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O proportion the eagerness of conteft to its importance feems too hard a task for human wifdom. The pride of wit has kept ages bufy in the difcuffion of useless queftions, and the pride of power has deftroyed armies to gain or to keep unprofitable poffefiions.

Not many years have paffed fince the cruelties of war were filling the world with terror and with forrow; rage was at laft appeafed, or ftrength exhaufted, and to the harafled nations peace was reftored, with its pleafures and its benefits. Of this ftate all felt the happinefs, and all implored the continuance; but what continuance of happiness can be expected, when the whole fyftem of European empire can be in danger of a new concuffion, by a contention for a few ipots of earth, which, in the deferts of the ocean, had almoft efcaped human notice, and which, if they had not happened to make a fea-mark, had perhaps never had a name.

Fortune

Fortune often delights to dignify what nature has neglected, and that renown which cannot be claimed by intrinfick excellence or greatnefs, is fometimes derived from unexpected 'accidents. The Rubicon was ennobled by the paffage of Cafar, and the time is now come when Falkland's Islands demand their hiftorian.

But the writer to whom this employment shall be affigned, will have few opportunities of defcriptive fplendor, or narrative elegance. Of other countries it is told how often they have changed their government; these islands have hitherto changed only their name. Of heroes to conquer, or legislators to civilize, here has been no appearance; nothing has happened to them but that they have been fometimes feen by wandering navigators, who paffed by them in fearch of better habitations.

When the Spaniards, who, under the conduct of Columbus, difcovered America, had taken poffeffion of its most wealthy regions; they surprised and terrified Europe by a fudden and unexampled influx of riches. They were made at once infupportably infolent, and might perhaps have become irrefiftibly powerful, had not their mountainous treasures been fcattered in the air with the ignorant profufion of unaccustomed opulence.

The greater part of the European potentates faw this ftream of riches flowing into Spain without attempting to dip their own hands in the golden fountain. France had no naval fkill or power; Portugal was extending her dominions in the eaft over regions formed in the gaiety of nature; the Hanfeatick league, being planned only for the fecurity of traffick,

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traffick, had no tendency to discovery or invasion; and the commercial ftates of Italy growing rich by trading between Afia and Europe, and not lying upon the ocean, did not defire to feek by great hazards, at a diftance, what was almoft at home to be found with fafety.

The English alone were animated by the fuccefs of the Spanish navigators, to try if any thing was left that might reward adventure, or incite appropriation. They fent Cabot into the north, but in the north there was no gold or filver to be found. The beft regions were pre-occupied, yet they ftill continued their hopes and their labours. They were the fecond nation that dared the extent of the Pacifick Ocean, and the fecond circumnavigators of the globe.

By the war between Elizabeth and Philip, the wealth of America became lawful prize, and thofe who were lefs afraid of danger than of poverty, fuppofed that riches might eafily be obtained by plundering the Spaniards. Nothing is difficult when gain and honour unite their influence; the fpirit and vigour of thefe expeditions enlarged our views of the new world, and made us first acquainted with its remoter coafts.

In the fatal voyage of Cavendish (1592), Captain Davis, who, being fent out as his affociate, was afterwards parted from him or deferted him, as he was driven by violence of weather about the straits of Magellan, is fuppofed to have been the first who faw the lands now called Falkland's Islands, but his diftrefs permitted him not to make any obfervation, and he left them, as he found them, without a name.

Not

Not long afterwards (1594) Sir Richard Hawkins, being in the fame feas with the fame defigns, faw thefe iflands again, if they are indeed the fame islands, and in honour of his mistress, called them Hawkins's Maiden Land.

This voyage was not of renown fufficient to procure a general reception to the new name, for when the Dutch, who had now become strong enough not only to defend themfelves, but to attack their mafters, fent (1598) Verbagen and Sebald de Wert, into the South Seas, these islands, which were not fuppofed to have been known before, obtained the denomination of Sebald's Islands, and were from that time placed in the charts; though Frezier tells us, that they were yet confidered as of doubtful existence.

Their prefent English name was probably given them (1689) by Strong, whofe journal, yet unprinted, may be found in the Mufeum. This name was adopted by Halley, and has from that time, I believe, been received into our maps.

The privateers which were put into motion by the wars of William and Anne, faw thofe islands and mention them; but they were yet not confidered as territories worth a conteft. Strong affirmed that there was no wood, and Dampier fufpected that they had no water.

Frezier defcribes their appearance with more diftinctness, and mentions fome fhips of St. Maloes, by which they had been vifited, and to which he feems willing enough to afcribe the honour of difcovering islands which yet he admits to have been feen by Hawkins, and named by Sebald de Wert.

He, I fuppofe, in honour of his countrymen, called them the Malcuines, the denomination now ufed by the Spaniards, who fecin not, till very lately, to have thought them important enough to deferve a name.

Since the publication of Anfon's voyage, they have very much changed their opinion, finding a fettlement in Pepys's or Falkland's Ifland recommended by the author as neceifary to the fuccefs of our future expeditions against the coaft of Chili, and as of fuch ufe and importance, that it would produce many advantages in peace, and in war would make us mafters of the South Sea.

Scarcely any degree of judgment is fufficient to reftrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained. The relator of Anfon's voyage had heated his mind with its various events, had partaken the hope with which it was begun, and the vexation fuffered by its various mifcarriages, and then thought nothing could be of greater benefit to the nation than that which might promote the fuccefs of fuch another enterprife.

Had the heroes of that hiftory even performed and attained all that when they firft fpread their fails they ventured to hope, the confequence would yet have produced very little hurt to the Spaniards, and very little benefit to the English. They would have taken a few towns; Anfon and his companions would have shared the plunder or the ranfom; and the Spaniards, finding their fouthern territories acceffible, would for the future have guarded them better,

That fuch a fettlement may be of ufe in war, no man that confiders its fituation will deny. But war is not the whole bufinefs of life; it happens but

feldom,