Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca

John Harris

This page will contain excerpts from the Harris work in which various voyages to Galápagos are described. The excerpts are from accounts in which the islands receive little more than a passing notice.—JW.

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Section XVII: The Voyage of Captain John Clipperton
Round the World, from an Authentic Journal

The “Authentic Journal” is not identified. Possibly, William Betagh's Voyage Round the World.—JW

13. [December, 1720] It was resolved to bear away for Refreshment to the Gallapagos Islands, there being a greater Probability of their doing it there unmolested, than in any other Part of the South Seas; and accordingly, toward the latter End of the Year, they put this Design in execution. On January 9, 1720, they anchored in York Road, on the North side of the Duke of York's Island, immediately under the Equinoctial, where they found good Water, scrubbed and cleaned their Ship, and after ten Days quitted those Islands, and sailed to the Northward.

I cannot help remarking upon this Occasion, that this intirely justifies Captain Cowley from the Aspersions thrown upon him by later Writers, as if he had given a fanciful Account of those Islands; and I must intreat my Readers to observe, that, among other Advantages resulting in this History of Circum-navigators, it is no small one, that, by comparing their Accounts, we correct abundance of their Mistakes, committed chiefly from their Prejudices against each other, and from the Passion that almost every one of them entertained, of passing for an abler Seaman than the rest.

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