age would reflect immortal honour on our employers, if it had no other merit than stocking Taheitee with goats, the Friendly Isles and New Hebrides with dogs, and New Zeeland and New Caledonia with hogs. It is therefore sincerely to be wished, that voyages of discovery, upon a disinterested plan, may still be prosecuted with vigour, as much remains to be done, even in the South Sea; unless it should be in the power of illiberal men to defeat the great and generous views of a monarch, who is justly called the patron of science. A single remark, which may be of extensive use to posterity; a single circumstance, which may make happy our fellow-creatures in those remote parts of the world, repays the toils of the navigation, and bestows that great reward, the consciousness of good and noble actions.
London,
March 1, 1777.
