f them than we have at present: though the
voyage, as it is now published, is in all respects the best, and the most
curious of all the circumnavigators. This was, very probably, owing to
the ill-usage he met with from the Dutch East India Company; which put
Captain Schovten, and the relations of Le Maire, upon giving the world
the best information they could of what had been in that voyage
performed. Yet the fate of Le Maire had a much greater effect in
discouraging, than the fame of his discoveries had in exciting, a spirit
of emulation; so that we may safely say, the severity of the East India
Company in Holland extinguished that generous desire of exploring unknown
lands, which might otherwise have raised the reputation and extended the
commerce of the republic much beyond what they have hitherto reached.
This is so true that for upwards of one hundred years we hear of no Dutch
voyage in pursuit of Le Maire's discoveries; and we see, when Commodore
Roggewein, in our own time, revived that noble design, it was again
cramped by the same power that stifled it before; and though the States
did justice to the West India Company, and to the parties injured, yet
the hardships they suffered, and the plain proof they gave of the
difficulties that must be met with in the prosecution of such a design,
seem to have done the business of the East India Company, and damped the
spirit of discovery, for perhaps another century, in Holland.

It is very observable that all the mighty discoveries that have been made
arose from these great men, who joined reasoning with practice, and were
men of genius and learning, as well as seamen. To Columbus we owe the
finding America; to Magellan the passing by the straits which bear his
name, by a new route to the East Indies; to Le Maire a more commodious
passage round Cape Horn, and without running up to California; Sir
Francis Drake, too, hinted the advantages that might arise by examining
the north-west side of America; and Candish had some notions of
discovering a passage between China and Japan. As to the history we have
of Roggewein's voyage, it affords such lights as nothing but our own
negligence can render useless. But in the other voyages, whatever
discoveries we meet with are purely accidental, except it be Dampier's
voyage to the coasts of New Holland and New Guinea, which was expressly
made for discoveries; and in which, if an abler man had been employed in
conjunction with Damp