I must add what, in my opinion, is far from being the least recommendation of these materials, that the observations of the variations of the compass, which are laid down in the chart from these Spanish journals, tend greatly to complete the general system of the magnetic variation, of infinite importance to the commercial and sea-faring part of mankind. These observations were, though in vain, often publicly called for by our learned countryman, the late Dr Halley, and to his immortal reputation they confirm, as far as they extend, the wonderful hypothesis he had entertained on this head, and very nearly correspond, in their quantity, to the predictions he published about fifty years since, long before he was acquainted with any one observation made in those seas. The ascertaining the variation in that part of the world is just now of more than ordinary consequence, as the editors of a new variation chart, lately published, for want of proper information, have been misled by an erroneous analogy, and have even mistaken the very species of variation in that of the northern ocean; for they make it westerly where it is easterly, and have laid it down 12° or 13° different from its real quantity. This much it has been thought necessary to premise, with regard to the hydrographical and geographical part of the ensuing work; which, it is hoped, the reader will find, on perusal, much ampler and more important than this slight sketch can well explain. But, as there are hereafter interspersed, occasionally, some accounts of Spanish transactions, and many observations relative to the dispositions of the American Spaniards, and to the condition of the countries bordering on the South Seas; and as herein I may appear to differ greatly from the opinions generally established; I think it behoves me particularly to recite the authorities I have been guided by in these matters, that I may not be censured as having given way, either to a thoughtless credulity on the one hand, or, what would be a much more criminal imputation, to a wilful and deliberate misrepresentation on the other.