“I gave a report to the General of what we had seen and accomplished in the expedition, telling him that there was no appearance of land further (in that direction), but that all the mass of the land, which was endless, lay to the west; and that, from this, he would perceive what ought to be done. A council of the captains and pilots was held to determine what steps should be followed in the prosecution of the voyage; and it was decided to refit the ships for this purpose; this, therefore, was the result of the general consultation. The ships were accordingly refitted;[303] but on Saturday, the 7th of August, in the same year of 1568, all mustered together and made a protestation to the General and the captains with reference to the plan to be pursued. I told them briefly that because the ships were getting worm-eaten and rotten, and the rigging and cordage were not of much good, we should be determined to complete, without delay, the object for which we had come. The General, in reply, said that it would be well that the brigantine should go in search of more provisions, of which we were in want; but I pointed out that this should not be done, because all the islands that we had visited were aroused, and the provisions hidden. They asked for my opinion as to returning to Peru, whence we had come; and I told them that we should not sail to the south of the Equinoctial, as we should be lost, on account of there being many people, scanty provisions, and but little water. I also said that if we were to direct our course to positions in latitudes which we should have time to reach, we should not have time to find land to the south-south-west and south, which would be a work of difficulty; and that such a new navigation, with 1,700 leagues of sea to cross on our return voyage, did not seem prudent. I therefore gave it as my opinion that we should steer north to reach the latitude of the first land we found, because it would be necessary, in order to shape a course from Peru, to go beyond the south tropic for thirty degrees and more; and I also said that when they should venture to make the return voyage, they should carry an abundance of water and provisions, because, otherwise, they would run the risk of all perishing. And so the pilots came to my view, which satisfied the protest that had been made; and I gave my opinion in the presence of a clerk who was Antonio de Cieza. Concerning the idea of my asking to found a settlement in these islands, I said that in that matter I did not know what the General intended to do, since the instructions concerning it were in his keeping. To this opinion they all came, and were of one mind without one that did not assent.[304]
[303] Figueroa refers to the ships being heaved down in this harbour.
[304] The impression, which this interesting passage leaves on my mind, is that the Chief-Pilot prefers in his narrative to gloss over an incident which must have been full of disappointment to himself. Further on in the narrative, he writes more freely on the subject ([page 237]). In [Note IX.] of the Geographical Appendix, I have given some further remarks on this passage.
“At midnight on the following Monday, when all were asleep, the General ordered Gabriel Muñoz and myself to go with some soldiers and make an entrance into a town in order to seize some Indians for interpreters (para lenguas). We went with 30 men, and took an Indian with his wife and young son; and all the rest of the Indians fled. We then returned to the ships; and straightway we made preparations for prosecuting our voyage.
“On the 11th of August of the same year, we left the Puerto de Nuestra Senora, which is in 11° south of the Equinoctial, in order to follow our voyage to Peru. Sailing to windward, at the end of 7 days after we had left the port, we weathered the island of San Christobal with the two islands of Santa Catalina and Santa Anna. On the Tuesday evening, having shortened sail, we had reached the islands of Santa Catalina and Santa Anna, which lay three leagues to the north-north-west. Looking around we did not see any more land, and here a strong south-east wind overtook us; and we shaped our course to the north-east-by-east.”
In this manner the Spaniards left behind them the Isles of Salomon after a sojourn of six months in these islands; and, perhaps, a few reflections on their discoveries in this group, and on their dealings with the inhabitants, may be here apposite. They seem to have landed on, and to have taken formal possession of, almost every island of any size from Isabel eastward; they named all the large islands in the group with the exception of Bougainville; and the majority of the smaller islands also received their names. In the Geographical Appendix, I have given a [list] of the islands named by the Spaniards, which do not at present bear the names given them by their original discoverers.[305] It would be a graceful compliment to the memory of the gallant Gallego, who was the central figure of this expedition, if, after the lapse of more than three centuries, the Spanish names should be associated with these islands in the Admiralty charts. The reason why such islands as Choiseul, Contrarieté, Les Trois Sœurs, and the Ile du Golfe (Ugi), at present bear the names given to them by the French navigators, Bougainville and Surville, rather more than a century ago, is to be found, not in any intended act of injustice to the Spanish discoverers, but in the circumstance that the imperfect account of Figueroa,[306] which omits many of the discoveries made in the brigantine, has been the only source of information available in the construction of the Admiralty charts. Those who have written most on the history of geographical discovery in these regions, Pingré, Dalrymple, Buache, and Fleurieu a century ago, and Burney in the early part of the present century, had only the account of Figueroa at their disposal.[307] The Journal of Hernan Gallego, the existence of which was doubted, would have been invaluable to them; and although a non-professional writer, I may be pardoned when I express my admiration at the manner in which M. M. Buache and Fleurieu arrived at such correct inferences, based as they were on such scanty premises. One or two mistakes have arisen in the nomenclature of the present [chart], which are due to misconceptions in the English translations of the account given by Figueroa, to wit, I may cite the instance of the Isle of Ramos. . . . . . . The additional names which the Journal of Gallego enables us to identify with existing islands are, in truth, to be found in the general description of the Salomon Islands, which Herrera incorporated in his “Descripcion de les Indias Occidentales,” which was published about 1601. But this description was, as just remarked, of a general character, and beyond confirming the suspicion that there were other accounts of Mendana’s discoveries besides the relation of Figueroa, it was but of little service to the nautical geographer.
[306] Translated in great part from the original in the works of Pingré, Dalrymple, Fleurieu, and Burney. (Hechos de Don G. H. de Mendoza: par Dr. C. S. de Figueroa.)
[307] Pingré’s “Mémoire sur le choix et l’état des lieux où le passage de Vénus du 3 Juin, 1769;” Dalrymple’s “Historical Collection of Voyages;” Fleurieu’s “Découvertes des François en 1768 et 1769 dans le sud-est de la Nouvelle Guinée” (also Eng. edit.); Burney’s “Chronological History of Voyages and Discoveries,” &c.
I come now to a less pleasant task, that of reviewing the character of the intercourse that prevailed between the Spaniards and the natives. It has been remarked by Commander Markham in his spirited sketch of the discoveries of Mendana, that the conduct of the Spaniards, in their intercourse with the islanders, was not otherwise than humane;[308] but I feel assured that a different opinion would have been expressed, if the writer had extended his inquiries further into the narrative of Gallego. During their six months’ sojourn in this group, the loss of the Spaniards was but trifling in comparison with the losses they inflicted on the natives. In these numerous conflicts the natives must have lost not less than a hundred killed, whilst the Spaniards lost ten of their number; but a large proportion of these unfortunate islanders fell victims to the lamentable succession of reprisals for the massacre of the watering-party at the Puerto de la Cruz, an act of retribution which the Spaniards had entirely brought upon themselves. In the great majority of instances the natives assumed the aggressive, but not in all; and although the Spaniards were often justifiably compelled to employ force in obtaining provisions, yet there was often nothing to excuse them in seizing the canoes, in cajoling natives alongside in order to capture them, or in carrying off with them from the group an unfortunate native with his wife and child. The natives kept on board the ships escaped on account of ill-treatment; and, as Gallego also writes, all the islands were aroused to such a degree by the visit of the Spaniards, that they concealed their provisions, and the ships began their return-voyage to Peru with scanty supplies of food and water. . . . . . We must, however, judge of the conduct of the first discoverers of the Solomon Islands in the spirit of the age to which they belonged. The zeal, which led them to burn the temples dedicated to the worship of snakes and toads in the interior of Isabel, was appropriate to the spirit of an age in which expeditions were fitted out for the double purpose of discovering new territories and of reclaiming the infidel. Yet, if we lay aside the religious element, I doubt very much whether the lapse of three centuries has materially raised the standard by which our dealings with savage races should be guided. The white man kidnaps; the savage revenges the outrage on the next comer; the ship-of-war in its reprisal is of necessity equally indiscriminate; and thus feuds are re-opened with no single effort at conciliation.