Note (return) — Chapter XIV · VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD, BY CAPTAIN GEORGE ANSON, IN THE YEARS 1740-1744.1

"We are now to close this general subject of circumnavigations, which relates to the whole world. It is true, that all the circumnavigators did not propose, and that several of them did not make, any discoveries; yet all their voyages are of great, though not of equal importance, down to this last. For, by comparing that by Magellan, which was the first, with this by Mr Anson, we shall find them to differ in many respects, especially in the conclusion; that by Mr Anson being by far the longer of the two. Some of them, also, took quite a different route from others. As, for instance, Le Maire and Roggewein, who never ran at all into the northern latitudes, but sailed directly through the South Seas to the coast of New Guinea, and thence to the island of Java; which is a much shorter course than by way of California to the Philippines. From hence it very clearly appears, that the passage to the East Indies by the South Seas is shorter than that by the Cape of Good Hope;3 of which the reader will be convinced by considering the following particulars. Captain Woods Rogers, in the Duke, sailed From the coast of Ireland and doubled Cape Horn in four months; and Le Maire sailed from Juan Fernandez to New Guinea and the Moluccas in three months; so that this voyage takes up but seven months in the whole; whereas the Dutch, when the chief emporium of their eastern commerce was fixed at Amboina, thought it a good passage thither from Holland, if performed in ten or eleven months.4 It is from these stupendous voyages, that not only the greatest discoveries have been made in general geography, but from which all future discoveries must be expected; and therefore this ought to be considered as one of the strongest arguments for encouraging such voyages.5Harris.