A Voyage to New Holland | Page 3

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 escape the censure of all, or to hope for better
treatment than far worthier persons have met with before me. But this
satisfaction I am sure of having, that the things themselves in the
discovery of which I have been employed are most worthy of our
diligentest search and inquiry; being the various and wonderful works
of God in different parts of the world: and however unfit a person I
may be in other respects to have undertaken this task, yet at least I have
given a faithful account, and have found some things undiscovered by
any before, and which may at least be some assistance and direction to
better qualified persons who shall come after me.
It has been objected against me by some that my accounts and
descriptions of things are dry and jejune, not filled with variety of

pleasant matter to divert and gratify the curious reader. How far this is
true I must leave to the world to judge. But if I have been exactly and
strictly careful to give only true relations and descriptions of things (as
I am sure I have) and if my descriptions be such as may be of use not
only to myself (which I have already in good measure experienced) but
also to others in future voyages; and likewise to such readers at home
as are more desirous of a plain and just account of the true nature and
state of the things described than of a polite and rhetorical narrative: I
hope all the defects in my style will meet with an easy and ready
pardon.
Others have taxed me with borrowing from other men's journals; and
with insufficiency, as if I was not myself the author of what I write but
published things digested and drawn up by others. As to the first part of
this objection I assure the reader I have taken nothing from any man
without mentioning his name, except some very few relations and
particular observations received from credible persons who desired not
to be named; and these I have always expressly distinguished in my
books from what I relate as of my own observing. And as to the latter I
think it so far from being a diminution to one of my education and
employment to have what I write revised and corrected by friends that,
on the contrary, the best and most eminent authors are not ashamed to
own the same thing, and look upon it as an advantage.
Lastly I know there are some who are apt to slight my accounts and
descriptions of things as if it was an easy matter and of little or no
difficulty to do all that I have done, to visit little more than the coasts of
unknown countries, and make short and imperfect observations of
things only near the shore. But whoever is experienced in these matters,
or considers things impartially, will be of a very different opinion. And
anyone who is sensible how backward and refractory the seamen are
apt to be in long voyages when they know not whither they are going,
how ignorant they are of the nature of the winds and the shifting
seasons of the monsoons, and how little even the officers themselves
generally are skilled in the variation of the needle and the use of the
azimuth compass; besides the hazard of all outward accidents in strange
and unknown seas: anyone, I say, who is sensible of these difficulties
will be much more pleased at the discoveries and observations I have
been able to make than displeased with me that I did not make more.

Thus much I thought necessary to premise in my own vindication
against the objections that have been made to my former performances.
But not to trouble the reader any further with matters of this nature;
what I have more to offer shall be only in relation to the following
voyage.
For the better apprehending the course of this voyage and the situation
of the places mentioned in it I have here, as in the former volumes,
caused a map to be engraven with a pricked line representing to the eye
the whole thread of the voyage at one view, besides charts and figures
of particular places, to make the descriptions I have given of them more
intelligible and useful.
Moreover, which I had not opportunity of doing in my former voyages;
having now had in the ship with me a person skilled in drawing, I have
by this means been enabled,