Note 19 — PART the FIRST.

The author has on purpose omitted to mention, that the English are the first discoverers of these isles. Captain Davis, in the expedition of 1592, under the command of Sir Thomas Cavendish, saw them; and so did Sir Richard Hawkins two years after in 1594, and called them Hawkins’s Maiden Land. In the year 1598 they were seen by the Dutchman Sebald de Waert, and called Sebald’s isles, and with that name they were put in all Dutch charts. Dampier discovered them likewise in 1683, but suspected they had no water. Strong gave these isles, in the year 1689, the name of Falkland-Islands, which was adopted by the celebrated astronomer Halley, and is now become of universal use in all our maps and charts. The privateers in the times of the wars of king WilliamWilliam and queen Mary frequently saw these isles, and no sooner than in 1699-1700 they were seen for the first time by a Frenchman called Beauchesne Gouin. It is pretty evident from this account, that the English have an undoubted prior claim to these barren rocks and marshes, situated in a cold climate, subject to the severest rigours of winter, without the benefit of woods to alleviate them; and on which, was it not for the wretched fuel of turf, all the French, English, and Spanish settlements would have been starved with cold. F.