In consequence of all these various improvements lessening the apprehensions of engaging in long voyages, may we not reasonably indulge the pleasing hope that fresh branches of commerce may, even in our time, be attempted, and successively carried on? Our hardy adventurers in the whale-fishery have already found their way, within these few years, into the South Atlantic; and who knows what fresh sources of commerce may still be opened, if the prospect of gain can be added, to keep alive the spirit of enterprise? If the situation of Great Britain be too remote, other trading nations will assuredly avail themselves of our discoveries. We may soon expect to hear that the Russians, now instructed by us where to find the American continent, have extended their voyages from the Fox Islands to Cook’s River, and Prince William’s Sound. And if Spain itself should not be tempted to trade from its most northern Mexican ports, by the fresh mine of wealth discovered in the furs of King George’s Sound, which they may transport in their Manilla ships, as a favourite commodity for the Chinese market, that market may probably be supplied by a direct trade to America, from Canton itself, with those valuable articles which the inhabitants of China have hitherto received only by the tedious and expensive circuit of Kamtschatka and Kiachta. These and many other commercial improvements may reasonably be expected to result from the British discoveries, even in our own times. But if we look forward to future ages, and to future changes in the history of commerce, by recollecting its various past revolutions and migrations, we may be allowed to please ourselves with the idea of its finding its way, at last, throughout the extent of the regions with which our voyages have opened an intercourse; and there will be abundant reason to subscribe to Captain Cook’s observation with regard to New Zealand, which may be applied to other tracks of land explored by him, that “although they be far remote from the present trading world, we can, by no means, tell what use future ages may make of the discoveries made by the present.”[57] In this point of view, surely, the utility of the late voyages must stand confessed; and we may be permitted to say, that the history of their operations, which will be completed in these volumes, has the justest pretensions to be called κτῆμα ἐς ἀεὶ, as it will convey to latest posterity a treasure of interesting information.