the West India merchants are allowed to import coffee from Jamaica, when
it is well known that the East India Company can supply the whole demand
of this kingdom from Mocha? If it be answered that the Jamaica coffee
comes cheaper, and is the growth of our own plantations, I reply, that
these spices will not only be cheaper, but better, and be purchased by
our own manufacturers; and these, I think, are the strongest reasons that
can be given.

If it be demanded what certainty I have that spices can be had from
thence, I answer, all the certainty that in a thing of this nature can be
reasonably expected: Ferdinand de Quiros met with all sorts of spices in
the country he discovered; William Schovten, and Jacques le Maire, saw
ginger and nutmegs; so did Dampier; and the author of Commodore
Roggewein's Voyage asserts, that the free burgesses of Amboyna purchase
nutmegs from the natives of New Guinea for bits of iron. All, therefore,
I contend for, is that these bits of iron may be sent them from Old
England.

The reason I recommend settling on the south coast of Terra Australis, if
this design should be prosecuted, from Juan Fernandez, rather than the
island of New Britain, which I mentioned before, is, because that coast
is nearer, and is situated in a better and pleasanter climate. Besides
all which advantages, as it was never hitherto visited by the Dutch, they
cannot, with any colour of justice, take umbrage at our attempting such a
settlement. To close then this subject, the importance of which alone
inclined me to spend so much of mine and the reader's time about it:

It is most evident, that, if such a settlement was made at Juan
Fernandez, proper magazines erected, and a constant correspondence
established between that island and the Terra Australis, these three