“ But, perhaps, no part of knowledge has been fo great
“ a gainer by the late voyages, as that of botany. We
“ are told * that, at leaft, twelve hundred new plants have
“ been added to the known fyftem; and that very con-
“ fiderable additions have been made to every other branch
“ of natural, hiilory, by the great ikill and induilry of Sir
“ Jofeph Banks,, and the other gentlemen t who have accom-
“ panied Captain Cook for that purpoie.”
To our naval 'officers in general, or to their learned aflb-
erates in the expeditions, all the foregoing improvements o f
knowledge may be traced; but there is one very Angular
improvement indeed, ftill behind, for which, as we are lolely
indebted to Captain Cook, let us ilate it in his own words:
*f Whatever may be tire public judgment about other mat-
« ters, it is with real fatisfailion, and without claiming any
1 merit but that of attention to my duty, that I can. con-
“ elude this account with an obfervation, which fads en-
“ able me to make, that our having difcovered the poffibi-
“ lity of preferving health amongil a numerous fhip’s com-
“ pany, for fuch a length o f time, in fuch varieties of cli-
“ mate, and amidft fuch continued har.dffiips and fatigues,
« will make this voyage remarkable, in the opinion of
every benevolent perfon, when the difputes about a South-
“ ern continent fhall have ceafed to engage the attention,
“ and to divide the judgment of philofophers
* See Dr. Shepherd’s Preface,, as above«,
+ Dr* Solander, D r . Forger and his fon, and D r . Sparman. Dr. Forger has
given us a fpecimen o f the botanical difcoveries of his voyage in the CbaralUrts Ge-
nerum Plantarum, &c. ahd much curious philofophical matter is contained in his
Obfervations made in a Voyage round the World. D r . Sparmaa alfo, on his return to
Sweden, favoured us with a publication, in which he expatiates on the advantages,
accruing to natural hiilory, to agronomy, geography, general phyiics, and naviga-
tion, from our South Sea voyages*
$ Cook’s Voyage, V o l. ii. p. 293»
j. But while our late voyages have opened fo many channels
to an increafe of knowledge in the feveral articles already
enumerated ; while they have extended our acquaintance
with the contents o f the globe ; while they have facilitated
old trucks, and have opened new ones for commerce;
while they have been the means o f improving the
Ikill o f the navigator, and the fcience o f the aftronomer;
while they have procured to us fo valuable acceffioris in the
feveral departments'of natural hiilory, and fufnilhed fuch
opportunities o f teaching us how to prefervd the healths
and lives'of feamen, let us not forget another very important
objecit of ftudy, for which they have afforded to the
fpeculative philofopher ample materials : I mean the fludy
of human nature in various flotations, equally intereiling
as they are uncommon.
However remote or fecluded from frequent intercourfe
with more poliffied nations, the inhabitants of any parts of
the world be, if hiilory or our own obfervation ihould make
it evident that they have been formerly vifijed, and that
fbrbign manners and opinions, and languages, have been
blended with their own, little ufe can be made o f what is
obfefved amorigif fuch people, toward drawing a real picture
of man in his natural uncultivated ftate. This feems
to be the flotation of the inhabitants of moil of the iilands
that lie contiguous to the continent o f Afia, and o f whofe
manners and inftitutions the Europeans, who occafionally vifit
them, have frequently given us accounts. But the iilands
which our enterprifing difcoverers vifited in the centre o f the
South Pacific Ocean, and are, indeed, the principal fcenes of
their operations, were untrodden ground. The inhabitants,
as far as could be obferved, were unmixed with any different
tribe, by occafional inter&mrfe, fubfequent to their
1 2 original