ON THE PRETENDED DISCOVERIES OF THE NORTH-WEST COAST.
Memoir of Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, in 1588.--Voyage of the
Descubierta and Atrevida, in 1791.--Tale of Juan de Fuca, in
1592.--Voyages of Meares, Vancouver, and Lieutenant Wilkes.--Letter of
Admiral Bartoleme Fonte or de Fuentes, in 1640.--Memoir of J. N. de
l'Isle and Ph. Buache, in 1750.--California discovered to be a
Peninsula in 1540; reported to be an Island in 1620; re-explored by
the Jesuit Kuhn and others, in 1701-21.--Maps of the sixteenth and
seventeenth Centuries.--Fonte's Letter, a jeu-d'esprit of Petiver, the
Naturalist.
The general belief in the existence of a North-west passage from the
Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean in the direction of Gaspar de Cortereal's
reported Straits of Anian, led to the circulation of many false accounts
of the discovery of the desired channel. The most celebrated fictions of
this class seem to have originated with individuals who hoped to secure,
through their pretended knowledge and experience, future employment, as
well as immediate emolument. A memoir of this kind is reported to have
been laid before the Council of the Indies at Seville, in 1609, by Lorenzo
Ferrer Maldonado, who professed to have sailed in 1588 from Lisbon to the
coast of Labrador, and thence into the South Sea through a channel in 60 deg.
north latitude, corresponding to the Strait of Anian, according to ancient
tradition. He petitioned, in consequence, that he might be rewarded for
his services, and be entrusted with an expedition to occupy the Strait of
Anian, and defend the passage against other nations. His cotemporaries,
according to the author of the Introduction to the Voyage of the Sutil and
Mexicana, were men of more judgment and intelligence than some of the
writers of the 18th century. The former at once discovered, by personal
examination of the author, the fictitious character of his narrative, and
rejected his proposal. Two copies of this memoir are supposed to exist;
one of these being preserved in the library of the Duke of Infantado at
Madrid, the other in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. The former of these
is considered by the author of the Introduction to be certainly a
cotemporaneous, and perhaps the original, copy of the memoir: the
Ambrosian manuscript, on the other hand, has been pronounced, in an
article in the London Quarterly Review for October, 1816, to be "the
clumsy and audacious forgery of some ignorant German," from the
circumstance of fifteen leagues to the degree being used in some of the
computations. To the same purpose Capt. James Burney, in the fifth volume
of his Voyages, published in 1817, observes, that "it must not be omitted
that the reckoning in the narrative is in German leagues. It is said,
'from the latitude of 64 deg. you will have to sail 120 leagues to the
latitude of 72 deg., which corresponds with the German league of 15 to a
degree, and not with the Spanish league of 17-1/2 to a degree, by which
last the early Spanish navigators were accustomed to reckon.' From this
peculiarity in the narrative it may be conjectured, that the real author
was a Fleming, who probably thought he could not better advance his
spurious offspring, than by laying it at the door of a man who had
projected to invent a compass without variation," as Maldonado professed
to do to the Council of the Indies, according to Antonio Leo in his
Bibliotheca Indica.
Allusions had been occasionally made to this work by Spanish writers in
the 17th century, amongst others by De Luque, the author of the
"Establecimientos Ultramarinos de las Naceones Europeas." It was not,
however, till so late a period as 1790 that the attention of men of
science was drawn to the Madrid manuscript by J. N. Buache, the geographer
of the King of France, in a paper read before the Academy of Sciences at
Paris in that year. Captain Burney states, that the manuscript had been
brought to notice shortly before by M. de Mendoza, a captain in the
Spanish navy, who was employed in forming a collection of voyages for the
use of that service. M. Buache, who had succeeded D'Anville as Geographer
Royal in 1768, followed the geographical system of Ph. Buache, his
relative and predecessor, and, like him, clung fondly to questionable
discoveries. He had been employed to prepare instructions for the
expedition of La Perouse, and thus his attention had been especially drawn
to voyages of discovery on the north-west coast of America. He declared
himself in his memoir so strongly in favor of the genuineness of the
manuscript, and of the good faith of Maldonado, that the Spanish
government, in order that the question might be definitively set at rest,
directed its archives to be searched, and the manuscript in the library of
the Duke of Infantado to be carefully examined, and at the same time gave
orders that the corvettes Descubierta and Atrevida, which were fitting out
at Acapulco for a voyage round the world, should explore the coasts and
port which Maldonado pretended to have discovered in the South Sea. The
archives, however, furnished ample evidence of the correctness of the
ancient opinion that Maldonado was an impostor, and the expedition of the
corvettes, which sailed in 1791, confirmed this fact beyond dispute. A
memoir to that effect, founded upon their observations, was published in
1797, by Don Ciriaco Cevallos, who had accompanied the expedition, to
prove the utter falsity of Maldonado's story.
It was, however, once more revived by the discovery of the Ambrosian
manuscript in 1812 by Carlo Amoretti. This is said to give a more succinct
account than the Madrid document, and it has been thought by some to be an
abridgment of it. The article in the Quarterly Review above alluded to was
occasioned by its appearance, and to the curious will furnish ample
information. The Milan account of the voyage may be referred to in the
fifth volume of Burney's History of Voyages. The Madrid document will be
found in Barrow's Chronological History of Voyages in the Arctic Regions.
A much more plausible narrative was published in 1625, in the third volume
of "The Pilgrims," by Purchas, the successor of Hakluyt as the historian
of maritime enterprises. It is entitled "A Note made by me, Michael Lock
the elder, touching the Strait of Sea, commonly called Fretum Anian, in
the South Sea, through the North-west Passage of Meta Incognita." The
writer purported to give an account of what had been communicated to him
at Venice, in April, 1596, by an ancient Greek pilot, commonly called Juan
de Fuca, but properly named Apostolos Valerianus, who represented himself
to have been taken in a Spanish ship by Captain Candish, and to have
thereby lost 60,000 ducats, and to have been at another time sent by the
Viceroy of Mexico to discover and fortify the Straits of Anian. His tale
was to this effect: "That shortly afterwards, having been sent again, in
1592, by the Viceroy of Mexico, with a small caravel and pinnace, armed
with mariners only, he followed the coast of North America until he came
to the latitude of 47 deg., and there finding that the land trended east and
north-east, with a broad inlet of sea between 47 and 48 degrees of
latitude, he entered thereinto, sailing therein more than twenty days, and
found that land trending still sometimes north-west and north-east and
north, and also east, and south-eastward, and very much broader sea than
was at the said entrance, and that he passed by divers islands in that
sailing. And that at the entrance of this said strait, there is _on the
north-west coast_ thereof a great headland or island, with an exceeding
high pinnacle or spired rock, like a pillar, thereupon.
"Also, he said, he went on land in divers places, and there he saw some
people on land, clad is beasts' skins; and that the land is _very
fruitful, and rich of gold, silver, pearls, and other things, like new
Spain_.
"And also, he said, that he being entered thus far into the said strait,
and being _come into the North Sea_ already, and finding the sea wide
enough everywhere, and to be about _thirty or forty leagues wide in the
mouth of the straits, where he entered_, he thought that he had now well
discharged his office, and that not being armed to resist the force of the
savage people that might happen, he therefore set sail, and returned
homewards again towards New Spain, where he arrived at Acapulco, anno
1592, hoping to be rewarded by the Viceroy for the service done in the
said voyage.
"Also, he said that, after coming to Mexico, he was greatly welcomed by
the Viceroy, and had promises of great reward; but that having sued there
for two years, and obtained nothing to his content, the Viceroy told him
that he should be rewarded in Spain of the King himself very greatly, and
willed him therefore to go to Spain, which voyage he did perform.
"Also, he said, that when he was come into Spain, he was welcomed there at
the King's court; but after long suit there also, he could not get any
reward there to his content. And therefore at length he stole away out of
Spain, and came into Italy, to go home again and live among his own
kindred and countrymen, he being very old.
"Also, he said, that he thought the cause of his ill reward had of the
Spaniards, to be for that they did understand very well that the _English
nation had now given over all their voyages for discovery of the
North-west Passage_, wherefore they need not fear them any more to come
that way into the South Sea, and therefore they needed not his service
therein any more.
"Also, he said, that _understanding the noble mind of the Queen of
England_, of her wars against the Spaniards, and hoping that her majesty
would _do him justice for his goods lost_ by Captain Candish, he would be
content to go into England, _and serve her majesty in that voyage for the
discovery perfectly of the north-west passage into the South Sea_, if she
would furnish him with only one ship of forty tons burthen and a pinnace,
and that he would perform it in thirty days time from one end to the other
of the straits, and he wished me so to write to England."
As this asserted discovery was one upon which the Spanish commissioner, in
the negotiations antecedent to the Treaty of the Floridas, relied to
support the claim of the Spanish crown to the north-west coast of America,
and as authors of late whose opinions are entitled to respect, such as
Fleurieu, and Mr. Greenhow, have inclined to admit the general truth of
the account, the substantial part of it has been quoted at full length, as
it appears both that Fuca's narrative, if we admit it to be genuine, does
not accord, in respect to any substantial fact, with the authentic reports
of subsequent voyages, and that the object of the fiction is patent on the
face of the story.
The object of the Greek pilot was evidently to obtain, upon the faith of
his narrative, employment from the Queen of England; and as, from his own
statement, he was aware that the spirit of discovery was for the moment
languid amongst the English nation, he represented the country as "very
fruitful and rich of gold, silver, pearls, and other things, like New
Spain." This exaggeration of the probable profits of the undertaking would
not perhaps alone disentitle the narrator to credit in respect to the
other circumstances of his voyage, though his integrity in making the
communication might thereby become open to question: but when we look to
the asserted facts of his voyage, the truth or falsehood of which must be
conclusive as to the character of the narrative itself, we find that they
do not correspond in any respect with ascertained facts. The straits to
which Meares gave the name of Juan de Fuca in 1788, are between the 48th
and 49th parallel. Mr. Greenhow considers that the difference in the
position is sufficiently slight as to be within the limits of supposable
error on the part of the Greek pilot; and certainly, if this were the only
difficulty, it might not be conclusive against his veracity. But the
straits which he professed to have discovered were from 30 to 40 leagues
wide at the mouth where he entered, and according to his story he sailed
through them into the North Sea, and upon the faith of this he offered to
perfect his discovery of the north-west passage into the South Sea for the
Queen of England, and to perform it in thirty days time from one end to
the other of the straits. Now this description is so totally at variance
with the real character of any straits on the west coast of America, that
the happy coincidence of trifling circumstances can hardly be considered
sufficient to turn the scale in its favor. Amongst the latter, the
existence of a pillar has been alleged, as corresponding with De Fuca's
account. Meares, for instance, on approaching the straits from the north,
speaks "of a small island, situated about two miles _from the southern
land_, that formed the entrance of this strait, near which we saw a very
remarkable rock, that wore the form of an obelisk, and stood at some
distance from the island," (p. 153,) which, in his Observations on a
North-west Passage (p. lxi.) he seems to consider to be the pinnacle rock
of De Fuca; but unfortunately De Fuca has placed his "island with an
exceeding high pinnacle or spiral rock" _on the north-west coast_, at the
entrance of the strait, instead of on the southern shore. Vancouver, on
entering the straits, failed himself to recognize any rock as
corresponding to the pinnacle rock which Mr. Meares had represented, but
he observes that a rock within Tatooche's Island, _on the southern side_
of the entrance, which is united to the main land by a ledge of rocks,
over which the sea breaks violently, was noticed, and supposed to be that
represented as De Fuca's pinnacle rock: "this, however, was visible only
for a few minutes, from its being close to the shore of the main-land,
instead of lying in the entrance of the straits, nor did it correspond
with that which has been so described." On the other hand, Lieutenant
Wilkes, in his Account of the United States Exploring Expedition, says,
"In leaving De Fuca's Straits, I anxiously watched for De Fuca's Pillar,
and soon obtained a sketch of it;" but he does not state whether he meant
the pillar which Meares observed on the southern side, and called De
Fuca's Pillar, or one which, according to the Greek pilot, should have
formed a prominent object on the north-western coast of the strait.
It is not unimportant to observe, that there is no Spanish writer who
speaks of De Fuca or his discovery: that neither in any private archives
in Spain, nor in the public archives of the Indies at Seville, is there
any notice of this celebrated navigator or of his important expedition,
which the author of the Introduction to the Voyage of the Sutil and
Mexicana observes is the more remarkable, from the great number of other
voyages and expeditions of the same period preserved in the archives,
which have escaped the notice of contemporary writers; and, what is
perhaps still more conclusive, that Humboldt, in his account of New Spain,
(l. iii., ch. viii.,) states, that in spite of all his researches he had
not been able to find throughout New Spain a single document in which the
name of the pilot De Fuca occurs.
The whole of these latter observations apply with equal force to the
voyage of Admiral Bartoleme Fonte or de Fuentes, which purposes to have
been performed in 1640; the narrative, however, did not make its
appearance till 1708, when it was published in London, in two parts, in
"The Monthly Miscellany, or Memoirs of the Curious." The mode in which it
was ushered into public notice would alone be sufficient to expose it to
considerable suspicion, and the gross absurdities with which it is replete
would have at once exempted it from any serious criticism, had not the
Spanish commissioner, in the negotiations already alluded to, and of which
a full account will be given in a subsequent place, rested upon it the
territorial title of Spain to the north-west coast, up to 55 deg. of north
latitude. Fonte, according to the narrative, sailed with four vessels from
Callao into the North Pacific, with orders from the Viceroy of Peru to
intercept certain vessels which had sailed from Boston in New England,
with the object of exploring a north-west passage. On arriving at C. St.
Lucas, at the south point of California, he despatched one of his vessels
"to discover whether California was an island or not, (for before, it was
not known whether it was an island or a peninsula.") He thence coasted
along California to 26 deg. of north latitude, and having a steady gale from
the S.S.E., in the interval between May 26, and June 14, "he reached the
River los Reyes in 53 deg. of north latitude, not having occasion to lower a
top-sail in sailing 866 leagues N.N.W., 410 leagues from Port Abel to C.
Blanco, 456 leagues to Rio de los Reyes, having sailed about 260 leagues
in crooked channels, amongst islands named the Archipelagus de St.
Lazarus, where his ships' boats always sailed a mile a-head, sounding, to
see what water, rocks, and sands there was." "They had two Jesuits with
them, that had been on their mission at 66 deg. of N. L., and had made
curious observations." Fonte ascended the Rio de los Reyes in his ships to
a large lake, which he called Lake Belle. Here, he says, he left his
vessels and proceeded down another river, passing eight falls, in all 32
feet perpendicular, into a large lake which he named De Fonte. Thence he
sailed out through the Estrecho de Ronquillo into the sea, where they
found a large ship where the natives had never seen one before, from a
town called Boston, the master of which, Captain Shaply, told him that his
owner was "a fine gentleman, and major-general of the largest colony in
New England, called the Maltechusets." Having exchanged all sorts of
civilities and presents with this gentleman, the admiral went back to his
ships in Lake Belle, and returned by the Rio de los Reyes to the South
Sea. One of his officers had in the mean time ascended another river,
which he named Rio de Haro, in the lake Velasco, in 61 deg., whence he sailed
in Indian boats as far north as 77 deg. Here he ascertained that there was no
communication out of the Spanish or Atlantic Sea by Davis' Straits, from
one of his own seamen, who had been conducted by the natives to the head
of Davis' Strait, which terminated in a fresh lake of about 30 miles in
circumference, in 80 deg. N. L. He himself in the meantime had sailed as far
north as 79 deg., and then the land trended north, and the ice rested on the
land. The result of this expedition was, that they returned home, "having
found there was no passage into the South Seas by what they call the
North-west Passage."
Such is the substance of this rather dull story, which may be read in full
in the third volume of Burney's History of Voyages in the South Sea, p.
190. Mr. Greenhow (p. 84) observes, that "the account is very confused and
badly written, and is filled with absurdities and contradictions, which
should have prevented it from receiving credit at any time since its
appearance: yet, as will be shown, it was seriously examined and defended,
so recently as in the middle of the last century, by scientific men of
great eminence, and some faith continued to be attached to it for many
years afterwards."
Amongst its defenders the most conspicuous were J. N. de l'Isle, the
brother of William de l'Isle, and Philippe Buache, the geographer of the
French King, the predecessor of J. N. Buache, who has already been
mentioned as the author of a memoir in defence of Maldonado's narrative.
De l'Isle presented to the Academy of Sciences, in 1750, a memoir "sur
les nouvelles decouvertes au nord de la mer du Sud," with a map prepared
by Ph. Buache, to represent these discoveries. The communication was in
other respects of great importance, as it contained the first authentic
account of the discoveries lately made by Behring and Tchiricoff, in 1741.
It is not stated from what source De l'Isle derived the copy of Fonte's
letter, which seems to have come into his possession accidentally at St.
Petersburg, during the absence of the Russian expedition: it was not,
however, till his return to France in 1747, that he examined it in company
with Ph. Buache. They were agreeably surprised to find that it accorded
with Buache's own conjectures, that it harmonised in many respects with
the discoveries of the Russians. In consequence, Buache laid down in his
new map a water communication between the Pacific Ocean and Hudson's Bay.
Voltaire, relying on the authority of De l'Isle, maintained in his History
of Russia, published in 1759, that the famous passage so long sought for
had been at last discovered. The Academy, however, received Fonte's
narrative with discreet reserve; and observed, that it required more
certain proofs to substantiate it.
The author of the Introduction to the Voyage of the Sutil and Mexicana
states, that the Spanish government, on the representation of the French
geographers, instituted a careful search into the archives of the Indies
in New Spain, as well as into the archives of Peru, and likewise into the
archives at Seville, Madrid, Cadiz, and other places, but that not the
slightest allusion to De Fonte could be anywhere traced. This result was
made known by Robert de Vaugondy, in his reply to Buache, intitled
"Observations Critiques sur les nouvelles Decouvertes de l'Amiral Fuentes,
8vo. 1753;" and the author of the Noticia di California, published in
Madrid, in 1757, confirmed Vaugondy's announcement.
It is unnecessary to observe, that the experience of subsequent navigators
has failed to confirm the narrative of De Fonte. There is one passage in
the narrative which seems almost of itself to be sufficient to condemn the
story. The admiral is made to state, "that he despatched one of his
vessels to discover whether California was an island or not; for before it
was not known whether California was an island or a peninsula." Now the
Californian Gulf had been completely explored by Francisco de Ulloa, in
1539, who ascertained the fact of the junction of the peninsula to the
main land, near the 32d degree of latitude; and again by Fernando de
Alarcon, in 1540, who ascended a great river at the head of the Gulf of
California, supposed to be the Colorado. A series of excellent charts were
drawn up by Domingo del Castillo, Alarcon's pilot, a fac-simile of which
Mr. Greenhow (p. 61) states may be found in the edition of the letters of
Cortez, published at Mexico in 1770, by Archbishop Lorenzana. The shores
of the gulf, and of the west side of California, to the 30th degree of
latitude, were there delineated with a surprising approach of accuracy. It
is not a reasonable supposition that the Admiral of New Spain and Peru,
who must have had ready access to the archives of the Indies at Mexico,
should have expressed himself in a manner which argued a total ignorance
of the previous discoveries of his countrymen; but it was very probable
that a contributor to the Monthly Miscellany should stumble upon this
ground, from a notion having been revived in Europe, about the middle of
the 17th century, that California was an island.
Humboldt, in his Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, l. iii., c.
viii., states, that when the Jesuits Kuehn, Salvatierra, and Ugarte,
explored, in detail, during the years 1701-21, the coasts of the Gulf of
California, it was thought in Europe to have been for the first time
discovered that California was a peninsula. But, in his Introduction
Geographique, he observes, that in the sixteenth century no person in
Mexico denied this fact; nor was it till the seventeenth century that the
idea originated that California was an island. During the seventeenth
century, the Dutch freebooters were amongst the most active and inveterate
enemies of Spain in the New World; and having established themselves in
the bay of Pichilingue, on the east coast of California, from which
circumstance they received the name of "Pichilingues," they caused great
embarrassment to the Spanish viceroys from their proximity to the coasts
of Mexico. To these adventurers the origin of the notion, that California
was separated from the main land, has been referred by some authors; but
Mr. Greenhow (p. 94) states, that it was to be traced to the captain of a
Manilla ship, in 1620, who reported that the asserted river of D'Aguilar
was the western mouth of a channel which separated the northern extremity
of California from the main land. A survey of the lower part of the
peninsula was executed by the Governor of Cinaloa, and the Jesuit Jacinto
Cortes, in pursuance of the orders of the Duke of Escalona, who was
Viceroy during 1610-42, about the very time when Fonte purported to have
sailed. They did not, however, go to the head of the gulf; and Humboldt
informs us, that, during the feeble reign of Charles II. of Spain,
1655-1700, several writers had begun to regard California as a cluster of
large islands, under the name of "Islas Carolinas." Thus we find in the
maps of this period, in those for example of Sanson, Paris, 1650; of Du
Val, geographer to the King of France, Abbeville, 1655; of Jenner, London,
1666; of De Wit, Amsterdam; of Vischer, Schenkius, Herman, Moll, and
others, which are in the King's Library at the British Museum, California
is depicted as an island; and in Jenner's Map, in which C. Blanco is the
northernmost headland of California, there is this note:--"This California
was in times past thought to have been a part of the continent, and so
made in all maps; but, by further discoveries, was found to be an island,
long 1700 leagues."
On the other hand, the maps of the later part of the sixteenth, and the
earlier part of the seventeenth centuries, such as those by Ortelius, the
King of Spain's geographer, published in his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum,
first edited in 1570, the two maps adopted by Hakluyt in the respective
editions of his voyages, in 1589 and 1600, that of Le Clerc, 1602, of
Hondius, which Purchas adopted in his Pilgrims, in 1625, of Speed, 1646,
and that of Blaew in his Novus Atlas of 1648, agree in representing
California as a peninsula. The single passage, therefore, in De Fonte's
account, in which he, being "then admiral of New Spain and Peru, and now
prince (or rather president) of Chili, explicitly states that he
despatched one of his vessels, under the command of Don Diego Pennelosa,
the nephew of Don Luis de Haro," then great minister of Spain, "to
discover whether California was an island or not, for before it was not
known whether it was an island or a peninsula," seems to point at once to
the European origin of the tale. Mr. Dalrymple, the well-known secretary
of the British Admiralty at the time of the Nootka Sound controversy, who
was distinguished as the author of many able works on maritime
discoveries, considered the story to have been a jeu-d'esprit of Mr. James
Petiver the naturalist, one of the contributors to the Monthly Miscellany,
whose taste for such subjects was evinced by his collection of MS.
extracts, since preserved in the British Museum, and whose talent for such
kind of composition was shown by his Account of a Voyage to the Levant,
published in the same Miscellany. It is worthy of remark, that the tale
of De Fuca and the letter of De Fonte, as they have derived their origin,
so they have derived their support, from writers foreign to the nation in
whose favour they set up the asserted discoveries, and from them alone.
Maldonado, it is true, was a Spaniard, but he likewise has found defenders
only amongst strangers, whilst in his own country his narrative has been
condemned as an imposture by posterity equally as by his cotemporaries.