The History of Voyages & Travels (All 18 Volumes). Robert Kerr

History, so far as it extends, it certainly is in no respect a Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels. In a very large proportion of that curious work, it is the author who speaks to the reader, and not the traveller. In the present work, wherever that could possibly be accomplished, it has uniformly been the anxious desire of the Editor that the voyagers and travellers should tell their own story: In that department of his labour, his only object has been to assume the character of interpreter between them and the readers, by translating foreign or antiquated language into modern English. Sometimes, indeed, where no record remains of particular voyages and travels, as written by the persons who performed them, the Editor has necessarily had recourse to their historians. But, on every such occasion, the most ancient and most authentic accessible sources have been anxiously sought after and employed. In every extensive work, it is of the utmost consequence that its various parts should be arranged upon a comprehensive and perspicuously systematic plan. This has been accordingly aimed at with the utmost solicitude in the present undertaking; and the order of its arrangement was adopted after much deliberation, and from a very attentive consideration of every general work of the same nature that could be procured. If, therefore, the systematic order on which it is conducted shall appear well adapted to the subject, after an attentive perusal and candid investigation, the Editor confidently hopes that his labours may bear a fair comparison with any similar publication that has yet been brought forward.

      In the short Prospectus of this work, formerly submitted to the public, a very general enunciation only, of the heads of the intended plan, was attempted; as that was then deemed sufficient to convey a distinct idea of the nature, arrangement, and distribution of the proposed work. Unavoidable circumstances still necessarily preclude the possibility, or the propriety rather, of attempting to give a more full and complete developement of the divisions and subdivisions of the systematic arrangement which is to be pursued, and which circumstances may require some elucidation.

      An extensive and minutely arranged plan was carefully devised and extended by the Editor, before one word of the work was written or compiled, after an attentive examination of every accessible former collection; That plan has been since anxiously reconsidered, corrected, altered, and extended, in the progress of the work, as additional materials occurred: yet the Editor considers that the final and public adoption of his plan, in a positively fixed and pledged systematic form, any farther than has been already conveyed in the Prospectus, would have the effect to preclude the availment of those new views of the subject which are continually afforded by additional materials, in every progressive step of preparation for the press. The number of books of voyages and travels, as well general as particular, is extremely great; and, even if the whole were at once before the Editor, it would too much distract his attention from the division or department in which he is engaged for the time, to attempt studying and abstracting every subdivision at once. The grand divisions, however, which have been already indicated in the Prospectus, and the general principles of the plan, which are there explained, are intended to be adhered to; as no reasons have been discovered, after the most attentive consideration, for any deviation from that carefully adopted arrangement, the heads of which are here repeated.

      GENERAL PLAN OF THE WORK.

       Table of Contents

      PART I.

      Voyages and Travels of Discovery in the middle ages; from the era of Alfred, King of England, in the ninth century to that of Don Henry of Portugal at the commencement of the fourteenth century.

      PART II.

      General Voyages and Travels chiefly of Discovery; from the era of Don Henry, in 1412, to that of George III. in 1760.

      PART III.

      Particular Voyages and Travels arranged in systematic order, Geographical and Chronological.

      Note.--This part will be divided into five books, comprehending, I. Europe.--II. Asia.--III. Africa.--IV. America.--V. Australia and Polynesia; or the prodigious multitude of islands in the, great: Pacific Ocean. And all these will be further subdivided into particular chapters or sections correspondent to the geographical arrangements of these several portions of the globe.

      PART IV.

      General Voyages and Travels of Discovery during the era of George III. which were conducted upon scientific principles, and by which the Geography of the globe has been nearly perfected.

      PART V.

      Historical Deduction of the Progress of Navigation Discovery and Commerce by sea and land, from the earliest times to the present period.

      In the deliberate construction of this systematic plan, it has been a leading object of anxious consideration, to reduce the extensive and interesting materials of which the work is composed under a clear, intelligible, and comprehensive arrangement, so combined in a geographical and chronological series, that each successive division and subdivision, throughout the whole work, may prepare the mind of the reader for that which is to follow, and may assist the memory in the recollection of what has gone before. By these means, an attentive perusal of this work must necessarily be of material usefulness, in fixing distinct and just ideas of geography, history, and chronology in the minds of its readers; besides the important information and rational amusement which it will afford, by the frequent description of manners, customs, laws, governments, and many other circumstances, of all the countries and nations of the world.

      In determining upon an era for the commencement of this work, the Editor was naturally led, from a consideration of the accidental discovery of Iceland by the Norwegians in the ninth century, as coincident with the reign of the great ALFRED, who ascended the throne of England in 872, to adopt that period as the beginning of the series, both because the commencement of modern maritime discovery took place during the reign of a British sovereign, and because we derive the earliest written accounts of any of these discoveries from the pen of that excellent prince. It is true that the first accidental discovery of Iceland appears to have been made in 861, eleven years before the accession of Alfred to the throne; yet, as the actual colonization of that island did not take place till the year 878, the seventh of his glorious reign, we have been induced to distinguish the actual commencement of maritime discovery by the modern European nations as coinciding with his era.

      From that time, till the year 1412, when Don Henry, Prince of Portugal, first began to prosecute a consecutive series of maritime discoveries along the western coast of Africa, during which a long inactive period of 551 years had elapsed, the only maritime incident connected with our subject, was the accidental re-discovery of the Canary or Fortunate Islands, by a nameless Frenchman, about the year 1330, though they were not attempted to be taken possession of till 1400. This long interval, between the eras of King Alfred and Don Henry, constitutes the first Part, or grand division of our work, in the course of which, a considerable number of adventurous travellers penetrated into the almost unknown regions of Tartary and the East, and considerable notices of the empire of China, and even of Japan, and of the coast and islands of India and north-eastern Africa, were communicated to the Europeans by the Polos and others.

      In separating Part IV. from Part II. the General Voyages and Travels of Discovery which have been undertaken during the long and busy reign of our present venerable Sovereign, from those of a similar nature which succeeded the discovery of the new world, and of the route by sea to India, the Editor only pays a just tribute to the enlightened spirit of the age, under the munificent and enlightened patronage of the beloved Monarch of a free and happy people. Those former voyages of Part II. were mostly undertaken from mere interested views of direct or expected commercial benefit; while these of the era of George III. originated in the grand principles of endeavouring to extend the bounds of science and human happiness.

      Perhaps it may occur to some readers, that PART V. the last in order of the general heads of our plan, ought to have formed PART I. as partaking of the nature of an introduction to the subject, and forming a summary of the whole work. Upon even a very slight consideration, however, it must be obvious, that it is impossible to compose that proposed deduction in