The Virginia Gazette

Of the late wonderful Discoveries, and Improvements

Arts and Sciences.

THE World, but a few Ages since, was in a very poor Condition, as to Trade and Navigation; nor indeed, were they much better in other Matters of useful Knowledge. It was a green headed Time, every useful Improvement was hid from them; they had neither look'd into Heaven, nor Earth; into the Sea, nor Land, as has been done since. They had Philosophy without Experiments; Mathematicks without Instruments; Geometry without Scale: Astronomy without Demonstration. They made War without Powder; Shot, Cannon, or Mortars; nay, the Mob made their Bonfires without Squibs or Crackers. They went to Sea without Compasses; and sail'd without the Needle. They view'd the Stars without Telescopes; and measur'd Latitude, without Observation. Learning had no Printing Press; Writing no Paper, and Paper no Ink: The Lover was forced to send his Misters on a Deal Board for a Love Letter; and a Billet Doux might be about the Size of a Trencher. They were cloth'd without Manufacture: and their richest Robes were the Skins of the most formidable Monsters. They carried on Trade, without Books; and Correspondence, without Posts: Their Merchants kept no Accounts; their Shop-keepers no Cash Books. They had Chirurgery, without Anatomy; and Physicians, without the Materia Medica.

They gave Emetics, without Ipecacuanha; drew Blisters, without Cantharides; and cur'd Agues without the Bark.

As for Geographick Discoveries, they had neither seen the North Cape, nor the Cape of Good Hope South. All the discover'd inhabited World, which they knew, and convers'd with, was circumscribed within very narrow Limits, viz. France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Greece, the less Asia, the West Parts of Persia, Arabia, the North Parts of Africa, and the Islands of the Mediterranean Sea; and this was the whole World to them. Not that even those Countries were fully known neither; and several Parts of them not enquired into at all. Germany was known little farther than the Banks of the Elbe; Poland as little beyond the Vistula; or Hungary beyond the Danube. Muscovy or Russia perfectly unknown, as much as China beyond it; and India only by a little Commerce on the Coast, about Surat and Malabar. Africa had been more known; but by the Ruin of the Carthaginians, all the Western Coast of it was lost out of Knowledge again, and forgotten: The Northern Coast of Africa in the Mediterranean remain'd known, and that was all; for the Saracens over-running the Nations which were planted there, ruin'd Commerce, as well as Religion. The Baltick Sea was not discover'd; nor even the Navigation of it known; for the Teutonic Knights came not thither, 'til the 13th Century.

America was not heard of, nor so much as a Suggestion in the Minds of Men, that any Part of the World lay that Way. The Coasts of Greenland or Spitsbergen, and the Whale Fishing not known; the best Navigators in the World at that Time, would have fled from a Whale, with much more Fright and Horror, than from the Devil, in the most terrible Shapes they had been told he appeared in.

The Coasts of Angola, Congo, the Gold and the Grain Coasts, on the West Side of Africa, from whence, since that Time, such immense Wealth has been drawn, not discover'd, nor the least Inquiry made after them. All the East India and China Trade, not only undiscover'd, but out of the Reach of Expectation! Coffee and Tea, (those modern Blessings of Mankind,) had never been heard of; all the unbounded Ocean, we now call the South-Sea, was hid, and unknown; all the Atlantick Ocean, beyond the Mouth of the Straights, was frightful, and terrible in the distant Prospect; nor durst any one peep into it, otherwise than as they might creep along the Coast of Africa, towards Sallee, or Santa Cruz. The North Seas were hid in a Veil of impenetrable Darkness; the white Sea, or Arch-Angel, was a very modern Discovery; not found out, till Sir Hugh Willoughby doubled the North Cape, and paid dear for the Adventure, being frozen to Death, with all his Crew, on the Coasts of Lapland; while his Companion's Ship with the famous Mr. Chancellor, went on to the Gulph of Russia, call'd the white Sea, where no Christian strangers had ever been before him.

In these narrow Circumstances stood the World's Knowledge, at the Beginning of the 15th Century, when Men of Genius began to look abroad, and about 'em. Now, as it was wonderful to see a World so full of People, and People so capable of Improvement, yet so stupid, and so blind, so ignorant, and so perfectly unimprov'd; it was as wonderful, to see, with what a general Alacrity they took the Alarm, almost altogether; preparing themselves as it were on a sudden, by a general Inspiration, to spread Knowledge thro' the Earth, and to search into every Thing, that it was possible to uncover.

How surprizing is it to look back, so little a Way behind us, and see, that even in less than 200 Years, all this (now so Self-wise) Part of the World did not so much as know, whether there was any such Place, as a Russia, a China, a Guinea, a Greenland, or a North Cape? That as to America, it was never suppos'd, there was any such Place, neither had the World, tho' they stood upon the Shoulders of 4000 Years Experience, the least Thought, so much as that there was any Land that Way.

As they were ignorant of Places, so of Things also; so vast are the Improvements of Science, that all our Knowledge of Mathematicks, of Nature, of the brightest Part of human Wisdom, had their Admission among us within these Two last Centuries.

What was the World then before? and to what were the Heads and Hands of Mankind apply'd? The Rich had no Commerce, the Poor no Employment; War, and Sword, was the great Field of Honour, the Stage of Preferment; and you have scarce a Man eminent, in the World, for any Thing before that Time, but for a furious outrageous falling upon his Fellow Creatures, like Nimrod, and his Successors of modern Memory.

The World is now daily encreasing in experimental Knowledge; and let no Man flatter the Age, with pretending we are arriv'd to a Perfection of Discoveries.

What's more discover'd, only Serves to show,

That Nothing's known, to what is yet to know.