[15]. Maté, or Paraguay-tea, or South-sea-tea, are pounded dry leaves of a plant growing in South America, and chiefly in Paraguay. The Jesuits, when in possession of the interior parts of the provinces of Paraguay, got by a manœuvre similar to that of the Dutch, in regard to the spice-trade, the exclusive commerce of this commodity. They cultivated this plant in enclosures, upon the rivers Uraguai and Parana, and wherever it grew wild, it was destroyed; and after the space of nineteen years they became the sole masters of this trade, which was very lucrative; for as this plant is thought to be an excellent restorative, and a good paregoric, and therefore of indispensible necessity to the workmen in the famous Peruvian mines, it is carried constantly to Peru and Chili; the whole consumption of it being yearly upon an average of 160,000 arrobas, of 25 pounds Spanish weight each; and the price is, at a medium, thirty-six piasters per arroba, so that this plant was worth to the Jesuits 5,760,300 piastres per ann. the tenth part of which sum must be deducted out of the whole, for instruments of agriculture, the erection and repairing of buildings necessary for manufacturing this plant, feeding and cloathing of about 300,000 Indians and Negroes: so that still above five millions of piastres were the clear yearly profit of the pious fathers. These cunning men sold these leaves in powder on purpose that no botanist might get a sight of them, and thus be enabled to find out the plant to which the leaves belong, in case some plants should have escaped their selfish destruction of them. Some writers call this plant Maté, which is, I believe, the name of the vessel it is drank out of. Others call it Caa, and make this the generic name of it, and its species are Caa-cuys, Caa-mini, and Caa-guaz, the last of which is the coarsest sort prepared, with the stalks left to it, for which reason it is likewise called Yerva de Palos; but the Caa-mini or Yerva de Caamini is the best sort and sold dearer; the Caa-cuys will not keep so long as the other two sorts. This plant is thought to be the Ilex Cassine, Linn. Sp. pl. p. 181. or the Dahoon-holly. Forster’s Flora Americ. Septentr. p. 7. and Catesby car. i. t. 31. F.
[16]. When I delivered the settlement to the Spaniards, all the expences, whatsoever, which it had cost till the first of April 1767, amounted to 603,000 livres, including the interest of five per cent. on the sums expended since the first equipment. France having acknowledged the catholic king’s right to the Malouines, he, by a principle of the law of nations, owed no reimbursement to these costs. However, as his majesty took all the ships, boats, goods, arms, ammunition, and provisions that belonged to our settlement, he being equally just and generous, desired that we should be reimbursed for what we had laid out; and the above sum was remitted to us by his treasurers; part at Paris, and the rest at Buenos Ayres.
[17]. The inscription on this medal was as follows.
Settlement of the Isles Malouines, situated in 51° 30′ of S. latitude, 60° 50′ W. long. from the meridian of Paris, by the Eagle frigate, captain P. Duclos Guyot, captain of a fire ship, and the sphinx sloop; captain F. Chenard de la Giraudais, lieutenant of a frigate, equipped by Louis Antoine de Bougainville, colonel of infantry, captain of a ship, chief of the expedition, G. de Nerville, captain of infantry, and P. d’ Arboulin, post-master general of France: construction of a fort, and an obelisk, decorated with a medallion of his majesty Louis XV. after the plans of A. L’Huillier, engineer and geographer of the field and army, serving on this expedition; during the administration of E. de Choiseul, duke of Stainville, in February, 1764.
And the exergue. Conamur tenues grandia.
[18]. An officer who has the care of the stores.
[19]. The author has on purpose omitted to mention, that the English are the first discoverers of these isles. Captain Davis, in the expedition of 1592, under the command of Sir Thomas Cavendish, saw them; and so did Sir Richard Hawkins two years after in 1594, and called them Hawkins’s Maiden Land. In the year 1598 they were seen by the Dutchman Sebald de Waert, and called Sebald’s isles, and with that name they were put in all Dutch charts. Dampier discovered them likewise in 1683, but suspected they had no water. Strong gave these isles, in the year 1689, the name of Falkland-Islands, which was adopted by the celebrated astronomer Halley, and is now become of universal use in all our maps and charts. The privateers in the times of the wars of king William[William] and queen Mary frequently saw these isles, and no sooner than in 1699-1700 they were seen for the first time by a Frenchman called Beauchesne Gouin. It is pretty evident from this account, that the English have an undoubted prior claim to these barren rocks and marshes, situated in a cold climate, subject to the severest rigours of winter, without the benefit of woods to alleviate them; and on which, was it not for the wretched fuel of turf, all the French, English, and Spanish settlements would have been starved with cold. F.
[20]. The work which I now publish was already finished, when the History of a Voyage to the Malouines, by Dom Pernetty, appeared, otherwise I should have omitted the following accounts.
[21]. As M. de Bougainville’s map of the Malouines or Falkland’s isles, is a mere inaccurate out-line; we refer our readers to the more exact plans of these islands, published in England. F.
[22]. Euphorbia Linn. Tithymalus Tournef. F.