In this journal, the Spaniards boast of "having reached so high a latitude as 58°, beyond what any other navigators had been able to effect in those seas."[45] Without diminishing the merit of their performance, we may be permitted to say, that it will appear very inconsiderable indeed, in comparison of what Captain Cook effected, in the voyage of which an account is given in these volumes. Besides exploring, the land in the South Indian Ocean, of which Kerguelen, in two voyages, had been able to obtain but a very imperfect knowledge; adding also many considerable accessions to the geography of the Friendly Islands; and discovering the noble group, now called Sandwich Islands, in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, of which not the faintest trace can be met with in the account of any former voyage; besides these preliminary discoveries, the reader of the following work will find, that in one summer, our English navigator discovered a much larger proportion of the north-west coast of America than the Spaniards, though settled in the neighbourhood, had, in all their attempts, for above two hundred years, been able to do; that he has put it beyond all doubt that Beering and Tscherikoff had really discovered the continent of America in 1741, and has also established the prolongation of that continent westward opposite Kamschatka, which speculative writers, wedded to favourite systems, had affected so much to disbelieve, and which, though admitted by Muller, had, since he wrote, been considered as disproved, by later Russian discoveries;[46] that, besides ascertaining the true position of the western coasts of America, with some inconsiderable interruptions, from latitude 44° up to beyond the latitude 70°, he has also ascertained the position of the northeastern extremity of Asia, by confirming Beering's discoveries in 1728, and adding extensive accessions of his own; that he has given us more authentic information concerning the islands lying between the two continents, than the Kamtschatka traders, ever since Beering first taught them to venture on this sea, had been able to procure; that, by fixing the relative situation of Asia and America, and discovering the narrow bounds of the strait that divides them, he has thrown a blaze of light upon this important part of the geography of the globe, and solved the puzzling problem about the peopling of America, by tribes destitute of the necessary means to attempt long navigations; and, lastly, that, though the principal object of the voyage failed, the world will be greatly benefited even by the failure, as it has brought us to the knowledge of the existence of the impediments which future navigators may expect to meet with, in attempting to go to the East Indies through Beering's strait.[47]