its form, so I cannot doubt but it will be agreeable in the particulars, seeing either no voyage ever made before had such variety of incidents happening in it, so useful and so diverting, or no person that sailed on those voyages has thought fit to publish them after this manner.

Having been fitted out in the river of Thames so lately as the year 1713, and on a design perhaps not very consistent with the measures taking at that time for the putting an end to the war, I must be obliged to own I was at first obliged to act not in my own name, but to put in a French commander into the ship, for the reasons which follow, and which those who understand the manner of trade upon closing the late war, I mean the trade with Spain, will easily allow to be just and well grounded.

During the late war between Great Britain and her confederates on one side, and the united crowns of France and Spain on the other side, we all know the French had a free trade into the South Seas; a trade carried on with the greatest advantage, and to the greatest degree, that any particular commerce has been carried on in the world for many ages past; insomuch that we found the return of silver that came back to France by those ships, was not only the enriching of the merchants of St Malo, Rochelle, and other ports in France, some of whom we saw get immense estates in a few years, even to a million sterling a man. But it was evident the king of France himself was enabled, by the circulation of so much bullion through his mints, to carry on that war with very great advantage.

It was just at the close of this war, when some merchants of London looking with envy on the sucess of that trade, and how the French, notwithstanding the peace, would apparently carry it on, for some years at least, to fnfinite advantage, began to consider whether it might not be possible to come in for a snack with France, as they were allied to Spain, and yet go abroad in the nature of a private cruiser.

and that of the ship also. By inquiries I mean inquiries of private persons concerned; for as to public inquiries, we have no uneasiness, having acted nothing in contradiction to the rules and laws of our country; but I say, as to private persons, it is thought fit to prevent their inquiries, to which end the captain, in whose name I write this, gives me leave to make use of his name, and conceal my own.

The ship sailed from the river the 20th of December, 1713, and went directly over to the coast of Flanders, lying at anchor in Newport Pitts, as they are called, where we took in our French Captain_Jean Michael Mirlotte, who, with thirty-two French seamen, came on board us in a large snow from Dunkirk, bringing with them one hundred and twenty-two small anchors or rundlets of brandy, and some hampers and casks of French wine, in wickered bottles. While we were here we lay under English colours, with pendants flying, our ship being upwards of five hundred tons, and had forty-six guns mounted, manned with three hundred and fiftysix men. We took the more men on board, because we resolved, as occasion should present, to fit ourselves with another ship, which we did not question we should meet with in the South Seas.

We had also a third design in our voyage, though it may be esteemed an accident to the rest, viz. we were resolved to make some attempts for new discoveries, as opportunity of fered; and we had two persons on board who were exceedingly well qualified for our direction in this part, all which was derived from the following occasion:

The person who was principally concerned in the adventure was a man not only of great wealth, but of great worth; he was particularly addicted to what we call new discoveries, and it was indeed upon his genius to such things that the first thought of the voyage was founded. This gentleman told us that he had already sent one ship, fully equipped and furnished, for a new attempt upon the north-west or north-east passages, which had been so often in vain tried by former navigators; and that he did not question the success, because he had directed them by new measures, and to steer a course that was never attempted yet; and his design in our voy age was to make like discoveries towards the South Pole; where, as he said, and gave us very good reasons for it, he did not doubt but we might discover even to the Pole itself, and find out new worlds and new seas, which had never been heard of before.

With these designs this gentleman came into the other part of our project, and contributed the more largely, and with the more freedom, të the whole, upon that account; in particular, all the needful preparations for such discoveries were made wholly at his expense, which I take notice of here, as being most proper in the beginning of our story, and that the reader may the less wonder at the odd way we took to perform a voyage which might with much more ease have been done by the usual and ordinary

nome. This answer was so well managed, though there was not one word of truth in it, that one of the three ships, for the other two were not ready, resolved to come away with us, and, in an evil hour for them, they did so.

To be short, we took the innocent Spaniard into our convoy, and sailed away to the northward with them, but were not far at sea before we let them know what circumstances they were in, by the following method:-We were about half a league ahead of them, when our captain, bringing too and hauling up our courses, made a signal to the Spaniards for the captain to come on board, which he very readily did. As soon as he was on board our captain let him know that he was our prisoner, and all his men, and immediately manning their boat with thirty of our own men, we sent them on board their ship to take possession of her, but ordered them that they should behave civilly to the men on board, and plunder nothing, for we made a promise to the Spanish captain that his ship should not be plundered, upon condition he would give us a just|| account of his lading, and deliver peaceably to us what riches he had on board; then we also agreed that we would restore him his ship, which, by the way, we found was chiefly laden with hides, things of no value to us, and that the ship also was an old vessel, strong, but often doubled, and therefore a very heavy sailer, and consequently not at all fit for our purpose, though we greatly wanted a ship to take along with us, we having both too many men and being too full of goods, as I have said above.

The Spanish captain, though surprised with the stratagem that had brought him thus into the hands of his enemies, and greatly enraged in his mind at being circumvented, and trepanned out of his ship, yet showed a great presence of mind under his misfortune; and, as I verily believe, he would have fought us very bravely if we had let him know fairly what we were, so he did not at all appear dejected at his disaster, but capitulated with us as if he had been talking sword in hand; and one time when our captain and he could not agree, and the Spanish captain was a little threatened, he grew warm; told the captain that he might be ill used, being in his hands, but that he was not afraid to suffer whatever his ill fortune had prepared for him, and he would not, for fear of ill usage, yield to base conditions; that he was a man of honour, and if he (our captain) was so too, he demanded to be put on board his own ship again, and he should see he knew how to behave himself. Our captain smiled at that, and told him he was not afraid to put him on board his own ship and fight for her again, and that if he did so he was sure he could not escape him; the Spanish captain smiled too, and told him he should see (if he did) that he knew the way to heaven from the bottom of the sea, as well as any other road, and that men of courage were never at a loss to conquer their enemy one way or other, intimating that he would sink by his side rather than be taken, and that he would take care to be but a very indifferent prize to him if he was conquered.

However, we came to better terms with him afterward; and, in short, having taken on board all the silver, which was about 200,000 pieces of

eight, and whatever else we met with that was valuable, among the rest his ammunition and six brass guns, we performed conditions and sent him into the Rio de la Plata again with his ship to let the other Spanish captains know what scouring they had escaped.

We got a good booty here, indeed, but were disappointed of a ship; however, we were not so sensible of that disappointment now as we were afterwards; for, as we depended upon going to the South Seas, we made no doubt of meeting with vessels enough for our purpose; what followed, we shall soon see.

We had done our work here, and had neither any occasion or any desire to lie any longer on this coast, where the climate was bad and the weather exceedingly hot, and where our men began to be very uneasy, being crowded together so close all in one ship, so we made the best of our way south.

We met with some stormy weather in these seas, and particularly a north-west blast, which carried us for eleven days, or thereabouts, a great way off to sea; but as we had sea-room enough, and a stout strong-built ship under us, perfectly well prepared, tight and firm, we made light of the storms we met with, and soon came into our voyage's way again; so that about the 4th of May we made land in the latitude of 45 degrees 12 minutes south.

We put in here for fresh water, and finding nothing of the land marked in our charts, we had no knowledge of the place, but coming to an anchor about a league from the shore, our boat went in quest of a good watering-place; in pursuit of this they went up a creek about two leagues more, where they found good water, and filled some casks, and so came on board to make their report.

The next day we came into the creek's mouth, where we found six to eight fathom water within cable's length of the shore, and found fresh water enough, but no people or cattle, though an excellent country for both.

Of this country I made many observations, suitable to the design and desire of our ingenious employer and owner, and which are one end of publishing this voyage. I shall mention only one here, because I shall come to speak of it again on another occasion more largely. My observation here is as follows:

An observation concerning the soil and climate of the continent of America, south of the River de la Plata, and how suitable to the genius, the constitution, and the manner of living of Englishmen, and consequently of an English colony.

THE particular spot which I observe upon is that part of the continent of America which lies on the shore of the North Seas, as they are called, though falsely, for they are more properly the East Seas, being extended along the east shores of South America. The land lies on the same east sides of America, extended north and south from Costa Deserta, in 42 degrees, to Port St Julian, in 49 and a half degrees, being almost 500 miles in length, full of very good harbours, and some navigable rivers; the land is a plain

for several scores of miles within the shore, with several little rising hills, but nowhere mountainous or stony, well adapted for enclosing, feeding, and grazing cattle; also for corn, all sorts of which would certainly not only grow, but thrive very well here, especially wheat, rye, peas, and barley, things which would soon be improved by Englishmen, to the making the country rich and populous, the raising great quantities of grain of all sorts, and cattle in proportion. The trade which I propose for the consumption of all the produce, and the place whither to be carried, I refer to speak of by itself, in the further pursuit of this work.

I return now to the pursuit of our voyage. We put to sea again the tenth of May, with fair weather and a fair wind, though a season of the year, it is true, when we might have reason to expect some storms, being what we might call the depth of their winter. However, the winds held northerly, which there are to be esteemed the warm winds, and bringing mild weather; and so they did, till we came into the latitude of fifty degrees, when we had strong winds and squally weather, with much snow and cold, from the S. W. and S. W. by W., which blowing very|| hard, we put back to Port St Julian, where we were not able to stir for some time.

We weighed again the 29th, and stood south again, passed the mouth of the straits of Magellan, a strait famous for many years for being thought to be the only passage out of the North Seas into the South Seas, and therefore, I say, famous some ages, not only in the discovery of it by Magellan, a Spanish captain, but of such significance, that for many years it was counted a great exploit to pass this strait, and few have ever done it of our nation but that they have thought fit to tell the world of it, as an extraordinary business, fit to be made public, as an honour to their names. Nay, King Charles the Second thought it worth while to send Sir John Narbrough on purpose to pass and take an exact survey of this strait, and the map or plan of it has been published by Sir John himself, at the public expense, as a useful thing.

Such a mighty and valuable thing also was the passing this strait, that Sir Francis Drake's going through it gave birth to that famous old wives' saying, viz., that Sir Francis Drake shot the gulf, a saying that was current in England for many years, I believe near a hundred after Sir Francis Drake was gone his long journey of all, as if there had been but one gulf in the world, and that passing it had been a wonder next to that of Hercules cleaning the Augean stable.

Of this famous place I could not but observe on this occasion, that as ignorance gave it its first fame, and made it for so many ages the most eminent part of the globe, as it was the only passage by which the whole world could be surrounded, and that it was every man's honour that had passed it as above; so now it has come to the full end or period of its fame, and will, in all probability, never have the honour to have any ship, vessel, or boat, go through it more, while the world remains, unless (which is very improbable) that part of the world should come to be fully inhabited. I know some are of opinion that before the full period of the earth's existence

all the remotest and most barren parts of it shall be peopled; but I see no ground for such a notion, but many reasons which would make it appear to be impracticable, and indeed impossible, unless it should please God to alter the situation of the globe, as it respects the sun, and place it in a direct, as it now moves in an oblique position; or that a new species of mankind should be produced, who might be as well qualified to live in the frozen zone as we are in the temperate, and upon whom the extremity of cold could have no power. I say, as there are several parts of the globe where this would be impracticable, I shall say no more than this, that I think it is a groundless suggestion.

But to return to our voyage. We passed by the mouth of this famous strait De Magellan, and those others which were passed through by Le Maire, the Dutchman, afterwards, and keeping an offing of six or seven leagues, went away south, till we came to the latitude of fifty-eight, when we would, as we had tried three days before, have stretched away south-west, to have got into the South Seas, but a strong gale of wind took us at W. N. W., and though we could (lying near to it) stretch away to the southward, yet, as it over-blowed, we could make no westward way; and though we had under us an excellent strong-built vessel, that valued not the waves, and made very good work of it, yet we went away to leeward in spite of all we could do, and lost ground amain. We held it out, however, the weather being clear, but excessive cold, till we found ourselves in the latitude of sixtyfour.

We called our council several times, to consider what we should do, for we did but drive to leeward; the longer we strove with it, the gale held still, and to our apprehensions, it was set in, blowing like a kind of monsoon, or trade wind, though in these latitudes I know there is no such thing, properly called, as a trade wind.

We tried (the wind abating) to beat up again to the north, and we did so, but it was by running a great way to the east; and once, I believe, we were in the latitude of St Helena, though so far south, but it cost us infinite labour, and near six weeks' time; at length we made the coast, and arrived again at the port of St Julian the 20th of June, which, by the way, is the depth of their winter.

Here we resolved to lay up for the winter, and not attempt to go so far south again at that time of year; but our eager desire of pursuing our voyage prevailed, and we put out to sea again, having taken in fresh provisions, such as are to be had there, that is to say, seals, penguins, and such like trade, and with this recruit we put to sea, I say, a second time.

We had this time worse luck than we had before, for the wind setting in at south-west, blew a storm, and drove us with such force away to sea eastward, that we were never able to make any way to the southward at all, but were carried away with a continued storm of wind, from the same corner, or near it, our pilot, or master as we called him, finding himself often obliged to go away before it, and it kept us out so long at sea, and we were gone so far to the north-east eastward, that he advised us to stand

away for the Cape of Good Hope; and accordingly we did so, and arrived at the Cape the last day of July. We were now dead-hearted indeed, and I began to revive my proposal of going to the East Indies, as I had at first intended; and to answer the objection which they made against it, as being against the nature of trade, and that we had nothing on board but European goods, which were not fitted for the East Indies, where money only was suitable to the market we were to make. I say to answer this objection, I told them I would engage that I would sell our whole cargo at the Philippine Islands, as well as on the coast of America; so that those islands being Spanish, our disguise of being French would serve us as well at the Philippines as it would in New Spain; and with this particular advantage, that we should sell here for four times the value as we should on the coast of Chili or Peru; and that when we had done, we could load our ship again there, or in other places in the Indies, with such goods as would come to a good market again in New Spain.

This I told them was indeed what had not been practised, nor at any other time would it be practicable. For as it was not usual for any ships to go from the East Indies to the Philip pines, so neither was it usual for any European ships to trade with freedom to the South Seas, till since the late war, when the French had the privilege; and I could not but be amazed that the French had never gone this way, where they might have made three or four voyages in one, and with much less hazard of meeting with the English or Dutch cruisers; and have made twice the profits which they made the other way, where they were frequently out three or four years upon one return; whereas here they might make no less than three returns, or perhaps four, in the same voyage, and in much less time.

They were now a little surprised, for in all our first debates we had nothing of this matter brought in question; only they entertained a notion that I was going upon strange projects, to make discoveries, search for the South Pole, plant new colonies, and I know not how many whims of their own, which were neither in my design, or in my instructions. The person therefore who was our supercargo, and the other captain whose name I have not mentioned, together with the French Captain Merlotte, and the rest who had all opposed me before, came cheerfully into my proposal, only the supercargo told me in the name of the rest that he began to be more sensible of the advantages of the voyage I had proposed than he was before; but that as he was intrusted, together with me, in the government of the trading part, for I was empowered equally with him too, he begged I would not take it ill that he desired I would let him further into that particular, and explain myself at least as far as I thought fit.

This was so just a request, and so easy for me to do, and, above all, was made with so much good manners and courtesy, that I told him, if I had been otherwise determined, the courteous and good-humoured way with which he required it, would constrain me to it; but that, however, I was very ready to do it, as he was intrusted

with the cargo equally with me, and that it was a piece of justice to the owners, that whom they thought fit to trust, I should trust also; upon this I told him my scheme was as follows:

First, I told him, that as the Philippine Islands received all their European goods from Acapulco, in America, by the King of Spain's ships, they were obliged to give what price was im posed upon them by the merchants, who brought those goods by so many stages to Acapulco. For example, the European goods, or suppose English goods in particular, with which they were laden, went first from England to Cadiz, from Cadiz by the galloons to Porto Bello, from Porto Bello to Panama, from Panama to Acapulco; in all which places, the merchants had their several commissions and other profits upon the sale; besides the extravagant charges of so many seve ral ways of carriage, some by water, some by land, and besides the king's customs in all those places; and that after all this, they were brought by sea from Acapulco to the Philippine Islands, which was a prodigious voyage, and were then generally sold in the Philippine Islands at three hundred per cent. advance.

That in the room of all this, our cargo being well bought and well sorted, would come to the Philippine Islands at once, without any landing or relanding, and without any of all the additions of charge to the first cost, as those by the way of New Spain had upon them; so that if we were to sell them at the Philippine Islands a hundred per cent. cheaper than the Spaniards usually sold, yet we should get abundantly more than we could on the coast of Peru, though we had been allowed a free trade there.

That there were but two objections to this advantage, and these were, our liberty of trading, and whether the place would consume the quantity of goods we had. And to this I had much to answer; first, that it was well known at the Philippine Isles, that the Kings of France and Spain were united firmly together; that the King of Spain had allowed the King of France's subjects a free trade in his American dominions, and consequently that it would not be denied there; but, on the other hand, that if it was denied by the governor, yet there would be room to find out a trade with the inhabitants, and especially with the Chinese and Japan merchants, who were always there, which trade the governor could not prevent; and thus we could not fear a market for all our cargo, if it was much greater than it was.

That as to the returns, we had the advantage either way. For first, we should be sure to receive a great part of the price of our goods in Chinese or Japan gold and silver, or in pieces of eight; or, if we thought fit to trade another way, we might take on board such a quantity of China damasks, and other wrought silks, muslins, and chintz, China ware, and Japan ware; all which would be immediately sold in America; that we should carry a cargo of these goods to New Spain, infinitely to our advantage, being the same cargo which the four great Acapules ships carry back with them every year. when we had gone to the South Seas with this cargo, of which we knew we should make a good market, we had nothing to do but to come back

That