e
Admiralty, gives me the boldness to ask your protection of the following
papers. They consist of some remarks made upon very distant climates,
which I should have the vanity to think altogether new, could I persuade
myself they had escaped Your Lordship's knowledge. However I have been so
cautious of publishing any thing in my whole book that is generally known
that I have denied myself the pleasure of paying the due honours to Your
Lordship's name in the Dedication. I am ashamed, My Lord, to offer you so
imperfect a present, having not time to set down all the memoirs of my
last voyage: but, as the particular service I have now undertaken hinders
me from finishing this volume, so I hope it will give me an opportunity
of paying my respects to Your Lordship in a new one.

The world is apt to judge of everything by the success; and whoever has
ill fortune will hardly be allowed a good name. This, My Lord, was my
unhappiness in my late expedition in the Roebuck, which foundered through
perfect age near the island of Ascension. I suffered extremely in my
reputation by that misfortune; though I comfort myself with the thoughts
that my enemies could not charge any neglect upon me. And since I have
the honour to be acquitted by Your Lordship's judgment I should be very
humble not to value myself upon so complete a vindication. This and a
world of other favours which I have been so happy as to receive from Your
Lordship's goodness, do engage me to be with an everlasting respect,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most faithful and obedient servant,

WILL. DAMPIER.

THE PREFACE.

The favourable reception my two former volumes of voyages and
descriptions have already met with in the world gives me reason to hope
that, notwithstanding the objections which have been raised against me by
prejudiced persons, this third volume likewise may in some measure be
acceptable to candid and impartial readers who are curious to know the
nature of the inhabitants, animals, plants, soil, etc. in those distant
countries, which have either seldom or not at all been visited by any
Europeans.

It has almost always been the fate of those who have made new discoveries
to be disesteemed and slightly spoken of by such as either have had no
true relish and value for the things themselves that are discovered, or
have had some prejudice against the persons by whom the discoveries were
made. It would be vain therefore and unreasonable in me to expect to