I Address these Travels to you, as the best judges of the veracity of some part of them; and as my friend Omai was indebted to your friendship and protection (before you could possibly discover his intrinsic merit), to the grateful remembrance of favours received in his native country; I flatter myself, you will not refuse your Patronage to one, who was adopted into a Nation, with whom you held page iva friendly intercourse in the Southern Hemisphere, because he was born in England.

The inhabitants of great part of New-Zealand, are certainly much less civilised than those of Otaheite and the other Paphian Isles; but had you been fortunate enough to have fallen in with the Auditantine coast, and could have conversed with the natives, I make no doubt but the fair Shepherdesses of that country, would have rivalled your favourite charmers, with this advantage, they scorn all pilfering, but that of hearts.

Should Government think proper to send any ships to cultivate friendship and commerce with the Nations I have discovered, and I am honoured with the command of one of them, no-page vthing could add so much to my satisfaction on that event, as the company of two Gentlemen, who have set so laudable an example to all the European Literati, of braving the greatest dangers in the pursuit of useful knowledge.

I have the honour to be, with profound respect,