Here were Cocoa nutt Trees, Bread Fruit Trees, and Plantain Trees, but we saw no fruit but on the former, and these were small and Green; the other Trees, Shrubs, Plants, etc., were likewise such as is common in the South Sea Islands and in New Holland.
Upon my return to the Ship we hoisted in the boat and made sail to the Westward, with a design to leave the Coast altogether.

This, however, was contrary to the inclination and opinion of some of the Officers, who would have had me send a Party of Men ashore to cut down the Cocoa Nutt Trees for the sake of the Nutts; a thing that I think no man living could have justified, for as the Natives had attacked us for meer landing without taking away one thing, certainly they would have made a Vigerous effort to have defended their property; in which case many of them must have been kill'd, and perhaps some of our own people too, and all this for 2 or 300 Green Cocoa Nutts, which, when we had got them, would have done us little service; besides nothing but the utmost necessity would have obliged me to have taken this method to come at refreshments.
It's true I might have gone farther along the Coast to the Northward and Westward until we had found a place where the Ship could lay so near the Shore as to cover the people with her Guns when landed; but it is very probable that before we had found such a place we should have been carried so far to the West as to have been obliged to have gone to Batavia by the way of the Moluccas, and on the North side of Java, where we were all utter Strangers.

This I did not think was so safe a Passage as to go to the South of Java and thro' the Straits of Sunda, the way I propose to myself to go.

Besides, as the Ship is leakey, we are not yet sure wether or no we shall not be obliged to heave her down at Batavia; in this case it becomes the more necessary that we should make the best of our way to that place, especially as no new discovery can be Expected to be made in these Seas, which the Dutch have, I believe, long ago narrowly examin'd, as appears from 3 Maps bound up with the French History of Voyages to the Terra Australis, published in 1756,* (* De Brye's Voyages.) which Maps, I do suppose, by some means have been got from the Dutch, as we found the Names of many of the places are in that Language.
It should likewise seem from the same Maps that the Spaniards and Dutch have at one time or another circumnavigated the whole of the Island of New Guinea, as the most of the Names are in these 2 Languages; and such part of the Coast as we were upon I found the Chart tolerable good, which obliges me to give some Credit to all the rest, notwithstanding we neither know by whom or when they were taken, and I always understood, before I had a sight of these Maps, that it was unknown whether or no New Holland and New Guinea was not one continued land, and so it is said in the very History of Voyages these Maps are bound up in.

However, we have now put this wholy out of dispute; but, as I believe, it was known before, tho' not publicly, I claim no other Merit than the Clearing up of a doubtful point.