general nature of the land, where they may be placed. The question had,
therefore, ceased to be one in which geography was alone concerned: it
claimed the paternal consideration of the father of all his people, and
the interests of the national commerce seconded the call for
investigation.

Accordingly, the following voyage was undertaken by command of HIS
MAJESTY, in the year 1801; in a ship of 334 tons, which received the
appropriate name of the INVESTIGATOR; and, besides great objects of
clearing up the doubt respecting the unity of these southern regions, and
of opening therein fresh sources to commerce, and new ports to seamen, it
was intended, that the voyage should contribute to the advancement of
natural knowledge in various branches; and that some parts of the
neighbouring seas should he visited, wherein geography and navigation had
still much to desire.

The vast regions to which this voyage was principally directed,
comprehend, in the western part, the early discoveries of the Dutch,
under the name of NEW HOLLAND; and in the east, the coasts explored by
British navigators, and named NEW SOUTH WALES. It has not, however, been
unusual to apply the first appellation to both regions; but to continue
this, would be almost as great an injustice to the British nation, whose
seamen have had so large a share in the discovery, as it would be to the
Dutch, were New South Wales to be so extended. This appears to have been
felt by a neighbouring, and even rival, nation; whose writers commonly
speak of these countries under the general term of _Terres Australes_. In
fact, the original name, used by the Dutch themselves until some time
after Tasman's second voyage, in 1644, was _Terra Australis_, or _Great
South Land_; and when it was displaced by New Holland, the new term was
applied only to the parts lying _westward_ of a meridian line, passing