I had lately the honour to conduit, and which I am now
gOo inOg to relate.
i ? >9. The firft who crofted the vaft Pacific Ocean, was Fer-
Magalhaens. ,
dinand Magalhaens, a Portuguefe, who, in the fervice ot
Spain, failed from Seville, with five {hips, on the i oth of
April, 1519. ' He difcovered the Straits which bear his
name; and having paffed through them, on the 27th of
November, 1520, entered the South Pacific Ocean.
In this fea he difcovered two uninhabited ifiands, whofe
fituations are not well known. He afterwards crofled the
Line ; difcovered the Ladrone Ifiands ; and then proceeded
to the Phillipines, in one of which he was killed in a Ikir-
mifti with the natives.
His fbip, called the Vidory, was the firft that circumnavigated
the globe ; and the only one of his fquadron,
that furmounted the dangers and diftrefles which attended
his heroic enterprife.
The Spaniards, after Magalhaens had (hewed them the
way,, made lèverai voyages from America to the weft ward,
previous to that o f Alvaro Mendana De Neyra in 1595,
which is the firft that Can be traced ftep by ftep. For the
antecedent expeditions are not handed down to us with
much precifion.
We
G E N E R A L I N T R O D U C T I O N .
We know however, in general, that, in them, New
Guinea, the ifiands called Solomon’s, and ‘feveral others,
were difcovered.
Geographers differ greatly concerning the fituation of
the Solomon Ifiands. The moft probable opinion is, that
they are the clufter which comprizes what has fince been
called New Britain, New Ireland, &c.
On the 9th o f April, 1595 , Mendana, with intention to Jm | |
fettle thefe ifiands, failed from Callao, with four {hips; and
his difcoveries in his route to the Weft, were the Marquefas,
in the latitude o f io ° South;— the Ifland of St. Bernardo,
which I take to be the fame that Commodore Byron calls
the Ifland of Danger;— after that, Solitary Ifland, in the
latitude io ° 40' South, longitude 178° Weft;— and laftly,
Santa Cruz, which is, undoubtedly, the fame that Captain
Carteret calls Egmont Ifland.
In this laft Ifland, Mendana, with many o f his companions,
died; and the fluttered remains o f the fquadron were
conducted to Manilla, by Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, the
chief pilot.
This fame Quiros was the firft fent out, with the foie view ,6»;.
o f difcovering a Southern Continent; and, indeed, he feems Qa‘ros'
to have been the firft who had any idea of the exiftence of
a 2
one.
He