I find three reasons which might form impediments to our reaching the Solomon Islands in the positions where we were.
The first is the belief that they had less longitude than was really the case, for they would not seem so far to the people who had to go for their settlement.
The second is some motive of private interest, leading to a concealment of the true latitude, giving to it somewhat less or more.
The third is ignorance, or the want of the instruments to calculate certain distances, or an error in judgment while navigating: what appears to be one thing being another; or a mistake in writing.
As for the first, if it was so that we were not given the true longitude of the Solomon Islands, I say that we really did not reach them, and that they are further to the west than the islands we discovered. The reason is that, if what the Adelantado told me was true, by whose order I prepared the navigating charts, and if what appears in his instructions and in the narrative of Hernan Gallego is true, the Solomon Islands are in latitude 7° to 12° S., 1,450 leagues from Lima. There cannot be an error, as we always continued to navigate without reaching the position, and could not have passed them when they were 400 leagues further to the west. It must, therefore, be believed that they were not behind but in front of us.
As to the second reason, if it was interest, as many people said, that induced Hernan Gallego, when the Adelantado asked him for the route to these islands, not to give him the true position as regards latitude, this may explain it. For when he was at Court to report to his Majesty he had not negotiated for himself; and as the Adelantado, when he undertook the discovery, did not understand the art of navigation, he could be deceived. On the other hand, his observations could not be kept so secret when they were taken by four pilots, who must have known as well as the people who were with them; nor did Hernan Gallego then know that he would have a disagreement with the Adelantado. Nor do I believe that a man of such high character would do such a thing. Moreover, if in this there was deceit, I say that if the islands were in 7° at the least, or in 12° at the most, and we seek them between 7° and 12°, they might well remain behind us, on one of the two sides.
As for the third reason, if it was ignorance there is nothing more to be said. It is very certain that navigating so much as they navigated from east to west, they were on a course on which altitude is not altered, nor is longitude fixed except by such estimation as each one may make. In this there may be very great error, as well in him who makes the estimate as in the ship which, in such a case, may have been understood to have gone over less ground than she is supposed to have made good.
In proof of the greater distance between Peru and the Solomon Islands, I may mention that Hernan Gallego says in his narrative—and the Adelantado also told me the same—that being among the Isles of St. Bartholome,[2] in 8° 40′ N., in the position of the Barbudos, they saw a vessel flying from them under a head sail. They sent the boat on shore; all the natives fled to one of their villages, which our people entered, and brought thence to the ships a chisel made of a nail, from which they understood that Spaniards had been or were there.
What they suspected, respecting this circumstance, was that when the Adelantado, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, discovered the Philippine Islands, a pilot named Lope Martin, returned to New Spain without orders, to bring the news to the Viceroy, Luis de Velasco, who had sent that expedition of discovery, by whom he was very well received and dispatched with succour. He, or one of the people who went with him, also took a letter which a certain friend of the Adelantado Legazpi wrote from Mexico, in which it was said that as soon as it was received Lope Martin should be hanged for having taken the leave which was not given to him. This letter, I know not by what order, got into the hands of Lope Martin. Besides this, between him and the others there were encounters and some deaths, including that of the Captain. Arrived at the Barbudos, Lope Martin went on shore with some of his friends. Meanwhile the Boatswain, with the men of his party, conspired and made sail, leaving them on the island. As the Adelantado, Alvaro de Mendaña, arrived at the islands a little time after this event, it was suspected that those who had been left there thought that Mendaña came in search with the object of punishing them; and for that reason they fled in that vessel which they had probably built, and went to New Guinea.
I say that if this is true, as the islands of the Barbudos are in 8°, 9°, or 10°, more or less, and 2,000 leagues or more from Peru, and as Hernan Gallego, coming from the Solomon Islands, which he says are 1,450 leagues from Lima, to seek the coast of New Spain, navigating from N.E. to N., for so bear the islands from that coast, he could not fall in with the Barbudos, being from the Solomon Islands at least N.E., having come from a much greater longitude than they really thought, or did not wish to say. Moreover, inhabited islands are no small indication that New Guinea is near.