This infatuation is the more extraordinary because few of the adventurers knew to what place they were going.

All that was quite certain was that a colony was to be planted somewhere, and to be named Caledonia.

The general opinion was that the fleet would steer for some part of the coast of America.

But this opinion was not universal.

At the Dutch Embassy in Saint James's Square there was an uneasy suspicion that the new Caledonia would be founded among those Eastern spice islands with which Amsterdam had long carried on a lucrative commerce.
The supreme direction of the expedition was entrusted to a Council of Seven.