USA > California > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 10
USA > Oregon > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 10
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* The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, collected out of the Notes of Mr. Francis Fletcher, Preacher, in this Employment, and compared with divers others' Notes that went in the same Voyage. It was first published in 1652, and may be found entire in Osborne's Collection of Voyages, vol. ii. p. 434. It is long and diffuse, and is filled with speculations, most probably by the compiler, on various subjects ; yet it contains scarcely a single fact not related in the Famous Voyage, from which many sentences and paragraphs are taken, verbatim, while others convey the same meaning in different words.
76
PART OF THE NORTH-WEST COAST SEEN BY DRAKE. [1579.
voyage * above cited, that the English " searched the coast dili- gently, even into the 48th degree ; yet they found not the land to trend so much as one point, in any place, toward the east." Bur- ney, however, omits to notice the remainder of the sentence, - " but rather running on continually north-west, as if it went directly to meet with Asia,"- which entirely destroys the value of the evidence in the first part, as, in fact, the coast nowhere, between the 40th and the 48th degrees of latitude, runs north-west, its course being nearly due north.
On examining the two accounts of Drake's voyage, many cir- cumstances will be found, in contradiction of the belief that the English, in 1579, discovered the American coast as far north as the 48th degree of latitude. In the first place, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for any vessel to sail, in two days, through six degrees of latitude, northward, with the wind, as we are assured by both accounts, blowing constantly and violently from the north and north-west ; and much confidence cannot be placed on assertions as to latitude, based on observations made in a vessel, on a stormy sea, with imperfect instruments, and when the atmosphere was generally charged with thick fogs. It is also to be observed, that the account on which is founded the belief that Drake did reach the 48th degree, contains statements, with respect to the intensity of the cold in the North Pacific, so entirely at variance with the results of universal experience, that they cannot be regarded as otherwise than false. That men, suddenly transferred from the tropics to a region north of the 40th degree of latitude, should find the change of temperature disagreeable, is consonant with reason ; but the asser- tion that ropes were stiffened by ice, and that meat, as soon as it was removed from the fire, became frozen,* in any part of the ocean between the 40th and the 48th parallels of north latitude, in the month of June, must be condemned as an intentional untruth.
In conclusion, although there is no positive evidence that Drake did not, in 1579, discover the north-west coast of America, to the 48th degree of latitude, yet, on the other hand, the assertion that he did so, is not supported by sufficient evidence ; and, where origi- nally made, it is accompanied by statements certainly erroneous, and calculated to destroy the value of the whole testimony. It may be admitted that the coast between the 43d and the 38th degrees was seen by the English in 1579; but it is certain that this same coast had been already seen, in 1543, by the Spaniards, under Ferrelo.
* The World Encompassed.
77
CAVENDISH'S EXPEDITION.
1578.]
The success of Drake's enterprise encouraged other English adventurers to attempt similar expeditions through the Straits of Magellan ; and it stimulated the navigators of his nation in their efforts to discover northern passages into the Pacific Ocean. Of their predatory excursions, none were attended with success, except that of the famous Thomas Cavendish, or Candish, who rendered his name almost as terrible to the Spaniards as that of Drake, by his ravages on the west coasts of America, during his voyage of circumnavigation of the globe, in 1587. In this voyage, Cavendish lay, for some time, near Cape San Lucas, the southern extremity of California, and there captured the Manilla galleon Santa Anna, on her way, with a rich cargo of East India goods, to Acapulco, which he set on fire, after plundering her, and landing her crew on the coast. The unfortunate Spaniards, thus abandoned in a desert country, must soon have perished, had they not succeeded in repairing their vessel, which was driven ashore near them, after the extinction of the flames by a storm, and sailing in her to a port on the opposite coast of Mexico. Among these persons were Juan de Fuca and Sebastian Vizcaino, of each of whom much will be said in this chapter.
About this time, the search for northern passages of communi- cation between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans was begun by the English ; * and it was prosecuted at intervals, by the navigators of that nation and of Holland, during nearly sixty years, after which it was abandoned, or rather suspended. In the course of the voyages undertaken for this object, eastward as well as west- ward from the Atlantic, many important geographical discoveries and improvements in the art and science of navigation were effected ; and the persons thus engaged acquired an honorable and lasting reputation, by their skill, perseverance against difficulties, and contempt of dangers. The Spanish government was, at the same period, according to the direct testimony derived from its official acts, and the accounts of its historians, kept in a state of constant alarm, by these efforts of its most determined foes to penetrate into an ocean of which it claimed the exclusive posses- sion ; and the uneasiness thus occasioned was, from time to time, increased, by rumors of the accomplishment of the dreaded discovery.
These rumors were, for the most part, in confirmation of the
* The first voyage made from England, with the express object of seeking a north west passage to the Pacific, was that of Martin Frobisher, in 1576.
78
REPORTED DISCOVERY OF URDANETA. [1560.
existence of the passage called the Strait of Anian, joining the Atlantic, under the 60th parallel of north latitude, through which Cortereal was said to have sailed, in 1500, into a great western sea ; and those who pretended to have made northern voyages from either ocean to the other, generally asserted that they had passed through the Strait of Anian. The accounts of all such voyages yet made public are now known to be as false, with regard to the principal circumstances related, as those of the discovery of the philosopher's stone and the elixir vitæ, current at the same period in Europe ; and the former, like the latter, had their origin, generally, in the knavery or the vanity of their authors, though some of them were evidently mere fictions, invented for the purpose of exercising ingenuity, or of testing the credulity of the public. But, as the conviction of the possibility of transmuting all other metals into gold, and of prolonging life indefinitely, led to the knowledge of many of the most important facts in chemistry, so did the belief in the existence of a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacifie serve to accelerate the progress of geographical discovery and scientific navigation.
Among those who were earliest believed to have accomplished northern voyages from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or vice versa, was the celebrated Friar Andres de Urdaneta, the discoverer of the mode of navigating the Pacific from east to west. "One Salvatierra, a gentleman of Victoria, in Spain, that came by chance out of the West Indies into Ireland, in 1568," * there assured Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Henry Sydney, that Urdaneta had, more than eight years previous, told him, in Mexico, " that he came from Mar del Sur [the Pacific] into Germany through the northern passage, and showed Salvatierra a sea-card, [chart,] made by his own expe- rienee and travel in that voyage, wherein was plainly set down and described the north-west passage." This was, however, most proba- bly, a falsehood or amplification on the part of Salvatierra, to induce Sir Humphrey to employ him on a voyage which he then projected, as nothing appears in the history or character of Urdaneta to justify the belief that he would have made such a declaration. In the archives of the Council of the Indies,t which have been examined
* " A Discourse to prove a Passage by the North-West to Cathaia [China] and the East Indies, by Sir Humphrey Gilbert," first published in 1576, and republished by Hakluyt, in his " Voyages, Navigations, Traffies, and Discoveries, of the English Nation." See the reprint of Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 32.
t Introduction to the Journal of Galiano and Valdes, p. 36.
79
PRETENDED VOYAGE OF MALDONADO.
1588.]
with reference to this matter, are many original papers by Urdaneta, in which he mentions a report, that some Frenchmen had sailed from the Atlantic, beyond the 70th degree of north latitude, through a passage opening into the Pacific, near the 50th degree, and thence to China; and he recommends that measures should be taken, without delay, to ascertain the truth of the report, and, if the passage should be found, to establish fortifications at its mouth, in order to prevent other nations from using it to the injury of Spain.
In 1574, an old pilot, named Juan Ladrillero, living at Colima, in Mexico, pretended that he had, in his youth, sailed through a passage, from the Atlantic, near Newfoundland, into the Pacific ; and other assertions, to the same effect, were made by various other individuals, either from a desire to attract notice, or with the view of obtaining emolument or employment.
The most celebrated fiction of this class is the one of which Lorenzo Ferrer de Maldonado is the hero. This person, a Portu- guese by birth, who had written some extravagant works on geography and navigation, and pretended to have discovered a magnetic needle without variation, presented to the Council of the Indies, in 1609, a memoir or narrative of a voyage from Lisbon to the Pacific, through seas and channels north of America, which he declared that he himself had accomplished in 1588, accompanied by a petition that he should be rewarded for his services, and be intrusted with the command of forces, to occupy the passage, and defend its entrance against other nations. This proposition was instantly rejected by the Council : but some of the papers relating to it were retained; and two manuscripts are now preserved, the one in the library of the duke of Infantado, at Madrid, the other in the Ambrosian library, at Milan, each purporting to be the origi- nal memoir presented by Maldonado.
These papers are each entitled " A Relation of the Discovery of the Strait of Anian, made by me, Captain Lorenzo Ferrer de Maldonado, in the Year 1588 ; in which is described the Course of the Navigation, the Situation of the Place, and the Manner of fortifying it;" and their contents are nearly the same, except that the Milan paper is, in some places, more concise than the other, from which it seems to have been, in a manner, abridged. Upon the whole, there is reason to believe the Madrid document to be a true copy of the memoir presented by Maldonado ; though it has been pronounced, by one who has examined the subject with much care, to be a
80
PRETENDED VOYAGE OF MALDONADO.
[1588.
fabrication of a later date .* Whether the fabrication, as it un- doubtedly is, proceeded from Maldonado, or from some other person, is of no importance at the present day. A few extracts will serve to show its general character, and to bring to view the opinions entertained in Europe, during the seventeenth century, with regard to the northern parts of America.
After stating the advantages which Spain might derive from a northern passage between the two oceans, and the injury which she might sustain, were it left open to other nations, Maldonado proceeds thus to describe the voyage : -
" Departing from Spain, -suppose from Lisbon, -the course is north-west, for the distance of 450 leagues, when the ship will have reached the latitude of 60 degrees, where the Island of Friesland t will be seen, commonly called File, or Fule : it is an island somewhat smaller than Ireland. Thence the course is west- ward, on the parallel of 60 degrees, for 180 leagues, which will bring the navigator to the land of Labrador, where the strait of that name, or Davis's Strait, begins, the entrance of which is very wide, being somewhat more than 30 leagues : the land on the coast of Labrador, which is to the west, is very low ; but the opposite side of the mouth of the strait consists of very high mountains. Here two openings appear, between which are these high mountains. One of the passages runs east-north-east, and the other north- west ; the one running east-north-east, which is on the right hand, and looks towards the north, must be left, as it leads to Greenland, and thence to the Sea of Friesland. Taking the other passage, and steering north-west 80 leagues, the ship will arrive in the latitude
* See a review, supposed to be written by Barrow, of the manuscript found at Milan by Carlo Amoretti, in the London Quarterly Review for October, 1816. A translation of the most material parts of that paper may be found in Burney's History of Voyages in the Pacific, vol. 5, p. 167. A translation of the whole of the Madrid document, with copies of the maps and plans annexed to it, is given by Barrow, at the conclusion of his Chronological History of Voyages in the Arctic Regions. See, also, the Introduction to the Journal of Galiano and Valdes, p. 49. The reviewer above mentioned " suspects this pretended voyage of Maldonado to be the clumsy and audacious forgery of some ignorant German, from the circumstance of 15 leagues to the degree being used in some of the computations;" but the courses are not laid down with so much exactness in the account, as to warrant the assertion that 15 leagnes are employed, instead of 173, which would have been the true subdivision of the degree of latitude in Spanish leagues.
t An island of this name was long supposed to exist near the position here assigned to it, on the faith of an apocryphal account of some voyages which were said to have been made in the North Atlantic about the year 1400, by the brothers Antonio and Nicolo Zeno, of Venice. Friesland has been, by some, considered as identical with the Feroe Islands.
81
PRETENDED VOYAGE OF MALDONADO.
1588.]
of 64 degrees. There, the strait takes another turn to the north, continuing one hundred and twenty leagues, as far as the latitude of 70 degrees, when it again turns to the north-west, and runs in that direction ninety leagues, to the 75th degree of latitude, near which the whole of the Strait of Labrador will have been passed ; that is to say, the strait begins at 60 degrees, and ends at 75 de- grees, being two hundred and ninety leagues in length, and having three turns, the first and last of which run north-west and south- east, and the middle one north and south, being sometimes narrower than twenty leagues, and sometimes wider than forty, and contain- ing many bays and sheltering places, which might be of service in cases of necessity. *
" Having cleared the Strait of Labrador, we began to descend from that latitude, steering west-south-west, and south-west, three hundred and fifty leagues, to the 71st degree of latitude, when we perceived a high coast, without being able to discover whether it was part of the continent, or an island ; but we remarked that, if it were the continent, it must be opposite the coast of New Spain. From this land we directed our course west-south-west four hundred and forty leagues, until we came to the 60th degree, in which par- allel we discovered the Strait of Anian. * *
" The strait which we discovered in 60 degrees, at the distance of one thousand seven hundred and ten leagues from Spain, appears, according to ancient tradition, to be that named by geographers, in their maps, the Strait of Anian ; and, if it be so, it must be a strait having Asia on the one side, and America on the other, which seems to be the case, according to the following narration : -
" As soon as we had cleared the strait, we coasted along the shores of America for more than one hundred leagues south-westward, to the 55th degree of latitude, on which coast there were no inhab- itants, nor any opening, indicating the vicinity of another strait, through which the South Sea, flowing into the North, might insulate that part; and we concluded that all that coast belonged to America, and that, continuing along it, we might soon reach Qui- vira and Cape Mendocino. We then left this coast, and, sailing towards the west four days, with the wind a-beam, so that we made thirty leagues a day, we discovered a very high land, and continued along the coast, from which we kept at a safe distance, always in the open sea, sailing, at one time, to the north-east, at others towards north-north-east, and again to the north, whence it seemed to us that the coast ran north-east and south-west. We were unable
11
82
PRETENDED VOYAGE OF MALDONADO.
[1588.
to mark any particular points, on account of our distance from the land; and we can, therefore, only affirm that it is inhabited, nearly to the entrance of the strait, as we saw smoke rising up in many places. This country, according to the charts, must belong to Tartary, or Cathaia, [China ;] and at the distance of a few leagues from the coast must be the famed city of Cambalu, the metropolis of Tartary. Finally, having followed the direction of this coast, we found ourselves at the entrance of the same strait of Anian, which, fifteen days before, we had passed through to the open sea ; this we knew to be the South Sea, where are situated Japan, China, the Moluceas, India, New Guinea, and the land discovered by Captain Quiros, with all the coast of New Spain and Peru. * * "The Strait of Anian is fifteen leagues in length, and can easily be passed with a tide lasting six hours; for those tides are very rapid. There are, in this length, six turns, and two entrances, which lie north and south; that is, bear from each other north and south. The entrance on the north side (through which we passed) is less than half a quarter of a league in width, and on each side are ridges of high rocks ; but the rock on the side of Asia is higher and steeper than the other, and hangs over, so that nothing falling from the top can reach its base. The entrance into the South Sea, near the harbor, is more than a quarter of a league in width, and thence the passage runs in an oblique direction, increasing the distance between the two coasts. In the middle of the strait, at the termination of the third turn, is a great rock, and an islet, formed by a rugged rock, three estadias [about one thousand one hundred feet] in height, more or less; its form is round, and its diameter may be two hundred paces; its distance from the land of Asia is very little ; but the sea, on that side, is full of shoals and reefs, and can only be navigated by boats. The distance between this islet and the continent of America is less than a quarter of a league in width ; and, although its channel is so deep that two or even three ships might sail abreast through it, two bastions might be built on the banks with little trouble, which would contract the channel to within the reach of a musket shot. " In the harbor in which our ship anchored, at the entrance of the strait, on the south side, we lay from the beginning of April to the middle of June, when a large vessel, of eight hundred tons' burden, came there from the South Sea, in order to pass the strait. Upon this, we put ourselves on our guard ; but, having come to an understanding with her, I found them willing to give us some
83
PRETENDED VOYAGE OF MALDONADO.
1588.]
of their merchandise, the greater part of which consisted of articles similar to those manufactured in China, such as brocades, silks, porce- lain, feathers, precious stones, pearls, and gold. These people seemed to be Hanseatics, who inhabit the Bay of St. Nicholas, or the port of St. Michael, [Archangel, on the White Sea.] In order to understand one another, we were forced to speak Latin, those of our party who understood that language talking with those on board the ship who were also acquainted with it. They did not seem to be Catholics, but Lutherans. They said they came from a large city, more than one hundred leagues from the strait ; and, though I cannot exactly remember its name, I think they called it Rohr, or some such name, which they said had a good harbor, and a navigable river, and was subject to the great khan, as it belonged to Tartary, and that, in that port, they left another ship belonging to their country. We could learn no more from them, as they acted with great caution, and little confidence, being afraid of our company ; wherefore we parted from them, near the strait, in the North Sea, and set sail towards Spain."
The preceding extracts, from a translation of the manuscript at Madrid, will suffice to show the course which the Portuguese pre- tended to have taken, in 1588. The remainder of the paper is devoted to descriptions of the supposed strait, and plans for its occupation and defence by Spain ; nothing being said as to the circumstances which induced the navigators to return to Europe by the same route, instead of pursuing their course to some Spanish port on the Pacific. It is needless to use any arguments to prove that no such voyage could have been ever made ; as we know that the only connection by water between the Atlantic and the Pacific, north of America, is through the Arctic Sea and Bering's Strait, which latter passage is more than sixteen leagues in width, and is sit- uated near the 65th degree of latitude. It has, however, been sug- gested, and it is not improbable, that, before the period when Maldonado presented his memoir to the Council of the Indies, some voyage, of which we have no account, may have been made in the North Pacific,* as far as the entrance of the gulf called Cook's Inlet, and that this entrance, situated under the 60th parallel of latitude, may have been supposed, by the navigator, to be the western termination of the long-sought Strait of Anian.
The story certainly attracted considerable attention at the time
* Article on the north-west passage, in the Quarterly, for October, 1816, above mentioned.
84
STORY OF THE VOYAGE OF FONTE.
[1640.
when it was put forth, and allusions are made to it by several Spanish authors of the seventeenth century ; it had, however, been entirely forgotten when the French geographer M. Buache, having obtained a copy of the Madrid manuscript, endeavored to establish the truth of the most material points, in a paper read by him before the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, on the 13th of November, 1790. At his request, the archives of the Indies were examined, in search of documents relating to the supposed voyage ; and the commanders of Spanish ships, then employed in the surveying the north-west coasts of America, were instructed to endeavor to find the entrance of the Strait of Anian, near the 60th degrec of latitude. These endeavors proved vain, and the name of Maldonado had again sunk into oblivion, when it was again, in 1812, brought before the world by Signor Amoretti, of Milan, who found, in the Ambrosian library, in that city, the man- uscript already mentioned, and published a French translation of it, with arguments in support of the truth of its contents. So far as is known, the falsehoods of Maldonado have injured no one, and they were ultimately productive of great good; for it was while engaged, by order of the Spanish government, in examining the archives of the Indies respecting this pretended voyage, that Navarrete found those precious documents, relating to the expedi- tions of Columbus and other navigators of his day, which have thrown so much light on the history of the discovery of the New World.
Similar good effects have been produced by the story of the voyage of Admiral Pedro Bartolomé de Fonte, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, through lakes and rivers extending across North America, which may also be here mentioned, though it belongs properly to a later period of the history ; as the voyage was said to have been performed in 1640, and the account first appeared in a periodical work entitled - Monthly Miscellany, or Memoirs of the Curious -published at London, in 1708. This account is very confused, and badly written, and is filled with absurdities and con- tradictions, which should have prevented it from receiving credit at any time since its appearance : yet, as will be shown, it was serious- ly examined and defended, so recently as in the middle of the last century, by eminent scientific men ; and some faith continued to be attached to it for many years afterwards. So far as its details can be understood, they are to the following effect : -
Admiral Fonte sailed from Callao, near Lima. in April, 1640, with four vessels, under orders, from the viceroy of Peru, to repair
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