Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/55

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
INTRODUCTION.
xxxi

pany, to bear a resemblance to the names given by Captain Cook to parts of New Holland which he had himself discovered.

In his memoir concerning the Chagos and adjacent islands, 1786, p. 4, speaking of this map he says:—

"The east coast of New Holland, as we name it, is expressed with some curious circumstances of correspondence to Captain Cook's MS. What he names

Bay of Inlets, is in the MS. called Bay Perdue.
Bay of Isles R. de beaucoup d'Isles.
Where the Endeavour struck Coste dangereuse.

So that we may say with Solomon, 'There is nothing new under the sun.'"

To the discredit of so well informed and laborious a man as Dalrymple, to whom, perhaps, next to Hakluyt, this country is the most largely indebted for its commercial prosperity, this passage was but an invidious insinuation, intended to disparage the credit of Captain Cook, of whose appointment to the command of the Endeavour he was extremely jealous. Dalrymple had earnestly desired the command of an expedition to discover the great southern continent, the existence of which he had endeavoured to prove by various philosophical arguments, which later times have shown to be not without foundation; and his observation would seem to imply that Cook, who had been so successful in his discoveries on the coast of New Holland, might have been led thereto by an acquaintance with this pre-existent map. The unworthy insinuation met with a sensible refutation, we are happy to record, from the pen of a Frenchman,