What is now mentioned with regard to the discoveries made by the Hudson’s Bay Company, was well known to the noble lord who presided at the Board of Admiralty when this voyage was undertaken; and the intimate connection of those discoveries with the plan of the voyage, of course, regulated the instructions given to Captain Cook.

And now, may we not take it upon us to appeal to every candid and capable enquirer, whether that part of the instructions which directed the captain not to lose time, in exploring rivers or inlets, or upon any other account, till he got into the latitude of 65 deg., was not framed judiciously; as there were such indubitable proofs that no passage existed so far to the south as any part of Hudson’s Bay, and that, if a passage could be effected at all, part of it, at least, must be traversed by the ships as far to the northward as the latitude 72 deg., where Mr Hearne arrived at the sea?

We may add, as a farther consideration in support of this article of the instructions, that Beering’s Asiatic discoveries, in 1728, having traced that continent to the latitude of 67 deg., Captain Cook’s approach toward that latitude was to be wished for, that he might be enabled to bring back more authentic information than the world had hitherto obtained, about the relative situation and vicinity of the two continents, which was absolutely necessary to be known, before the practicability of sailing between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, in any northern direction, could be ascertained.

After all, that search, in a lower latitude, which they who give credit (if any such there now be) to the pretended discoveries of De Fonte, affect to wish had been recommended to Captain Cook, has (if that will cure them of their credulity) been satisfactorily made.  The Spaniards, roused from their lethargy by our voyages, and having caught a spark of enterprise from our repeated visits to the Pacific Ocean, have followed us more than once into the line of our discoveries within the southern tropic; and have also fitted out expeditions to explore the American continent to the north of California.  It is to be lamented, that there should be any reasons why the transactions of those Spanish voyages have not been fully disclosed, with the same liberal spirit of information which other nations have adopted.  But, fortunately, this excessive caution of the court of Spain has been defeated, at least in one instance, by the publication of an authentic journal of their voyage of discovery upon the coast of America, in 1775, for which the world is indebted to the honourable Mr Daines Barrington.  This publication, which conveys some information of real consequence to geography, and has therefore been referred to more than once in the following work, is particularly valuable in this respect, that some parts of the coast which Captain Cook, in his progress northward, was prevented, by unfavourable winds, from approaching, were seen and examined by the Spanish ships who preceded