vast sea basin is strewed. This problem may be easily resolved, if we consider that few navigations take place from Lima to Manilla, and that the archipelagoes, of which we owe the discovery to the labours of Wallis, Bougainville, and Cook, are almost all contained batween the equator and the tropic of Capricorn. For these three hundred years the pilots of the Acapulco galleon have been prudent enough constantly to run the same parallel in their course from the coast of Mexico to the Philippine islands; and it appeared to them so much the more indispensable to follow this track as they imagined they should fall in with shallows and shoals whenever they deviated to the north or south. At a period when the use of lunar distances and timekeepers was unknown to navigators, they endeavoured to correct the longitude deduced from the reckoning by the observation of the variation of the magnetic needle. It had been very early remarked that the variation was nearly 0 at the strait of San Bernardino; and in 1585, Juan Iayme embarked with Francisco Gali from Manilla to Acapulco, to prove an instrument of his invention for finding the variation of the needle."

This method of correcting the reckoning might be useful at a period when few pilots knew their longitude within nearly eight or ten degrees. It has been proved by very accurate observations in our days, that the variation of the magnetic needle is extremely slow in these parallels, even in approaching the straits of San Bernardino. Moreover we are not to be surprised that galleons laden with cargoes of the value of six or seven millions of francs, have never been tempted to abandon this track prescribed to them. Real expeditions of discovery can only be carried on at the expence of a government; and it cannot be denied that under the reigns of Charles V., Philip II., and Philip III., the viceroys of Mexico and Peru gave encouragement to a great number of undertakings calculated to give celebrity to the Spanish name. Cabrillo visited in 1542 the coast of New California or New Albion to the 37° of latitude. Gali, in going out of his track to the north, in his return from China to the coast of Mexico, discovered in 1582 the mountains of New Cornwall, covered with eternal snows, and situated in the 57° 30′ north. The expedition of Sebastian Viscayno discovered the

coast between Cape Saint Sebastian and Cape Mendocino. In 1542, Gaetano had already found several scattered islands not far from the group of Sandwich islands; and it cannot be called in question, that even this last group was known to the Spaniards for more than a century before the voyage of Cook; for the island of Mesa indicated on an old chart of the galleon, of "Acapulco, is the same with the island Owhyhee, which contains the high mountain of the table or Mowna-Roa ". Mendaña accompanied by Quirost discovered in 1595 the group of islands, known by the name of the Marquesas de Mendoga or Mendaña islands, which comprehends San Pedro or O-Nateya, Santa Christina or Wahitaho, la Dominica or O-Hivahoa, and la Madalena. We owe to the same intrepid navigators the discovery of the islands of Santa Cruz de Mendaña, named by Carteret Queen Charlotte's Islands; the

* Voyage de Marchand, t. i. p. 416.

+ Alvaro Mendaña de Neyra and Pedro Fernandez de Quiros. See. Successos de las, islas Filippinas, (Mexico 1699) cap. vi. Hechos de Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, marques de Canete, virey del Peru, los escribo el Doctor Don Christobal Suarez de Figueroa, p. 238. After the death of Medaña, his wife Doña Isabella Baretos, celebrated for her strength of mind and extraordinary courage, assumed the command of the expedition, which was terminated in

Archipelago del Espíritu Santo de Quiros", which are the New Cyclades of Bougainville and the New Hebrides of Cook; the Archipelago of the islands of Solomon de Mendaña called by Surville t the Arsacides; the islands Dezena (Maitea), Pelegrino (Scylly island of Wallis), and probably also Otaheite (la Sagittaria de Quiros), which all three are part of the group of Society Islands. Is it just, therefore, to say that the Spaniards have crossed the great ocean without discovering any land, when we recollect that the mass of discoveries which we have been mentioning, ; and which were made at a period when the art of navigation and nautical astronomy were very far from the degree of improvement to which they have attained in our days. The names of Viscayno, Mendaña, Quiros, and Sarmiento, undoubtedly

* Fleurieu Découvertes des François dans le sud-est de la Nouvelle Guinée, p. 85.

+ The New Georgia of Shortland (Voyage de Marchand, t. vi. p. 63.) -

# I might have added to the list of discoveries of the Spaniards in the South Sea, those of Garcia Jofre de Loaisa (Viage al estrecho de Magellanes, p. 206) Grixalva, Gallego, Juan Fernandez, Luis Vaez de Torres, and Seyavedra Cedron, who first discovered the northern coast of New Guinea. See the beautiful chart of this southern part of the South Sea, drawn up agreeably to the learned researches of M. Dalrymple.

painful, the passage from Acapulco to the Philippine Islands is short and agreeable. It generally lasts only from fifty to sixty days. From time to time within these few years the galleon touches at the Sandwich Islands to take in provisions and water, if the priests of the country have not taboued the watering place. As the passage is not long, and the chiefs of these islands are not always friendly disposed towards the whites, this delay, which is seldom necessary, is frequently dangerous. As the galleon advances towards the west the breezes become stronger, but at the same time more inconstant. The galleon touches at the island of Guahan or Guam, where the governor of the Mariana islands resides, in the town of Agana.” It has been truly observed that this island is the only point in the vast extent of the South Sea, strewed with innumerable islands, which contains a town built in the European manner, a church, and a fortification. However, this delicious country, which nature has enriched with the most varied productions, is one of those numerous possessions from which the court of Spain has never yet derived any advantage. The fanaticism of the monks, and the sordid avarice of the governors, formerly conspired to depopulate this archipelago. The