Page:Captain Cook's Journal during His First Voyage Round the World.djvu/16

x to call it Botany Bay. It is, however, called Botany Bay from the first in the Journals.

The name, "New South Wales," was not bestowed without much consideration, and apparently at one stage New Wales was the appellation fixed upon, for in Mr. Corner's copy it is so called throughout, whereas the Admiralty copy has "New South Wales."

It would therefore seem that about the period of the discrepant accounts Mr. Corner's copy was first made, and that Cook, in the Admiralty copy, which for this part is fuller, revised the wording of his description of this very critical portion of the voyage.

The Queen's Copy has been written with especial care, and by several different hands. It was evidently the last in point of time.

In reading of his First Voyage it must be remembered that it was not prepared for publication. Though no doubt the fair copies we possess were revised with the care that characterises the man, and which is evidenced by the interlineations and corrections in his own hand with which the pages are dotted, it may be supposed, from the example we have in the published account of his Second Voyage, which was edited by himself, that further alterations and additions would have been made, to make the story more complete, had he contemplated its being printed.

This does not, however, in any way detract from the interest of a transcript of his record on the spot; and though many circumstances recorded in Hawkesworth, from Banks or others, will not be found, it is probable that an exact copy of the great navigator's own impressions, and the disentanglement of them from the other interpolated matter, will be welcome.

In printing this Journal the only alterations that have been made are the breaking-up into chapters, with modern headings; the addition of punctuation; and in the form of