If former navigators have added more land to the known globe than Captain Cook, to him, at least, was reserved the honour of being foremost in disclosing to us the extent of sea that covers its surface.  His own summary view of the transactions of this voyage, will be a proper conclusion to these remarks:  “I had now made the circuit of the southern ocean in a high latitude, and traversed it in such a manner as to leave not the least room for there being a continent, unless near the Pole, and out of the reach of navigation.  By twice visiting the Tropical Sea, I had not only settled the situation of some old discoveries, but made there many new ones, and left, I conceive, very little to be done, even in that part.  Thus I flatter myself, that the intention of the voyage has, in every respect, been fully answered; the southern hemisphere sufficiently explored; and a final end put to the searching after a southern continent, which has, at times, engrossed the attention of some of the maritime powers for near two centuries past, and been a favourite theory amongst the geographers of all ages."[31]

[Footnote 31:  Cook’s second Voyage.]

Thus far, therefore, the voyages to disclose new tracks of navigation, and to reform old defects in geography, appear to have been prosecuted with a satisfactory share of success.  A perusal of the foregoing summary of what had been done, will enable every one to judge what was still wanting to complete the great plan of discovery.  The southern hemisphere had, indeed, been repeatedly visited, and its utmost accessible extremities been surveyed.  But much uncertainty, and, of course, great variety of opinion, subsisted, as to the navigable extremities of our own hemisphere; particularly as to the existence, or, at least, as to the practicability of a northern passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, either by sailing eastward, round Asia, or westward, round North America.

It was obvious, that if such a passage could be effected, voyages to Japan and China, and, indeed, to the East Indies in general, would be much shortened; and consequently become more profitable, than by making the tedious circuit of the Cape of Good Hope.  Accordingly, it became a favourite object of the English to effectuate this, above two centuries ago; and (to say nothing of Cabot’s original attempt, in 1497, which ended in the discovery of Newfoundland and the Labradore coast) from Frobisher’s first voyage to find a western passage, in 1576, to those of James and of Fox, in 1631, repeated trials had been made by our enterprising adventurers.  But though farther knowledge of the northern extent of America was obtained in the course of these voyages, by the discovery of Hudson’s and Baffin’s Bays, the wished-for passage, on that side, into the Pacific Ocean, was still unattained.  Our countrymen, and the Dutch, were equally unsuccessful, in various attempts, to find this passage in an eastern direction.  Wood’s failure, in 1676, seems to have closed the long list of unfortunate northern expeditions in that century; and the discovery, if not absolutely despaired of, by having been so often missed, ceased, for many years, to be sought for.