[Footnote 48: See Maupertuis's Letter to the King of Prussia. The author of the Preliminary Discourse to Bougainville's _Voyage aux Isles Malouines_, computes that the southern continent (for the existence of which, he owns, we must depend more on the conjectures of philosophers, than on the testimony of voyagers) contains eight or ten millions of square leagues.--D.]
Or, if we carry our reflections into the northern hemisphere, could Mr Dobbs have made a single convert, much less could he have been the successful solicitor of two different expeditions, and have met with encouragement from the legislature, with regard to his favourite passage through Hudson's Bay, if Captain Christopher had previously explored its coasts, and if Mr Hearne had walked over the immense continent behind it? Whether, after Captain Cook's and Captain Clerke's discoveries on the west side of America, and their report of the state of Beering's Strait, there can be sufficient encouragement to make future attempts to penetrate into the Pacific Ocean in any northern direction, is a question, for the decision of which the public will be indebted to this work.
2. But our voyages will benefit the world, not only by discouraging future unprofitable searches, but also by lessening the dangers and distresses formerly experienced in those seas, which are within the line of commerce and navigation, now actually subsisting. In how many instances have the mistakes of former navigators, in fixing the true situations of important places, been rectified? What accession to the variation chart? How many nautical observations have been collected, and are now ready to be consulted, in directing a ship's course, along rocky shores, through narrow straits, amidst perplexing currents, and dangerous shoals? But, above all, what numbers of new bays, and harbours, and anchoring-places, are now, for the first time, brought forward, where ships may be sheltered, and their crews find tolerable refreshments? To enumerate all these, would be to transcribe great part of the journals of our several commanders, whose labours will endear them to every navigator whom trade or war may carry into their tracks. Every nation that sends a ship to sea will partake of the benefit; but Great Britain herself, whose commerce is boundless, must take the lead in reaping the full advantage of her own discoveries.
