[2] An account of the voyage performed by Magalhaens, is given in vol. x. of this collection. The discoveries made by that enterprising man in the South Pacific Ocean, were far from being very important; but the expedition in which he unfortunately lost his life, will ever be memorable in the pages of history, as the first circumnavigation of the world.--E. [3] Mr Dalrymple has collected together the few existing notices of Spanish voyages of discovery, betwixt the times of those performed by Magalhaens and Mendana. Though by no means considerable in bulk, they are too numerous to be detailed in this place. It is very probable, that the Spanish government continued from mere habit to reserve the more perfect memorials, after all the views of policy which first occasioned their being withheld from the public, had been abandoned. The affairs of that ill-fated kingdom have been long very unfavourable to the investigations, which certainly unimportant curiosity might prompt on the subject--E. [4] Two relations have been given of Mendana's voyage; one by Quiros above-mentioned, in a letter to Don Antonio Morga, lieutenant-general of the Phillipines, when Quiros landed at Manila, which was inserted in a work published at Mexico in 1609; and the other contained in Thevenot's French collection, being, as Mr Dalrymple has remarked, a transcript from Figueroa's history of Garcia Hurtado de Mendoça, and of less authority. The discoveries of Quiros, real and supposed, have attracted very peculiar notice, and deservedly so. Almost every collection specifies them. That which the president de Brosses has given on the authority of several Spanish works, has been generally followed. Mr Dalrymple is earnest in securing to this _immortal_ name, the honour of discovering the southern continent. It is most certain that he did discover something in the Pacific Ocean, but it never yet has been shewn, that this something any way corresponds with the wonderful description he thought proper to give of it, in his memorial to the Spanish king. "Its longitude," says he, (we copy from Mr Dalrymple's translation) "is as much as that of all Europe, Asia- Minor, and to the Caspian Sea, and Persia, with all the islands of the Mediterranean and Ocean, which are in its limits embraced, including England and Ireland. That _unknown_ part is a quarter of the whole globe, and so capacious, that it may contain in it double the kingdoms and provinces of all those your majesty is at present Lord of: And that without adjoining to Turks or Moors, or others of the nations which are accustomed to disquiet and disturb their neighbours!" This was a discoverer after our own heart, worth a dozen or two of Ansons, Byrons, and Cooks! Amongst his real discoveries must