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mad* acrofs the South fea ; the one by the (hip in which Magellan (ailed, who died in his paffage, and which was the firlt (hip that failed round the world, and the other by fir Francis Drake : but as neither of thefe failed into a northern latitude in that ocean, high enough to fix the longitude of the weftern coait of America from the call-em, the diftance acrofs was intirely on fuppofition, and the errors they then ran into appear laughable to us who now know what thediflance is.

That the company expected to come at the South fea without much trouble or travelling, and that the great body of land which intervened, fo far from being their view in obtaining the charter, became their dif'appoint-ment, may be collected from a circumilance mentioned in Stith's hiltory of Virginia.

He relates, that, in the year j6o8, which was at the time the company were foliciting this patent, they fitted up in England " a barge for captain Newport," (who was afterwards one of the joint cleputy governors under the very charter we are now treating of) which, for " convenience of carriage, might be taken into five piec-'   ' es, and with which he and his company were inllrtnfr.-

ed to go up James River as far as the falls thereof, to " difcover the country of the Monakins, and from thence " they were to proceed, currying their burgs beyond the jails '' to convey them to the fouth fea ; being ordered not to re-" turn without a lump of gold, or a certainty of the faid " fea."

And Hutchinfon, in his hiltory of New England, which was called North-Virginia at the time this patent was obtained, fays, " the geography of this part of America " was lefs underltood than ac prefent. A line to the " Spanifh fettlements was imagined much (hotter than it " really was. Some of Champlain's people, in the be-" ginning of the lad century, who had been but a few " (lays march from Quebec, returned with great joy, " fuppofing that from the top of a high mountain they    had difcovered the Sout/.-Sea."

From thefe matters, which ara evidences on record, it appears that the adventurers had no knowledge of the dillance it was to the South-Sea, but fuppofed it to be no

great