A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed BeforeDefoe, Daniel
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A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before
Defoe, Daniel
Adventure stories; Voyages around the world -- Fiction
For all these we carry nothing or very little but money, the
innumerable nations of the Indies, China, &c., despising our
manufactures, and filling us with their own.
On the contrary, the people in the southern unknown countries, being
first of all very numerous, and living in a temperate climate, which
requires clothing, and having no manufactures, or materials for
manufactures, of their own, would consequently take off a very great
quantity of English woollen manufactures, especially when civilized by
our dwelling among them, and taught the manner of clothing themselves
for their ease and convenience; and, in return for these manufactures,
it is evident we should have gold in specie, and perhaps spices, the
best merchandise and return in the world.
I need say no more to excite adventurous heads to search out a country
by which such an improvement might be made, and which would be such an
increase of, or addition to, the wealth and commerce of our country.
Nor can it be objected here, that this nook of the country may not
easily be found by any one but by us, who have been there before, and
perhaps not by us again exactly; for, not to enter into our journal of
observations for their direction, I lay it down as a foundation, that
whoever sailing over the South Seas keeps a stated distance from the
tropic, to the latitude of 56 to 60°, and steers eastward towards the
Straits of Magellan, shall never fail to discover new worlds, new
nations, and new inexhaustible funds of wealth and commerce, such as
never were yet known to the merchants of Europe.
This is the true ocean called the South Sea; that part which we
corruptly call so can be so in no geographical account, or by any rule,
but by the mere imposition of custom, it being only originally called
so, because they that sailed to it were obliged to go round the
southernmost part of America to come into it; whereas it ought indeed to
be called the West Sea, as it lies on the west side of America, and
washes the western shore of that great continent for near eight thousand
miles in length; to wit, from 56° south of the line to 70° north, and
how much farther we know not; on this account I think it ought to be
called the American Ocean, rather than with such impropriety the South
Sea.
But this part of the world where we were may rightly be called the South
Sea, by way of distinction, as it extends from India round the globe,
to India again, and lies all south of the line even, for aught we know,
to the very South Pole, and which, except some interposition of land,
whether islands or continent, really surrounds the South Pole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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