Note 4 — INTRODUCTION.
Johann Reinhold Forster translation
The author is very solicitous to exclude le Gentil de la Barbinais from the honour of being the first circumnavigator of the French nation, in order to secure it to himself; though it is a real circumnavigation. The famous Italian, Giovan Francisco Gemelli Carreri, cannot with propriety be called a circumnavigator, though he made the tour of the globe in the years 1693-1698, for he landed in Mexico, and crossed America by land, and went again to the Manillas by sea, and from thence to China and Europe on board of other ships. F.