the discoveries made by the
Hudson's Bay Company, was well known to the noble lord who presided at
the Board of Admiralty when this voyage was undertaken; and the intimate
connection of those discoveries with the plan of the voyage, of course,
regulated the instructions given to Captain Cook.

And now, may we not take it upon us to appeal to every candid and
capable enquirer, whether that part of the instructions which directed
the captain not to lose time, in exploring rivers or inlets, or upon any
other account, till he got into the latitude of 65 deg., was not framed
judiciously; as there were such indubitable proofs that no passage
existed so far to the south as any part of Hudson's Bay, and that, if a
passage could be effected at all, part of it, at least, must be
traversed by the ships as far to the northward as the latitude 72 deg.,
where Mr Hearne arrived at the sea?

We may add, as a farther consideration in support of this article of the
instructions, that Beering's Asiatic discoveries, in 1728, having traced
that continent to the latitude of 67 deg., Captain Cook's approach toward
that latitude was to be wished for, that he might be enabled to bring
back more authentic information than the world had hitherto obtained,
about the relative situation and vicinity of the two continents, which
was absolutely necessary to be known, before the practicability of
sailing between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, in any northern
direction, could be ascertained.

After all, that search, in a lower latitude, which they who give credit
(if any such there now be) to the pretended discoveries of De Fonte,
affect to wish had been recommended to Captain Cook, has (if that will
cure them of their credulity) been satisfactorily made. The Spaniards,
roused from their lethargy by our voyages, and having caught a spark of
enterprise from our repeated visits to the Pacific Ocean, have followed
us more than once into the line of our discoveries within the southern
tropic; and have also fitted out expeditions to explore the American
continent to the north of California. It is to be lamented, that there
should be any reasons why the transactions of those Spanish voyages have
not been fully disclosed, with the same liberal spirit of information
which other nations have adopted. But, fortunately, this excessive
caution of the court of Spain has been defeated, at least in one
instance, by the publication of an authentic journal of their