Daniel Defoe - A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before

It has for some ages been thought so wonderful a thing to sail the tour or circle of the globe, that when a man has done this mighty feat, he presently thinks it deserves to be recorded like Sir Francis Drake's. So soon as men have acted the sailor, they come ashore and write books of their voyage, not only to make a great noise of what they have done themselves, but pretending to show the way to others to come after them, they set up for teachers and chart makers to posterity. Though most of them have had this misfortune, that whatever success they have had in the voyage, they have had very little in the relation; except it be to tell us, that a seaman when he comes to the press, is pretty much out of his element, and a very good sailor may make but a very indifferent author.

I do not in this, lessen the merit of those gentlemen who have made such a long voyage as that round the globe; but I must be allowed to say, as the way is now a common road, the reason of it thoroughly known, and the occasion of it more frequent than in former times, so the world has done wondering at it; we no more look upon it as a mighty thing, a strange and never heard of undertaking; this cannot be now expected of us, the thing is made familiar, every ordinary sailor is able to do it, if his merchants are but qualified to furnish him for so long a voyage; and he that can carry a ship to Lisbon, may with the same ease carry it round the world.

Some tell us, it is enough to wonder at a thing nine days, one would reasonably then conclude, that it is enough that sailing round the world has been wondered at above a hundred years. I shall therefore let the reader know, that it is not the rarity of going round the world that has occasioned this publication, but if some incidents have happened in such a voyage, as either have not happened to others, or as no other people, though performing the same voyage have taken notice of, then this account may be worth publishing, though the thing, viz. The Voyage round the World, be in itself of no value.

It is to be observed, of the several navigators whose Voyages round the World have been published, that few, if any of them, have diverted us with that variety which a circle of that length must needs offer. We have a very little account of their landings, their diversions, the accidents which happened to them, or to others by their means; the stories of their engagements, when they have had any scuffle either with natives, or European enemies, are told superficially and by halves; the storms and difficulties at sea or on shore, have nowhere a full relation; and all the rest of their accounts are generally filled up with directions for sailors coming that way, the bearings of the land, the depth of the channels, entrances, and bars, at the several ports, anchorage in the bays, and creeks, and the like things, useful indeed for seamen going thither again, and how few are they? but not at all to the purpose when we come expecting to find the history of the voyage.

Another sort of these writers have just given us their long journals, tedious accounts of their log-work, how many leagues they sailed every day; where they had the winds, when it blew hard, and when softly; what latitude in every observation, what meridian distance, and what variation of the compass. Such is the account of Sir John Narborough's Voyage to the South Seas, adorned with I know not how many charts of the famous Strait of Magellan, a place only now famous for showing the ignorance of Sir John Narborough, and a great many wise gentlemen before him, and for being a passage they had no need to have troubled themselves with, and which nobody will ever go through anymore.

Such also are the Voyages of Captain John Wood, to Nova Zemla, at the charge of the public, in King Charles the Second's time, and Martin Frobisher to the North-West Passages, in Queen Elizabeth's time; all which, are indeed full of their own journals, and the incidents of sailing, but have little or nothing of story in them, for the use of such readers who never intend to go to sea, and yet such readers may desire to hear how it has fared with those that have, and how affairs stand in those remote parts of the world.

For these reasons, when first I set out upon a cruising and trading voyage to the East, and resolved to go anywhere, and everywhere that the advantage of trade or the hopes of purchase should guide us, I also resolved to take such exact notice of everything that past within my reach, that I would be able, if I lived to come home, to give an account of my voyage, differing from all that I had ever seen before, in the nature of the observations, as well as the manner of relating them. And as this is perfectly new in its form, so I cannot doubt but it will be agreeable in the particulars, seeing either no voyage ever made before, had such variety of incidents happening in it, so useful and so diverting, or no person that sailed on those voyages, has thought fit to publish them after this manner.

Having been fitted out in the river of Thames so lately as the year 1713, and on a design perhaps not very consistent with the measures taking at that time for the putting an end to the war, I must be allowed to own I was at first obliged to act not in my own name, but to put in a French commander into the ship, for the reasons which follow, and which those, who understand the manner of trade upon closing the late war, I mean the trade with Spain, will easily allow to be just and well grounded.

During the late war between Great Britain and her confederates on one side, and the united crowns of France and Spain on the other, we all know the French had a free trade into the South Seas; a trade carried on with the greatest advantage, and to the greatest degree, that any particular commerce has been carried on in the world for many ages past; insomuch, that we found the return of silver that came back to France by those ships, was not only the enriching of the merchants of St. Malo, Rochelle, and other ports in France, some of whom we saw get immense estates in a few years, even to a million sterling a man; but it was evident, the King of France himself was enabled, by the circulation of so much bullion through his mints, to carry on that war with very great advantage.

It was just at the close of this war, when some merchants of London, looking with envy on the success of that trade, and how the French, notwithstanding the peace, would apparently carry it on, for some years at least, to infinite advantage, began to consider whether it might not be possible to come in for a portion of it with France, as they were allied to Spain, and yet go abroad in the nature of a private cruiser.

To bring this to pass, it was thought proper, in the first place, to get a share if possible, in a new design of an East India trade in Flanders, just then intended to be set up by some British merchants, by the assistance of an imperial charter, or at least under colour of it: and so we might go to sea in a threefold capacity, to be made use of as occasion might present, viz., when on the coast of New Spain we sought to trade, we were Frenchmen, had a French captain, and a sufficient number of French seamen, and Flemish or Walloon seamen, who spoke French, so to appear on all proper occasions. When at sea we met with any Spanish ship worth our while, we were English cruisers, had letters of mart from England, had no account of the peace, and were fitted for the attack. And when in the East Indies we had occasion to trade, either at the English or Dutch settlements, we should have imperial colours, and two Flemish merchants, at least in appearance, to transact everything as we found occasion. However, this last part of our project failed us, that affair not being fully ripe.