This was generally designated Terra Australis Incognita, and many is the ancient chart that shows it, sketched with a free and uncontrolled hand, around the South Pole.

It was held by many that Tasman had touched it in New Zealand; that Quiros had seen it near his island of Encarnacion, and again at Espiritu Santo (New Hebrides), but no one had been to see.
In George III's reign the desire to know more of this unknown ocean arose in England.

The king himself took great interest in it, and for the first time since Queen Elizabeth's age, when Davis, Frobisher, Drake, Narborough, and others, had gone on voyages of discovery, the pursuit was renewed.
In 1764 the Dolphin and Tamor, under the command of Commodore Byron and Captain Mouat, sailed on a voyage round the world.

They spent some time, as ordered, in exploring the Falkland Islands, and, after a two months' passage through Magellan Strait, they stood across the Pacific.

They, however, also followed near the well-beaten track, and passing north of the Paumotus, of which they sighted a few small islands, they too made for the Ladrones.