Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/694

 570 BIBLIOGRAPHY Biblio« In the British Museum there are two other tracts by the same graphy. author : — ' I. Memorial of Jean Pierre Purry of Neachatel in hehalf of the Coloni- sation of South Carolina. 4to., pp. 12. London, 18th July, 1724. [Reprinted in Carroll's Historical Collections, vol. ii, 1836 ; in Force's Tracts, voL ii, 1836, and separately in 4to., Augusta, Georgia, 1880.] II. A method for determining the best climate of the Earth, on a principle to which all geographers and historians have been hitherto strangers. In a memorial presented to the Governors of the East India Company in Holland, for which the author was obliged to leave that country. By John Peter Purry. Translated from the French. 12mo., pp. 4-60. London, 1744. Collation : Title, Advertisement [Sketch of Author's life]. Address to my Lords the Deputies to the Assembly of Seventeen Representatives of the General Company of the East Indies of the Low Countries, Method, &;o. The advertisement is as follows : — John Peter Purry, the Author of the following memorial, was bom at Neufchatel in Switzerland about the year LXX of the last century, who having engaged for some time in the wine trade, and meeting with mis* fortunes in it, contracted himself to the Chamber of Amster&m for the East Indies in Batavia about the be^nning of 1713 ; where by his plan- tations and by being Reader to the Keform'd Church in that city, having pretty well repair'd his fortune in the year 1717, he presented to the Governor-General of the East India Company, a proposal for Settling a Colony in the Land of Nights, not far from the Island of Java, which noi having the good fortime to be approved of, he obtained leave to return to Europe. In doubling the Cape of Good Hope he was so taken with the admirable colonies he found there, that he was more and more confirmed in the Thought of Immortalizing his Name with some Settlement of the 33rd decree, either of Northern or Southern Latitude. Arriving at Amsterdam m 1718, he presented there in French the Memorial we now give to the Reader in English, to the Lords the Directors of the Dutch East India Company, who determine all matters relating to it. Neither this Memorial, nor another which accompanied it, were well received insomuch that a friend of his told privately he had best get out of the Way for that some Things had been observed in both Papers which ought not to be made public. He took the advice and went into France ; from whence he made a tour into his own country. But returning to Paris in that fatal year, 1720, he lost in the Mississippi Company what he had got in the East Indies. Here his former scheme reviv'd, and, having modelled it to the French Settle- ments, he presented it to some of the Prime Ministers, who referred it to the Royal Academy of Sciences. Mons. Fontenelle retum'd this cautious answer that they could not pass a judgement on a country which they had never seen, and that therefore it would not be advisable to make expensive settlements in places they were unacquainted with. This was all the deter- mination that could be got from him. The Journal des Scavans, however, took notice of the Proposal, and gave a fair representation of it. Rejected a Second Time, Mr. Purry came into England, and printed his proposal here for establishing a Colony on the English coast of America, southward enouch for his favourite decree. It was presented to the Duke of Newcastle as he was walking with the king at Kensington in 1721. But neither here could his scheme boast of the expected approbation. I remember, however, that Sir Isaac Newton, to whom I communicated it, agreed in general to the Principles of it, with a proviso that the Nature of each Country and Soil should be first examined before settlements were attempted. Digitized by Google