navigated the South Sea, of which any account exists, was that commanded by J. Baptiste de la Follade, in 1667. But in 1712, eight or nine privateers of that nation cruised on the coasts of Chili and Peru. When war appeared ready to break out, in 1719, between Great Britain and Spain, the Spaniards in the South Sea gave great encouragement to the French. In 1720, a ship of St. Malo, named the Solomon, was allowed to sell her cargo at Ylo without interruption. The success of the Solomon had such an effect on the St. Malo merchants, that they immediately fitted out fourteen sail, which all arrived in the South Sea in the beginning of the year 1721; most of them large ships; and one, named the Fleur de Lys, capable of mounting seventy guns. In the same year a French ship sailed from China to New Spain; and by running well to the northward, arrived in the Bay of Vanderas in less than fifty days,—a much shorter time than had been hitherto required to cross the Pacific Ocean from the west.

The Dutch also joined in attacking the Spanish possessions; and in the West Indies their exertions were attended with brilliant success. The Spanish flotilla was captured at the Havannah, and prizes taken to an immense amount. But privateers are bad accountants. The individuals, or companies of merchants who fitted out these armaments derived no profit from them; and the Dutch West India company, notwithstanding all their triumphs over the Spaniards, found their own affairs in a ruinous condition. They offered to sell their privileges to the East India company for a sum of money, or of stock, so as virtually to unite the two companies; but this proposal was rejected, and the West India merchants were forced upon some other expedient to retrieve their affairs. In 1721, a memorial was presented to them by Jacob Roggewein, who had amassed a great deal of money in the East in the service of the East India company, containing proposals for the discovery of southern lands. The father of Jacob, fiftytwo years before, had presented a similar project to the

same company; and when dying, exhorted his son not to lose sight of so important a design. The application of Jacob Roggewein was successful. The company ordered three vessels to be equipped, to go in search of unknown countries, and gave the chief command of them to the author of the scheme. Discovery was the professed object of this expedition; but it is probable that the West India company had trade also in view, and that they were willing, under the protection of their own charter, to encroach on the privileges of the rival

company.

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The three ships sailed from the Texel on the 21st of August, 1721. They were ill provided with journalists, and few voyages of discovery have been more imperfectly and obscurely related. As they approached the Straits of Magellan, they looked for the island of Hawkins's Maiden Land, but could not find it." They saw, however, a great island of about 200 leagues in circumference, to which they gave the name of Belgia Austral. Commodore Roggewein, in his zeal to make new discoveries, was often unable to find, or unwilling to recognise, lands which had been seen before. The land which he called Belgia Austral had been previously found by the French to be a group of islands, to which they gave the name of Malouines. Captain Strong, the commander of an English privateer, had discovered among these islands, in 1690, a large opening, to which he gave the name of Falkland Sound; and hence the islands, in English maps, are at present called the Falkland Islands. They were at first called from their discoverer, John Davis's South Land. Sir Richard Hawkins soon after, in 1593, named them Hawkins's Maiden Land. They afterwards received successively the names of the Sebaldines, or Sebald de Weert's Islands; the Malouines, or Isles de St. Louis; the Falkland Isles; and Belgia Austral. From this single instance of confused nomenclature, it may be conjectured how difficult it is to recognise the course of early navigators through the Pacific Ocean.

After leaving Juan Fernandez, the Dutch, steering W.N.W., endeavoured to find Edward Davis's Island. They thought that they missed it, but nevertheless they arrived at the island; and being willing to regard it as a new discovery, they named it Paaschen, or Easter Island. A native came on board, to whom they gave a glass of wine; but, instead of drinking it, he threw it into his eyes. Here they procured fresh provisions, and continued their voyage to the west. After a month's run, one of the vessels was wrecked on the shoals among a cluster of low islands, which were called from this accident the Verschaadelyk, or Pernicious Isles. They are probably the Palliser's Isles of English maps. About twenty-five German leagues to the west of these were found the Irrigen, or Labyrinth Isles, extremely numerous, and all of beautiful appearance. Shortly after, the Dutch ships arrived at Verquikkung, or Recreation Island, probably one of the Society Islands, where they were hospitably treated by the natives. When Roggewein reached Batavia, he experienced the most stern treatment from the Dutch East India company. His ships and cargoes were condemned as forfeited to the company, and sold by public auction. Geography gained little by his voyage, which, considering the liberality with which the expedition was equipped, cannot be considered as successful.

The suppression of the buccaneers did not by any means lead to the extinction of the contraband trade that existed in the West Indies; and the Spaniards, who were the chief sufferers by it, resorted to measures which could not be tolerated by foreign courts. They assumed the power of searching all British merchant vessels which should be found near their settlements; and directions were given to the guarda costas to detain and incommode, as much as possible, all ships that fell under their examination, so as to deter foreigners, and the English especially, from engaging in that trade. These haughty and injurious proceedings gave rise to many complaints; and, after much mutual remonstrance, the British go

vernment peremptorily demanded that Spain should relinquish all claim to a right of visiting British ships, except in her own ports. These requisitions were not attended to; and, in 1739, these disputes ran so high, that letters of reprisal were issued by both parties, and declarations of war very soon followed.

It was immediately determined by the British administration to attack the Spanish trade and settlements in the South Sea. A squadron of ships destined for this service was placed under the command of captain George Anson, in November, 1739; but delays were imprudently allowed to take place in fitting out the armament, and the ships remained nine months in port for want of men. But at length orders were issued for collecting 500 invalids from among the out-pensioners of Chelsea college, to complete the manning of the squadron. The most unhappy consequences attended upon this singularly harsh and unjust proceeding. A great number of the invalids deserted: of those who remained, the majority were above sixty, and many above seventy years of age. A more moving spectacle could not be imagined than the embarkation of these unhappy old men. And to complete the picture of this cruel measure, it is only requisite to add, that of all those veteran warriors who entered the South Sea, not one lived to revisit his native land.

The squadron was at length ready for sea, and sailed from St. Helen's road in the beginning of September, 1740. They consisted of six ships of war, mounting in all 236 guns, and two store ships. The Centurion, in which the commodore embarked, was a fine ship of sixty guns; the Gloucester and Severn had fifty each.

But this remarkable voyage, of which an excellent -account was written by the chaplain to the Centurion, did not extend the limits of geographical knowledge; and is mentioned here only as forming a part of that series of expeditions to the South Sea, which, though they had not maritime discovery for their object, yet tended collaterally to promote it, by the range and freedom

which they gave to voyages through the ocean. The terrors of the passage round Cape Horn are vividly portrayed by the historian of the expedition. Barren and desolate as the Tierra del Fuego appears, yet Staten Land, on the other side of Le Maire's Strait, far surpasses it in the wildness and horror of its appearance. It seems entirely to be composed of inaccessible rocks, terminating in a vast number of sharp points, which tower to a prodigious height, and are most of them covered with everlasting snow. The hills are divided by deep chasms, nearly perpendicular, as if the country had been torn asunder by earthquakes: and every outline contributes to the savage and gloomy character of the coast.

They had scarcely cleared the Straits of Le Maire, when a storm ushered in such a succession of tempestuous weather as surprised the oldest and most experienced mariners on board, and raised such a prodigious sea as filled them with continual terror. "The Centurion was nothing on the raging waves, and was tossed and bandied about as if she had been a small wherry.” Many of the men were hurt, and all sickened by the tossing of the ships; the crews were also dreadfully afflicted with the scurvy: so that the history of this squadron, while labouring to get round Cape Horn, presents a long and melancholy scene of extreme affliction and distress. The old men died rapidly; wounds which they had received in their early days, and which had been healed, many of them forty, and in one instance fifty years, now broke out afresh in consequence of the scurvy, and appeared as if they had never been healed. Two of the armed vessels were unable to effect their passage into the South Sea; the other ships were separated by the storm, and did not again join company till they arrived at Juan Fernandez. The Gloucester did not reach the anchorage of that island till the 23d of July; having been continually under sail in a stormy ocean 146 days, or five months, from the time of her quitting Port St. Julian,a circumstance unparalleled in the history of navigation. All the veterans on board the Gloucester had died during