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CHAPTER XI.
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.
T h e Falkland Islands, lying between the parallels of 51°
and 53° S., and extending from near 57° almost to 62° W., are
in number ahout two hundred, but only two are of considerable
size. Between these latter, called Fast, and AVest Falkland,
is the channel to which our countryman, Strong, gave the
name of Falkland Sound, he himself calling the adjacent
country Hawkins’ Land.
Plausible assertions have been made by parties anxious to
disprove the claim of Great Britain to these islands, and so few
persons, excepting those immediately concerned, have inclination
to refer to original documents, that I may be pardoned for
recalling to the recollection of those to whom the subject is
still interesting, a few well-known facts, which, if fairly considered,
place the question above dispute.
I t has been asserted, that Americus Vespucius saw these
islands in 1502,* but if the account of Americus himself is
authentic,! he could not have explored farther south than the
right bank of La Plata. In 1501-2 Americus Vespucius, then
* II me paroît qu’on en peut attribuer la première découverte au célèbre
Améric Vespuce, qui, dans son troisième voyage pour la découverte de
l’Amérique, eu parcourut la côte du nord au mois d’Avril 1502. 11
ignoroit à la vérité si elle appartenoit à une île, ou si elle faisoit partie
du continent ; mais il est facile de conclure de la route qu’il avoit suivie,
de la latitude à laquelle il étoit arrivé, de la description même qu’il donne
de cette côte, que c’étoit celle des Malouines. J ’assurerais, avec non
moins de fondement, que Beaucbesne GoUin, revenant de la mer du
Sud en 1700, a mouillé dans la partie orientale des Malouines, croyant
être aux Sebaldes.—Voyage de Bougainville, 2d édit. 1772, tom. i. p. 63.
t Letters of Americus Vespucius, in Ramusio’s Collection, vol. i.
fol. 128.
employed by the King of Portugal, sailed 600 leagues south
and 150 leagues west from Cape San Agostinho (lat. 8° 2 0 'S.)
along the coast of a country then named Terra Sancte Crucis.*
His account of longitude may be very erroneous, but how
could his latitude have erred thirteen degrees in this his
southernmost voyage ?
The south shore of the Plata is low, and appears to be
woody, though it is n o t; the depth of water off it is moderate,
and the currents are strong—all which peculiarities have been
remarked on the northern coasts of the Falklands; therefore
the ‘ description’ alluded to by De Bougainville would apply
equally well to the right bank of the Plata. The late Mr-
Dalrymple published an extract from a chart printed at Rome,
in 1508, in which it is said, that ships of Portugal discovered
a continuation of land as far south as fifty degrees,!
which did not there terminate. In that chart the name America
is not to be found. Brazil is there called Terra] Sancte
Crucis.
I f the Portuguese or any other people actually traced or
even discovei'ed portions of coast south of the Plata before
1512, it appears strange that so remarkable an estuary, one
hundred and twenty miles across, should have been overlooked ;
especially as soundings extend two hundred miles seaward of
its entrance:—and that the world should have no clear record of
its having been discovered prior to the voyage of Juan de Solis,
in 1512. Vespucius has already robbed Columbus and his
predecessor, Cabot, of the great honour of affixing their names
to the New AVorld—shall he also be tacitly permitted to claim
* The name America was not given before the year 1507. (Herrera,
Dec. 1,7,5.)
+ The Falklands are beyond fifty-one degrees of south latitude.
} In 1507 (the admiral Christopher Columbus being dead), Americus
Vespucius was taken into the service of the King of Spain, with the title
of ‘ Pilote mayor,’ and was employed in making charts of the new discoveries,
which gave him an opportunity to affix his own name to the land of
South America. (Herrera, Dec. 1, 7, 5.)
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