[350] Vide [page 192].
[351] “His Pilgrimes,” vol. IV., p. 1432.
[352] Geographical writers are not agreed as to whether this allusion refers to one of the voyages of Quiros or not. From the date it would appear probable that it refers to Mendana’s second voyage, when Quiros was chief pilot.
[353] A translation is given by Mr. Major in his “Early Voyages to Terra Australis.”
[354] Pinkerton’s Voyages, vol. XIV., p. 12.
The jealous attitude, assumed by Spain towards other nations with reference to these discoveries, succeeded only too well in bewildering the geographers who endeavoured to ascertain the true position of the Solomon Islands; and so varied were the opinions on the subject, that the latitude assigned to them varied from 7° to 19° south, and the longitude from 2400 miles to 7500 miles west of Peru. Acosta, in 1590, ignorant of the materials several years after placed at the disposal of Figueroa, located these islands about 800 leagues[355] west of Peru, and Herrera gives them the same position,[356] a longitude which Lopez Vaz had previously given them in the account obtained from him in 1586 by Captain Withrington. The discoverers themselves, if we may trust the estimates given in the accounts of Gallego and Figueroa, and in the memorials of Quiros, considered that the Solomon Islands were removed about double this distance from the coast of Peru. Their estimates vary between 1500 and 1700 Spanish leagues, whereas the true distance is about 2100 leagues or from 1500 to 2000 miles west of the position assigned by the discoverers. In his second voyage, Mendana was misled by this small estimate when he at first mistook the Marquesas for his previous discovery, the Isles of Salomon. I am inclined to consider that the Spanish navigators purposely under-estimated the distance of these islands from the coast of Peru, and that in so doing they were actuated by two motives. In the first place, they would be desirous to bring their discoveries within the line of demarcation fixed by the Papal Bull after the discovery of America by Columbus, by which the hemisphere west of a meridian 370 leagues west of the Azores was assigned to Spain, and that to the east of this meridian to Portugal. Thus it was that Spain had had to deliver the Brazils to Portugal; and in possessing herself of the Moluccas she had appropriated by a geographical fraud lands which should have belonged to that nation.[357] Their other motive is probably to be found in that jealousy of spirit which, in order to prevent Drake and the English from finding their discoveries, caused the suppression of Gallego’s journal and the burning of many of the memorials of Quiros.
[355] Spanish leagues, 171⁄2 to a degree.
[356] Herrera at the same time places them 1500 leagues from Lima!
[357] I am indebted to Mr. Dalrymple (Hist. Collect. of Voyages, vol. I., p. 51) for this explanation of the small estimates of the Spanish navigators.
Similar confusion prevailed amongst the early cartographers as to the position which they should assign to the Solomon Islands. As M. Buache[358] points out, the first charts representing the Isles of Salomon, which were published at the end of the 16th century, made a near approximation to their true position by placing them to the east and at no great distance from New Guinea. Subsequent cartographers, however, were less happy in their guesses at the truth. In the “Arcano del Mare,” published by Dudley, in 1646, the Solomon Islands were transported to the position of the Marquesas, with which they were thought identical. This position was generally received until early in last century, when Delisle adopted a position much nearer to that given in the early maps. M. Danville, however, later on in the century, being unable to reconcile the Spanish discoveries with the more recent discoveries in the South Seas, suppressed altogether the Isles of Salomon in his map of the world; and his example was followed by several other geographers, who were equally anxious to expunge the lost archipelago from their maps and to relegate it to the class of fabulous lands.