T H E K I N G .
In availing myself of Your Majesty’s gracious permission to dedicate
this work to Your Majesty, I feel that I am performing a most
pleasing duty.
The claims of Your Majesty’s family on the gratitude of the
nation, for the efficient patronage they have afforded to maritime discovery,
require merely to be alluded to, to ensure the attention of
every well-wisher to his country.
Under a less powerful Sovereign than your Royal Father, the
voyages of Cook and Vancouver, in all probability, would never have
been projected, and could hardly have prospered; while it is certain
that the expeditions of Parry and Franklin owed their chief distinction
to the enlightened encouragement of His late Majesty.
But these great enterprises—so productive of national renown—so
extensively useful in diffusing the blessings of civilization over distant
and savage lands—and so eminently beneficial to the cause of science
and of commerce, could never have been successfully accomplished, had
