Alexander Dalrymple, forgotten man of Easter Island history

Abstract

The Dutch-language narratives of Jacob Roggeveen's voyage to the Pacific in 1722 when Easter Island was discovered were given exhaustive treatment in Herbert von Saher's article 'Roggeveen and Boumann: an inventory of all the narratives' (RNJ 7(4):77-82). However, a few points about English-language versions of those same narratives still need to be made to put Captain Cook's visit to Easter Island in 1774 in its historical perspective.