to find, that the greatest pleasures will arise from such endeavours. "It is trifling to allege, in opposition to this truth, that knowledge cannot be acquired, nor virtue pursued, without toil and efforts, and that all efforts produce fatigue. God requires nothing disproportioned to the powers he has given, and in the exercise of those powers consists the highest satisfaction. Toil and weariness are the effects of vanity: when a man has formed a design of excelling others in merit, he is disquieted by their advances, and leaves nothing unattempted, that he may step before them: this occasions a thousand unreasonable emotions, which justly bring their punishment along with them." "But let a man study and labour to cultivate and improve his abilities in the eye of his Maker, and with the prospect of his approbation; let him attentively reflect on the infinite value of that approbation, and the highest encomiums that men can bestow will vanish into nothing at the comparison. When we live in this manner, we find that we live for a great and glorious end. "When this is our frame of mind, we find it no longer difficult to restrain ourselves in the gratifications of eating and drinking, the most gross enjoyments of sense. We take what is necessary to preserve health and vigour, but are not to give ourselves up to pleasures that weaken the attention, and dull the under. standing." And the true sense of Mr. Pope's assertion, that Whatever is, is right, and I believe the sense in which it was written, is thus explained: “A sacred and adorable order is established in the government of mankind. These are certain and unvaried truths: he that seeks God, and makes it his happiness to live in obedience to him, shall obtain what he endeavours after, in a degree far above his present comprehension. He that turns his back upon his Creator, neglects to obey him, and perseveres in his disobedience, shall obtain no other happiness than he can receive from enjoyments of his own procuring; void of satisfaction, weary of life, wasted by empty cares, and remorses equally harassing and just, he will ex perience the certain consequences of his own choice. Thus will justice and goodness resume their empire, and that order be restored which men have broken." I am afraid of wearying you or your readers with more quotations, but if you shall inform me that a continuation of my correspondence will be well received, I shall descend to particular passages, show how Mr. Pope gave sometimes occa sion to mistakes, and how Mr. Crousaz was misled by his suspicion of the system of fatality. I am, sir, yours, &c. PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE ΤΟ THE LONDON CHRONICLE, JANUARY 1, 1757. Ir has always been lamented, that of the little time allotted to man, much must be spent upon superfluities. Every prospect has its obstructions, which we must break to enlarge our view; every step of our progress finds impediments, which, however eager to go forward, we must stop to remove. Even those who profess to teach the way to happiness, have multiplied our encumbrances, and the author of almost every book retards his instructions by a preface. the scheme can only be so far known as the author shall think fit to discover it. The Paper which we now invite the public to add to the papers with which it is already rathet wearied than satisfied, consists of many parts; some of which it has in common with other periodical sheets, and some peculiar to itself. The first demand made by the reader of a journal is, that he should find an accurate ac count of foreign transactions and domestic inci The writers of the Chronicle hope to be easily dents. This is always expected, but this is very forgiven, though they should not be free from an rarely performed. Of those writers who have infection that has seized the whole fraternity, and taken upon themselves the task of intelligence, instead of falling immediately to their subjects, some have given and others have sold their abi should detain the reader for a time with an ac-lities, whether small or great, to one or other of count of the importance of their design, the extent of their plan, and the accuracy of the method which they intend to prosecute. Such premonitions, though not always necessary when the reader has the book complete in his hand, and may find by his own eyes whatever can be found in it, yet may be more easily allowed to works published gradually in successive parts, of which the parties that divide us; and without a wish for truth or thought of decency, without care of any other reputation than that of a stubborn adherence to their abettors, carry on the same tenor of representation through all the vicissi tudes of right and wrong, neither depressed by detection, nor abashed by confutation, proud of the hourly increase of infamy, and ready to boast of all the contumelies that falsehood and slander | must always be imperfect by omission, and often may bring upon them, as new proofs of their zeal and fidelity. erroneous by misinformation; but even in these there shall not be wanted care to avoid mistakes, or to rectify them whenever they shall be found. That part of our work, by which it is distinguished from all others, is the literary journal, or account of the labours and productions of the learned. This was for a long time among the deficiencies of English literature; but as the caprice of man is always starting from too little to too much, we have now, among other disturbers of human quiet, a numerous body of reviewers and remarkers. With these heroes we have no ambition to be numbered; we leave to the confessors of faction the merit of their sufferings, and are desirous to shelter ourselves under the protection of truth. That all our facts will be authentic, or all our remarks just, we dare not venture to promise: we can relate but what we hear, we can point out but what we see. Of remote transactions, the first accounts are always confused, and commonly exaggerated: and in domestic affairs, if the power to conceal is less, the interest to misrepresent is often greater; and, what is suffi- Every art is improved by the emulation of ciently vexatious, truth seems to fly from curi- competitors; those who make no advances toosity, and as many inquirers produce many nar-wards excellence, may stand as warnings against ratives, whatever engages the public attention is faults. We shall endeavour to avoid that petuimmediately disguised by the embellishments of lance which treats with contempt whatever has fiction. We pretend to no peculiar power of dis- hitherto been reputed sacred. We shall repress entangling contradiction or denuding forgery, we that elation of malignity, which wantons in the have no settled correspondence with the Anti-cruelties of criticism, and not only murders repupodes, nor maintain any spies in the cabinets of tation, but murders it by torture. Whenever princes. But as we shall always be conscious we feel ourselves ignorant, we shall at least be that our mistakes are involuntary, we shall modest. Our intention is not to pre-occupy watch the gradual discoveries of time, and re-judgment by praise or censure, but to gratify tract whatever we have hastily and erroneously advanced. In the narratives of the daily writers every reader perceives somewhat of neatness and purity wanting, which at the first view it seems easy to supply: but it must be considered, that those passages must be written in haste, and that there is often no other choice, but that they must want either novelty or accuracy; and that as life is very uniform, the affairs of one week are so like those of another, that by any attempt after variety of expression, invention would soon be wearied, and language exhausted. Some improvements however we hope to make; and for the rest, we think that when we commit only common faults, we shall not be excluded from common indulgence. The accounts of prices of corn and stocks are to most of our readers of more importance than narratives of greater sound: and as exactness is here within the reach of diligence, our readers may justly require it from us. Memorials of a private and personal kind, which relate deaths, marriages, and preferments, curiosity by early intelligence, and to tell rather what our authors have attempted, than what they have performed. The titles of books are necessarily short, and therefore disclose but imperfectly the contents; they are sometimes fraudulent, and intended to raise false expectations. In our account this brevity will be extended, and these frauds, whenever they are detected, will be exposed; for though we write without intention to injure, we shall not suffer ourselves to be made parties to deceit. If any author shall transmit a summary of his work, we shall willingly receive it; if any lite rary anecdote, or curious observation, shall be communicated to us, we will carefully insert it. Many facts are known and forgotten; many observations are made and suppressed; and entertainment and instruction are frequently lost, for want of a repository in which they may be conveniently preserved. No man can modestly promise what he cannot ascertain we hope for the praise of knowledge and discernment, but we claim only that of diligence and candour. INTRODUCTION ΤΟ THE WORLD DISPLAYED. NAVIGATION, like other arts, has been perfected by degrees. It is not easy to conceive that any age or nation was without some vessel, in which rivers might be passed by travellers, or lakes frequented by fishermen; but we have no knowledge of any ship that could endure the violence of the ocean before the ark of Noah. As the tradition of the deluge has been transmitted to almost all the nations of the earth, it must be supposed that the memory of the means by which Noah and his family were preserved would be continued long among their descend- | durst not venture, and which they had not yet ants, and that the possibility of passing the seas knowledge enough to avoid by standing off from could never be doubted. the land into the open sea. What men know to be practicable, a thousand motives will incite them to try; and there is reason to believe, that from the time that the generations of the postdiluvian race spread to the sea-shores, there were always navigators that ventured upon the sea, though, perhaps, not willingly beyond the sight of land. Of the ancient voyages little certain is known, and it is not necessary to lay before the reader such conjectures as learned men have offered to the world. The Romans, by conquering Carthage, put a stop to a great part of the trade of distant nations with one another, and because they thought only on war and conquest, as their empire increased, commerce was discouraged; till under the latter emperors, ships seem to have been of little other use than to transport soldiers. Navigation could not be carried to any great degree of certainty without the compass, which was unknown to the ancients. The wonderful quality by which a needle or small bar of steel, touched with a loadstone or magnet, and turning freely by equilibration on a point, always preserves the meridian, and directs its two ends north and south, was discovered, according to the common opinion, in 1299, by John Gola of Amalfi, a town in Italy. From this time it is reasonable to suppose that navigation made continual, though slow, improvements, which the confusion and barbarity of the times, and the want of communication between orders of men so distant as sailors and monks, hindered from being distinctly and successively recorded. It seems, however, that the sailors still wanted either knowledge or courage, for they continued for two centuries to creep along the coast, and considered every headland as unpassable which ran far into the sea, and against which the waves broke with uncommon agitation. The first who is known to have formed the design of new discoveries, or the first who had power to execute his purposes, was Don Henry the Fifth, son of John, the first king of Portugal, and Philippina, sister of Henry the Fourth of England. Don Henry having attended his father to the conquest of Ceuta, obtained by conversation with the inhabitants of the continent, some accounts of the interior kingdoms and southern coast of Africa; which, though rude and indistinct, were sufficient to raise his curiosity, and convince him, that there were countries yet unknown and worthy of discovery. He therefore equipped some small vessels, and commanded that they should pass as far as they could along the coast of Africa which looked upon the great Atlantic ocean, the immensity of which struck the gross and unskilful navigators of these times with terror and amazement. He was not able to communicate his own ardour to his seamen, who proceeded very slowly in the new attempt; each was afraid to venture much farther than he that went before him, and ten years were spent before they had advanced beyond Cape Bajador, so called from its progression into the ocean, and the circuit by which it must be doubled. The opposition of this promontory to the course of the sea, produced a violent current and high waves, into which they The prince was desirous to know something of the countries that lay beyond this formidable cape, and sent two commanders, named John Gonzales Zarco, and Tristan Vaz, in 1418, to pass beyond Bajador, and survey the coast be hind it. They were caught by a tempest, which drove them out into the unknown ocean, where they expected to perish by the violence of the wind, or perhaps to wander for ever in the boundless deep. At last, in the midst of their despair, they found a small island, where they sheltered themselves, and which the sense of their deliverance disposed them to call Puerto Santo, or the Holy Haven. When they returned with an account of this new island, Henry performed a public act of thanksgiving, and sent them again with seeds and cattle; and we are told by the Spanish historian, that they set two rabbits on shore, which increased so much in a few years, that they drove away the inhabitants, by destroying their corn and plants, and were suffered to enjoy the island without opposition. In the second or third voyage to Puerto Santo, (for authors do not agree which,) a third captain, called Perello, was joined to the two former. As they looked round the island upon the ocean, they saw at a distance something which they took for a cloud, till they perceived that it did not change its place. They directed their course towards it, and, in 1419, discovered another island covered with trees, which they therefore called Madera, or the Isle of Wood. Madera was given to Vaz or Zarco, who set fire to the woods, which are reported by Souza to have burned for seven years together, and to have been wasted, till want of wood was the greatest inconveniency of the place. But green wood is not very apt to burn, and the heavy rains which fall in these countries must surely have extinguished the conflagration, were it ever so violent. There was yet little progress made upon the southern coast, and Henry's project was treated as chimerical by many of his countrymen. At last Gilianes, in 1433, passed the dreadful cape, to which he gave the name of Bajador, and came back, to the wonder of the nation. In two voyages more, made in the two following years, they passed forty-two leagues farther, and in the latter, two men with horses being set on shore, wandered over the country, and found nineteen men, whom, according to the savage manners of that age, they attacked; the natives having javelins, wounded one of the Portuguese, and received some wounds from them. At the mouth of a river, they found sea wolves in great numbers, and brought home many of their skins, which were much esteemed. Antonio Gonzales, who had been one of the associates of Gilianes, was sent again, in 1440, to bring back a cargo of the skins of sea wolves. He was followed in another ship by Nunno Tristam. They were now of strength sufficient to venture upon violence; they therefore landed, and without either right or provocation, made all whom they seized their prisoners, and brought them to Portugal, with great commendations both from the prince and the nation. Henry now began to please himself with the success of his projects, and as one of his purposes was the conversion of infidels, he thought it necessary to impart his undertaking to the pope, and to obtain the sanction of ecclesiastical authority. To this end Fernando Lopez d'Azeredo was despatched to Rome, who related to the pope and cardinals the great designs of Henry, and magnified his zeal for the propagation of religion. The pope was pleased with the narrative, and by a formal bull, conferred upon the crown of Portugal all the countries which should be discovered as far as India, together with India itself, and granted several privileges and indulgences to the churches which Henry had built in his new regions, and to the men engaged in the navigation for discovery. By this bull, all other princes were forbidden to encroach upon the conquests of the Portuguese, on pain of the censures incurred by the crime of usurpation. The approbation of the pope, the sight of men whose manners and appearance were so different from those of Europeans, and the hope of gain from golden regions, which has been always the great incentive to hazard and discovery, now began to operate with full force. The desire of riches and of dominion, which yet is more pleasing to the fancy, filled the courts of the Portuguese prince with innumerable adventurers from very distant parts of Europe. Some wanted to be employed in the search after new countries, and some to be settled in those which had been already found. ways been the same,) brought away seventy captives, and some commodities of the place. Louis de la Cerda, count of Clermont, of the blood royal both of France and Spain, nephew of John de la Cerda, who called himself the Prince of Fortune, had once a mind to settle in those islands, and applying himself first to the king of Arragon, and then to Clement VI. was by the pope crowned, at Avignon, king of the Canaries, on condition that he should reduce them to the true religion; but the prince altered his mind, and went into France to serve against the English. The kings both of Castile and Portugal, though they did not oppose the papal grant, yet complained of it, as made without their knowledge, and in contravention of their rights. The first settlement in the Canaries was made by John de Betancour, a French gentleman, for whom his kinsman, Robin de Braquement, admiral of France, begged them, with the title of king from Henry the Magnificent of Castile, to whom he had done eminent services. John made himself master of some of the isles, but could never conquer the grand Canary; and having spent all that he had, went back to Europe, leaving his nephew, Massiot de Betancour, to take care of his new dominion. Massiot had a quarrel with the vicar-general, and was likewise disgusted by the long absence of his uncle, whom the French king detained in his service, and being able to keep his ground no longer, he transferred his rights to Don Henry, in exchange for some districts in the Madera, where he set tled his family. Communities now began to be animated by the spirit of enterprise, and many associations Don Henry, when he had purchased those were formed for the equipment of ships, and islands, sent thither, in 1424, two thousand five the acquisition of the riches of distant regions, hundred foot, and a hundred and twenty horse; which perhaps were always supposed to be more but the army was too numerous to be mainwealthy, as more remote. These undertakers tained by the country. The king of Castile afagreed to pay the prince a fifth part of the profit, terwards claimed them, as conquered by his subsometimes a greater share, and sent out the ar-jects under Betancour, and held under the mament at their own expense. The city of Lagos was the first that carried on this design by contribution. The inhabitants fitted out six vessels, under the command of Lucarot, one of the prince's household, and soon after fourteen more were furnished for the same purpose, under the same commander; to those were added many belonging to private men, so that in a short time twenty-six ships put to sea in quest of whatever fortune should present. The ships of Lagos were soon separated by foul weather, and the rest, taking each its own course, stopped at different parts of the African coast, from Cape Blanco to Cape Verd. Some of them, in 1444, anchored at Gomera, one of the Canaries, where they were kindly treated by the inhabitants, who took them into their service against the people of the isle of Palma, with whom they were at war; but the Portuguese at their return to Gomera, not being made so rich as they expected, fell upon their friends, in contempt of all the laws of hospitality and stipulations of alliance, and making several of them prisoners and slaves, set sail for Lisbon. crown of Castile by fealty and homage; his claim was allowed, and the Canaries were resigned. It was the constant practice of Henry's navigators, when they stopped at a desert island, to land cattle upon it, and leave them to breed, where, neither wanting room nor food, they multiplied very fast, and furnished a very commodious supply to those who came afterwards to the same place. This was imitated in some degree by Anson, at the isle of Juan Fernandez. The islands of Madera he not only filled with inhabitants, assisted by artificers of every kind, but procured such plants as seemed likely to flourish in that climate, and introduced sugar-canes and vines, which afterwards produced a very large revenue. The trade of Africa now began to be profitable, but a great part of the gain arose from the sale of slaves, who were annually brought into Portugal, by hundreds, as Lafitau relates, and relates without any appearance of indignation or compassion: they likewise imported gold dust in such quantities, that Alphonsus V. coined it into a new species of money called Crusades, which is still continued in Portugal. The Canaries are supposed to have been known, however imperfectly, to the ancients; but in the confusion of the subsequent ages they In time they made their way along the south were lost and forgotten, till about the year 1340, coast of Africa, eastward to the country of the the Biscayners found Lucarot, and invading it, negroes, whom they found living in tents, with(for to find a new country and invade it has al-out any political institutions, supporting life, with ་ language of Portugal, so as to be able to interpret for their countrymen, and one John Fernandez applied himself to the negro tongue. very little labour, by the milk of their kine, and millet, to which those who inhabited the coast added fish dried in the sun. Having never seen the natives, or heard of the arts of Europe, they From this time began something like a regular gazed with astonishment on the ships when they traffic, such as can subsist between nations approached their coasts, sometimes thinking where all the power is on one side; and a facthem birds, and sometimes fishes, according as tory was settled in the isle of Arguin, under the their sails were spread or lowered; and some-protection of a fort. The profit of this new trade times conceiving them to be only phantoms, was assigned for a certain term to Ferdinando which played to and fro in the ocean. Such is Gomez; which seems to be the common method the account given by the historian, perhaps with of establishing a trade that is yet too small to too much prejudice against a negro's understand-engage the care of a nation, and can only be ening; who though he might well wonder at the bulk and swiftness of the first ship, would scarcely conceive it to be either a bird or a fish; but having seen many bodies floating in the water, would think it what it really is, a large boat; and if he had no knowledge of any means by which separate pieces of timber may be joined together, would form very wild notions concerning its construction, or perhaps suppose it to be a hollow trunk of a tree, from some country where trees grow to a much greater height and thickness than in his own. larged by that attention which is bestowed by private men upon private advantage. Gomez continued the discoveries to Cape Catharine, two degrees and a half beyond the line. In the latter part of the reign of Alphonso V. the ardour of discovery was somewhat intermitted, and all commercial enterprises were interrupted by the wars in which he was engaged with various success. But John II. who succeeded, being fully convinced both of the honour and advantage of extending his dominions in countries hitherto unknown, prosecuted the deWhen the Portuguese came to land, they in- signs of prince Henry with the utmost vigour, creased the astonishment of the poor inhabitants, and in a short time added to his other titles, that who saw men clad in iron with thunder and of king of Guinea and of the coast of Africa. lightning in their hands. They did not under- In 1463, in the third year of the reign of John stand each other, and signs are a very imperfect | II. died prince Henry, the first encourager of mode of communication, even to men of more remote navigation, by whose incitement, patronknowledge than the negroes, so that they could age, and example, distant nations have been not easily negotiate or traffic: at last the Por-made acquainted with each other, unknown tuguese laid hands on some of them to carry them home for a sample; and their dread and amazement was raised, says Lafitau, to the highest pitch, when the Europeans fired their cannons and muskets among them, and they saw their companions fall dead at their feet, without any enemy at hand, or any visible cause of their destruction. countries have been brought into general view, and the power of Europe has been extended to the remotest parts of the world. What mankind has lost and gained by the genius and designs of this prince, it would be long to compare, and very difficult to estimate. Much knowledge has been acquired, and much cruelty been com mitted; the belief of religion has been very little On what occasion, or for what purpose, can-propagated, and its laws have been outrageously nons and muskets were discharged among a peo- and enormously violated. The Europeans have ple harmless and secure, by strangers who with-scarcely visited any coast, but to gratify avarice, out any right visited their coast, it is not thought and extend corruption; to arrogate dominion necessary to inform us. The Portuguese could without right, and practice cruelty without infear nothing from them, and had therefore no centive. Happy had it then been for the opadequate provocation; nor is there any reason pressed, if the designs of Henry had slept in his to believe but that they murdered the negroes in bosom, and surely more happy for the oppres wanton merriment, perhaps only to try how sors. But there is reason to hope that out of so many a volley would destroy, or what would be much evil good may sometimes be produced; the consternation of those that should escape. and that the light of the gospel will at last illuWe are openly told that they had the less scru- minate the sands of Africa, and the deserts of ple concerning their treatment of the savage peo-America, though its progress cannot but be slow ple, because they scarcely considered them as when it is so much obstructed by the lives of distinct from beasts; and indeed the practice of Christians. all the European nations, and among others of The death of Henry did not interrupt the prothe English barbarians that cultivate the south-gress of king John, who was very strict in his inern islands of America, proves, that this opinion, junctions, not only to make discoveries, but to however absurd and foolish, however wicked secure possession of the countries that were and injurious, still continues to prevail. Interest found. The practice of the first navigators was and pride harden the heart, and it is in vain to only to raise a cross upon the coast, and to carve dispute against avarice and power. upon the trees the device of Don Henry, the By these practices the first discoverers alien-name which they thought it proper to give to the ated the natives from them; and whenever a ship appeared, every one that could fly betook himself to the mountains and the woods, so that nothing was to be got more than they could steal: they sometimes surprised a few fishers, and made them slaves, and did what they could to offend the negroes, and enrich themselves. This practice of robbery continued till some of the negroes who had been enslaved, learned the new coast, and any other information, for those that might happen to follow them; but now they began to erect piles of stones with a cross on the top, and engraved on the stone the arms of Portugal, the name of the king, and of the commander of the ship, with the day and year of the discovery. This was accounted sufficient to prove their claim to the new lands; which might be pleaded with justice enough against any other |