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.
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