“For, with the help of the example afforded by Commodore Anson, I presume that there are many officers who would undertake and execute such an expedition, to the honour of their country, and to the advantage of their employers, supposing them to be employed by private persons.  This is the right use that might be made of this expedition:  an expedition difficult, dangerous, and in a manner impracticable, considered in one light, but equally glorious and successful when considered in another point of view; An expedition that has demonstrated to the whole world that a train of unforeseen and most disastrous accidents may be remedied, and even turned to advantage, by an honest, skilful, brave, experienced, and well-meaning officer; An expedition which shews that there are no hazards, no difficulties, no distresses capable of depressing the courage of English seamen under a proper commander; an expedition which makes it evident that discontent, sedition, and mutiny, do not arise from the restless tempers, intractable dispositions, and unruly behaviour of the English sailors, but purely from the want of prudence, and right management, and, in short, from the want of experience and capacity of such as are entrusted with the command of them; an expedition, in a word, that puts it beyond all doubt that the British nation is, at this day, as capable of undertaking as great things, and of performing them as successfully, as ever were done by their ancestors; and, consequently, an expedition that must convince not only us, but all Europe, that if our maritime force be not employed in undertakings of the most important nature, it is not owing to the degeneracy or our seamen, nor to be imputed to our want of able or daring commanders, which is not my business, and which indeed surpasses my abilities, to discover.

“We are now to close this general subject of circumnavigations, which relates to the whole world.  It is true, that all the circumnavigators did not propose, and that several of them did not make, any discoveries; yet all their voyages are of great, though not of equal importance, down to this last.  For, by comparing that by Magellan, which was the first, with this by Mr Anson, we shall find them to differ in many respects, especially in the conclusion; that by Mr Anson being by far the longer of the two.  Some of them, also, took quite a different route from others.  As, for instance, Le Maire and Roggewein, who never ran at all into the northern latitudes, but sailed directly through the South Seas to the coast of New Guinea, and thence to the island of Java; which is a much shorter course than by way of California to the Philippines.  From hence it very clearly appears, that the passage to the East Indies by the South Seas is shorter than that by the Cape of Good Hope;[3] of which the reader will be convinced by considering the following particulars.  Captain Woods Rogers, in the Duke, sailed From the coast of Ireland and doubled Cape Horn in four months; and