[23] The distance betwixt the two remarkable points now specified, it will be proper for the reader to remember, is estimated at 13 leagues, or about 40 miles, being the nearest approach of the two continents of Asia and America yet ascertained.--E.
[24] Captain Cook then must still be allowed to have succeeded in getting farther towards the north in this ocean, than any other navigator. For, from the date of this voyage up to the present period, so far at least as has been published, no one has surpassed the limit of his examination. But it is obvious, from the very circumstance of the difference betwixt the two attempts recorded in this voyage, that a considerable variation in the state and intensity of the obstructing cause may occur in various years. There is a probability then, that a still greater difference might be experienced, affording a practicable opportunity of getting still more towards the north than in either of them. How far this probability, not a great one, as Captain King afterwards suggests, ought to be considered, or how far the expectation of any benefit arising from it, ought to influence in directing another similar undertaking, it is not the province of this work to speculate. But one cannot help remarking, that the Russian government at least, might not be injudiciously employed in ordering one or more vessels, properly fitted up, to be kept in readiness at some port in this distant region of the empire, to take advantage of any season more suitable than another, for prosecuting the enterprise. Nay, is it not far from being romantic to imagine, that the two friendly powers of Russia and Great Britain might actually find a reward, in the promotion of their mutual interest, by a joint and well-concerted plan for opening up a communication by any means betwixt the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans? Both of them, one should suppose, must be sensible, that the zeal of their intermediate neighbour (if the expression may be used) the Americans, to discover the practicability of a connexion, and of course to establish one betwixt the opposite sides of the new continent, is not likely to prove altogether fruitless, though perhaps there are still more formidable difficulties in the way of its exercise. A little time will probably demonstrate, that these politic republicans have not in vain emulated the enterprising spirit, or commercial sagacity of the parent state; and that neither of the other governments just now mentioned, has fully profited of all the advantages which its possessions have continued to hold out.--E.