Note 70 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Originally the Royal Society had suggested a Mr. Dalrymple, a sort of merchant-adventurer, who had traded a good deal in the Malay Archipelago, and who had formed and promulgated theories about the immense size of the Australian continent, but apparently Dalrymple knew very little about astronomy, and the Admiralty wisely refused to allow him to command the king's ship.