much of mine and the reader's time about it:
It is most evident, that, if such a settlement was made at Juan
Fernandez, proper magazines erected, and a constant correspondence
established between that island and the Terra Australis, these three
consequences must absolutely follow from thence: 1. That a new
trade would be opened, which must carry off a great quantity of our
goods and manufactures, that cannot, at present, be brought to any
market, or at least, not to so good a market as if there was a
greater demand for them. 2. It would render this navigation, which
is at present so strange, and consequently so terrible, to us, easy
and familiar; which might be attended with advantages that cannot be
foreseen, especially since there is, as I before observed, in all
probability another southern continent, which is still to be
discovered. 3. It would greatly increase our shipping and our
seamen, which are the true and natural strength of this country,
extend our naval power, and raise the reputation of this nation; the
most distant prospect of which is sufficient to warm the soul of any
man who has the least regard for his country, with courage
sufficient to despise the imputations that may be thrown upon him as
a visionary projector, for taking so much pains about an affair that
can tend so little to his private advantage. We will now add a few
words with respect to the advantages arising from having thus
digested the history of circumnavigators, from the earliest account
of time to the present, and then shut up the whole with another
section, containing the last circumnavigation by Rear-Admiral Anson,
whose voyage has at least shown that, under a proper officer,
English seamen are able to achieve 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 some debate, whether science
stands more indebted to speculation or practice; or, in other words,
whether the greater discoveries have been made by men of deep study,
or persons of great experience in the most useful parts of
knowledge. But this, I think, is a proposition that admits of no
dispute at all, that the noblest discoveries have been the result of
a just mixture of theory with practice. It was from hence that the
very notion of sailing round the earth took rise; and the ingenious
Genoese first laid down this system of the world, according to his
conception, and then added the proofs derived from experience. It
is much to be deplored that we have not that plan of discovery which
the great Christopher Columbus sent over thither by his brother
Bartholomew to King Henry VII., for if we had we should certainly
find abundance of very curious observations, which might still be
useful to mariners: for it appears clearly, from many little
circumstances, that he was a person of universal genius, and, until
bad usage obliged him to take many precautions, very communicative.
It was from this plan, as it had been communicated to the Portuguese
court, that the famous Magellan came to have so just notions of the
possibility of sailing by the West to the East Indies; and there was
a great deal of theory in the proposal made by that great man to the
Emperor Charles V. Sir Francis Drake was a person of the same
genius, and of a like general knowledge; and it is very remarkable
that these three great seamen met also with the same fate; by which
I mean, that they were constantly pursued by envy while they lived,
which hindered so much notice being taken of their discourses and
discoveries as they deserved. But when the experience of succeeding
times had verified many of their sayings, which had been considered
as vain and empty boastings in their lifetimes, then prosperity
began to pay a superstitious regard to whatever could be collected
concerning them, and to admire all they delivered as oraculous. Our
other discoverer, Candish, was likewise a man of great parts and
great penetration, as well as of great spirit; he had, undoubtedly,
a mighty genius for discoveries; but the prevailing notion of those
times, that the only way to serve the nation was plundering the
Spaniards, seems to have got the better of his desire to find out
unknown countries; and made him choose to be known to posterity
rather as a gallant privateer than as an able seaman, though in
truth he was both.
After these follow Schovten and Le Maire, who were fitted out to
make discoveries; and executed their commission with equal capacity
and success. If Le Maire had lived to return to Holland, and to
have digested into proper order his own accounts, we should, without
question, have received a much fuller and clearer, as well as a much
more correct and satisfactory detail of them than we have at
present:
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