GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
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written in the name of the several Commanders, I could exhibit only a naked narrative, without any opinion or sentiment of my own, however fair the occasion, and without noting the similitude or dissimilitude between the opinions, customs, or manners of the people now first discovered, and those of nations that have been long known, or remarking on any other incident or particular that might occur. In answer to this objection, however, it was said, that as the manuscript would be submitted to the Gentlemen in whose names it would be written, supposing the narrative to be in the first person, and nothing published without their approbation, it would signify little who conceived the sentiments that should be expressed, and therefore I might still be at liberty to express my own. In this opinion all parties acquiesced, and it was determined that the narrative should be written in the first person, and that I might notwithstanding intersperse such sentiments and observations as my subject should suggest: they are not indeed numerous, and when they occur, are always cursory and short; for nothing would have been more absurd than to interrupt an interesting narrative, or new descriptions, by hypothesis and dissertation. They will however be found most frequent in the account of the voyage of the Endeavour, and the principal reason is, that although it stands last in the series, great part of it was printed before the others were written, so that several remarks, which would naturally have been suggested by the incidents and descriptions that would have occurred in the preceding voyages, were anticipated by similar incidents and descriptions which occurred in this.
Some particulars that are related in one voyage will perhaps appear to be repeated in another, as they would necessarily have been if the several Commanders had written the account of their voyages themselves; for a digest could not
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page v, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/005.html