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[Page 2]
to immediate circumstances, that they are of little value but to give opportunity to any scanty informed persons to pirate & compile as ideas of their own, which may be received as general principles to govern every commander of a ship. Almost your very words, when my Lord Darnley mentioned to me about the Map I had sent to the Admiralty (which he understood from you) I expressed to him, and I think that if all the Voyages were represented in the same manner, all that we want to know would be better ascertained. But you would be surprised to find how few people (of those who talk the most) know their correct positions - they are not to be depended upon unless they show a correct diary of the Rate & Error of their Timepiece with all its variations. Without they can show this, all they produce is a vague approximation which sometimes may be nearly right & authorise their assertions, but generally