fuppofed to have bafely deferted him in that fatal voyage. Davies, however, was too much diftreffed at the time to make any particular obfervations on these iflands; nor did he even give them a name, which was referved for Sir Richard Hawkins, who, two years after, having again difcovered them, in honour of his mistress, and to perpetuate his own memory, called them Hawkins's Maiden Land. In thefe views he was disappointed; for, no fettlement having been made, and the knowledge of the fact itself not general, when the Dutch navigator, Sebald de Wert, fell in with thefe iflands in 1598, he and his people imagined themfelves to be the first discoverers, and accordingly gave them the name of the Sebaldine Islands; under which denomination they were placed in the maps.

We fearce hear any thing more of these islands for near a century, fo that even their exiftence has been called in queftion. The fpirit of adventure being however excited by the wars in the reign of King William, one Strong, whofe manufcript journal is in the Mufeum, fell in with them, and is fuppofed to have given them their prefent English name; which, being alfo adopted by Halley, has fince that time been generally received in our maps. Dampier, and fome other of our navigators, alfo touched at them; who, not confidering them of much importance, were not accurate in their accounts of them. Some, from. feeing at a great diftance a kind of tall reeds, with which they abound, reprefented them as covered with woods; while others, with

more juftice, denied their having any.

Some fhips belonging to St. Maloes are alfo faid to have visited them, to whom the French would willingly attribute the honour of a

difcovery, though they cannot deny the prior title of Hawkins and de Wert: from hence, however, they have given them the name of the Moulines; which has also been adopted by the Spaniards.

Thus thefe iflands, for above a century and a half, continued to be accidentally touched at by different navigators, and to receive arbitrary names at the will of each new comer, without any attempt being made to form a fettlement on them, or any confideration taken of their capability or importance. It does not appear that the Spaniards, in all this long course of years, had, either by chance or otherwise, ever touched at them; and they feem to have known fo little about them, as not even to have given them a

name.

It is indeed faid, that, in the courfe of the late debates, they have, in order to supply the weaknefs of that general and exclufive right which they pretend to all the Magellanic regions, fet up the claim of a prior discovery to these iflands, which they attribute to fome of their most early naviga tors, and pretend that they had been named by them Inlas de Patos: many islands and rocks have undoubtedly been difcovered at dif ferent times in that vaft ocean; and the degrees of longitude and latitude were fo uncertain and unfixed, that the name and difcovery of any one, may with the greatest

eafe

ease be transferred to any other; but a claim of such a nature is of too little importance to be taken any farther notice of.

Lord Anfon's voyage firft fhewed the great importance that it would be of to this nation in time of war, to have a friendly port and place of refreshment, confiderably more to the fouth, and much nearer Cape Horn than the Brazils. Befides the jealoufy and general unfriendly behaviour of the Portugueze in that quarter, the voyage from thence to the South-feas is of fo great a length, that the vigour and health of the men, as well as their water and other provifions, must be greatly exhaufted before they arrive at the scene of action; befide their fhips being foul and out of condition. Another reafon, not lefs material than any of these, was the certainty that the Spaniards would be well informed by the Portugueze of their ftrength, condition, and deftination, long before they could put any of their defigns in execution.

The author of Anfon's voyage enters pretty fully into this fubject; and as that work was wrote under his lordship's immediate infpection, the obfervations upon it may be confidered as his own. This writer, befides fhewing the utility of fuch a fettlement, particularly points out these islands, and that of Pepys, as places, from which their vicinity to Cape Horn and the Steights of Magellan, and their distance from any other land, feemed particularly calculated for the purpose, and fhould therefore be accurately furveyed and examined.

We accordingly find, that, foon after the enfuing peace, when Lord

Anfon was at the head of the Admiralty, this scheme was adopted, and preparations were in hand for the fending out fome frigates to make discoveries in those feas, and particularly to examine, with precifion, the ftate and condition of thefe islands. This project was not fo well conducted, but that the court of Spain gained intelligence of it, before it could be carried into execution; and fuch reprefentations were made against it, both here and at Madrid, that it was for that time laid afide, and continued dormant, till it was again revived, foon after the conclufion of the laft war, by the late Earl of Egmont, who then prefided in the Admiralty.

The defign of an establishment on or near the coaft of Patagonia, is not, however, a new scheme: it had been eagerly entered into many years ago by Charles the Second, who, notwithstanding the continual diftreffes in which his profufion, and the ill terms on which he generally stood with his fubjects, involved him, went to a very confiderable expence in fending out Sir John Narborough for that purpofe. This gentleman had directions to furvey the Streights of Magellan, and the neighbouring coafts of Patagonia; and, if poffible, to procure an intercourse with the brave and unconquered Indians of Chilli, and to establish a commerce and lafting correfpondence with them. It had been then, and fince, a general opinion, that fome of the richest gold mines in the world were well known, but carefuily concealed by the Indians in that quarter, that the knowledge of them might not urge the rapacity and avarice of the [4] 2

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Spaniards to more violent and determined attacks upon their liberties. Whatever the precife motives were that urged King Charles to this enterprize, his expectations of the great advantages that might refult from it were fo fanguine, that it is faid he had not patience, when he heard of Sir John's paffing through the Downs, to wait for his arrival at court, but went in his barge to meet him at Gravefend.

The Dutch had long before attempted to make a fettlement on the coaft of Chili, for which purpofe they went to the expence of fending a confiderable fleet and fome land forces thither; the defign failed for that time, partly from fome natural and accidental caufes, but chiefly from the want of proper information relative to the country, and of having eftablifhed a previous friendly correfpondence with the natives. They, however, were fully determined to have renewed and profecuted this defign with effect, if the lofs of the Brazils and other intervening caufes had not prevented them. It is not improbable that Charles II. borrowed the idea of his project from this attempt made by the Dutch.

Gold and filver were almost the only objects that excited the attention of the firft difcoverers and conquerors of the new world. Experience, and the extenfion of commerce, have fince fhewn, that countries produce other staple commodities, which afford greater ftrength, and more real and permanent advantages, than the working of the richelt mines. Upon this principle it has been fuggefted, that, without intermeddling with the gold mines of Chili, or interfering with

the rights and liberties of the natives, new, great, and beneficial fources of commerce might be opened in that quarter. It has alfo been thought, that the greatest and most advantageous fishery in the world might be established in it; and navigators fay, that an hundred whales are to be met with in the high fouthern latitudes, to one that is to be found on the coalts of Greenland.

Whatever were the prevailing motives on our fide for making the fettlement in question, Commodore Byron was fent out in the year 1764, for that purpose; and in the beginning of the following year, having made the neceffary difcoveries of the harbours and fituation, and fuch inquiries into the natural state of the country, as time and circumftances would admit, he took poffeffion of Falkland's Iflands, in the name of his Britannic Majefty, and with those forms which cuftom has established on the taking poffeffion of new

countries.

About the fame time, or perhaps previous to that in which Lord Egmont had planned this expedition, a fpirit of adventure had arifen in France, directed to the fame quarter of the world; but founded upon a wider bafis of hope and expectation; which was no lefs than to retrieve the great national loffes fuftained in the late war, by making of new difcoveries in the fouthern ocean. Though this defign was patronized and encouraged by the government, the low ftate of the Treafury prevented its being undertaken or fupported at the public expence; and it was left to the patriotism of M. de Bouganville, colonel of a regiment of

foot,

1

foot, to enter upon this adventure, at his own rifque and that of his friends.

This gentleman entered into the defign, with all the vivacity natural to his country, and that peculiar fervour which conftitutes the spirit of adventure. He accordingly, after having received the neceffary encouragement from government, built and fitted out, at St. Malo, a frigate of twenty guns and 100 men, together with a ftout floop, fit for the defigned fervice, having about 150 people, including fome Acadian families on board the two veffels, which were commanded by marine officers, under the conduct of M. de Bouganville.

The first part of the plan formed by this gentleman, and which he had avowedly taken up from the reading of Lord Anfon's voyage, confifted in the finding out and the making of a fettlement on the Malouine iflands.

Among the advantages propofed from this fettlement, befides the opening of a trade with the Portugueze, Spaniards, and Patagonian's, it was fuppofed that it would have been an useful station and place of refreshment (and not confiderably out of the way) for the French Eaft-India fhips to touch at in their voyages. With respect to the prefent expedition, if the great and hoped-for discoveries were made in the pacific ocean, this fettlement must be of the greatest confequence towards the converting of them to advantage.

The French, after having touched at the Brazils (where they met with a cordiality and friendthip very different from what the Englih are faid generally to have ex

perienced there) and at Monte Video, a Spanish fettlement in the river of Plata, where they took in a quantity of stock for the use of the intended colony, arrived at

length at the Falk- Feb. 1764.

land's Islands, where they formed an establishment, and built a fmall fort. The French feemed for fome time very fanguine in the fupport of this new fettlement, and the immenfe quantities of wild-fowl, fish, and amphibious animals, which they met with, made the means of living very easy.

Their discoveries in the pacific ocean did not, however, answer the vaft expectations that were formed, nor did there feem any immediate profpect of profit to the adventurers, which could repay the great expences they were at in the purfuit. The Spaniards had befides at all times been very jealous of any discoveries, much more of fettlements, to be made by any other European nation in that part of the world; and though, in the prefent intimate ftate of alliance and union between the courts of France and Spain, the former might probably be indulged with any advantages that could be derived from this project; it is alfo to be fuppofed, that, as the defign and effect of our voyages thither became known, the fame agree ment in fentiments and politics would readily induce them to put a ftop to an undertaking, which would have established a precedent directly contrary to that claim of an exclufive right to all the Magellanic regions, on which the King of Spain intended to found his plea, in oppofition to our establishment there. Whatever the political motives might have been, 14] 3

M. de