“And also, he said, that he being entered thus far into the said strait, and being come into the North Sea already, and finding the sea wide enough everywhere, and to be about thirty or forty leagues wide in the mouth of the straits, where he entered, he thought that he had now well discharged his office, and that not being armed to resist the force of the savage people that might happen, he therefore set sail, and returned homewards again towards New Spain, where he arrived at Acapulco, anno 1592, hoping to be rewarded by the Viceroy for the service done in the said voyage.
“Also, he said that, after coming to Mexico, he was greatly welcomed by the Viceroy, and had promises of great reward; but that having sued there for two years, and obtained nothing to his content, the Viceroy told him that he should be rewarded in Spain of the King himself very greatly, and willed him therefore to go to Spain, which voyage he did perform.
“Also, he said, that when he was come into Spain, he was welcomed there at the King’s court; but after long suit there also, he could not get any reward there to his content. And therefore at length he stole away out of Spain, and came into Italy, to go home again and live among his own kindred and countrymen, he being very old.
“Also, he said, that he thought the cause of his ill reward had of the Spaniards, to be for that they did understand very well that the English nation had now given over all their voyages for discovery of the North-west Passage, wherefore they need not fear them any more to come that way into the South Sea, and therefore they needed not his service therein any more.
“Also, he said, that understanding the noble mind of the Queen of England, of her wars against the Spaniards, and hoping that her majesty would do him justice for his goods lost by Captain Candish, he would be content to go into England, and serve her majesty in that voyage for the discovery perfectly of the north-west passage into the South Sea, if she would furnish him with only one ship of forty tons burthen and a pinnace, and that he would perform it in thirty days time from one end to the other of the straits, and he wished me so to write to England.”
As this asserted discovery was one upon which the Spanish commissioner, in the negotiations antecedent to the Treaty of the Floridas, relied to support the claim of the Spanish crown to the north-west coast of America, and as authors of late whose opinions are entitled to respect, such as Fleurieu, and Mr. Greenhow, have inclined to admit the general truth of the account, the substantial part of it has been quoted at full length, as it appears both that Fuca’s narrative, if we admit it to be genuine, does not accord, in respect to any substantial fact, with the authentic reports of subsequent voyages, and that the object of the fiction is patent on the face of the story.
The object of the Greek pilot was evidently to obtain, upon the faith of his narrative, employment from the Queen of England; and as, from his own statement, he was aware that the spirit of discovery was for the moment languid amongst the English nation, he represented the country as “very fruitful and rich of gold, silver, pearls, and other things, like New Spain.” This exaggeration of the probable profits of the undertaking would not perhaps alone disentitle the narrator to credit in respect to the other circumstances of his voyage, though his integrity in making the communication might thereby become open to question: but when we look to the asserted facts of his voyage, the truth or falsehood of which must be conclusive as to the character of the narrative itself, we find that they do not correspond in any respect with ascertained facts. The straits to which Meares gave the name of Juan de Fuca in 1788, are between the 48th and 49th parallel. Mr. Greenhow considers that the difference in the position is sufficiently slight as to be within the limits of supposable error on the part of the Greek pilot; and certainly, if this were the only difficulty, it might not be conclusive against his veracity. But the straits which he professed to have discovered were from 30 to 40 leagues wide at the mouth where he entered, and according to his story he sailed through them into the North Sea, and upon the faith of this he offered to perfect his discovery of the north-west passage into the South Sea for the Queen of England, and to perform it in thirty days time from one end to the other of the straits. Now this description is so totally at variance with the real character of any straits on the west coast of America, that the happy coincidence of trifling circumstances can hardly be considered sufficient to turn the scale in its favor. Amongst the latter, the existence of a pillar has been alleged, as corresponding with De Fuca’s account. Meares, for instance, on approaching the straits from the north, speaks “of a small island, situated about two miles from the southern land, that formed the entrance of this strait, near which we saw a very remarkable rock, that wore the form of an obelisk, and stood at some distance from the island,” (p. 153,) which, in his Observations on a North-west Passage (p. lxi.) he seems to consider to be the pinnacle rock of De Fuca; but unfortunately De Fuca has placed his “island with an exceeding high pinnacle or spiral rock” on the north-west coast, at the entrance of the strait, instead of on the southern shore. Vancouver, on entering the straits, failed himself to recognize any rock as corresponding to the pinnacle rock which Mr. Meares had represented, but he observes that a rock within Tatooche’s Island, on the southern side of the entrance, which is united to the main land by a ledge of rocks, over which the sea breaks violently, was noticed, and supposed to be that represented as De Fuca’s pinnacle rock: “this, however, was visible only for a few minutes, from its being close to the shore of the main-land, instead of lying in the entrance of the straits, nor did it correspond with that which has been so described.” On the other hand, Lieutenant Wilkes, in his Account of the United States Exploring Expedition, says, “In leaving De Fuca’s Straits, I anxiously watched for De Fuca’s Pillar, and soon obtained a sketch of it;” but he does not state whether he meant the pillar which Meares observed on the southern side, and called De Fuca’s Pillar, or one which, according to the Greek pilot, should have formed a prominent object on the north-western coast of the strait.
It is not unimportant to observe, that there is no Spanish writer who speaks of De Fuca or his discovery: that neither in any private archives in Spain, nor in the public archives of the Indies at Seville, is there any notice of this celebrated navigator or of his important expedition, which the author of the Introduction to the Voyage of the Sutil and Mexicana observes is the more remarkable, from the great number of other voyages and expeditions of the same period preserved in the archives, which have escaped the notice of contemporary writers; and, what is perhaps still more conclusive, that Humboldt, in his account of New Spain, (l. iii., ch. viii.,) states, that in spite of all his researches he had not been able to find throughout New Spain a single document in which the name of the pilot De Fuca occurs.
The whole of these latter observations apply with equal force to the voyage of Admiral Bartolemé Fonte or de Fuentes, which purposes to have been performed in 1640; the narrative, however, did not make its appearance till 1708, when it was published in London, in two parts, in “The Monthly Miscellany, or Memoirs of the Curious.” The mode in which it was ushered into public notice would alone be sufficient to expose it to considerable suspicion, and the gross absurdities with which it is replete would have at once exempted it from any serious criticism, had not the Spanish commissioner, in the negotiations already alluded to, and of which a full account will be given in a subsequent place, rested upon it the territorial title of Spain to the north-west coast, up to 55° of north latitude. Fonte, according to the narrative, sailed with four vessels from Callao into the North Pacific, with orders from the Viceroy of Peru to intercept certain vessels which had sailed from Boston in New England, with the object of exploring a north-west passage. On arriving at C. St. Lucas, at the south point of California, he despatched one of his vessels “to discover whether California was an island or not, (for before, it was not known whether it was an island or a peninsula.”) He thence coasted along California to 26° of north latitude, and having a steady gale from the S.S.E., in the interval between May 26, and June 14, “he reached the River los Reyes in 53° of north latitude, not having occasion to lower a top-sail in sailing 866 leagues N.N.W., 410 leagues from Port Abel to C. Blanco, 456 leagues to Rio de los Reyes, having sailed about 260 leagues in crooked channels, amongst islands named the Archipelagus de St. Lazarus, where his ships’ boats always sailed a mile a-head, sounding, to see what water, rocks, and sands there was.” “They had two Jesuits with them, that had been on their mission at 66° of N. L., and had made curious observations.” Fonte ascended the Rio de los Reyes in his ships to a large lake, which he called Lake Belle. Here, he says, he left his vessels and proceeded down another river, passing eight falls, in all 32 feet perpendicular, into a large lake which he named De Fonte. Thence he sailed out through the Estrecho de Ronquillo into the sea, where they found a large ship where the natives had never seen one before, from a town called Boston, the master of which, Captain Shaply, told him that his owner was “a fine gentleman, and major-general of the largest colony in New England, called the Maltechusets.” Having exchanged all sorts of civilities and presents with this gentleman, the admiral went back to his ships in Lake Belle, and returned by the Rio de los Reyes to the South Sea. One of his officers had in the mean time ascended another river, which he named Rio de Haro, in the lake Velasco, in 61°, whence he sailed in Indian boats as far north as 77°. Here he ascertained that there was no communication out of the Spanish or Atlantic Sea by Davis’ Straits, from one of his own seamen, who had been conducted by the natives to the head of Davis’ Strait, which terminated in a fresh lake of about 30 miles in circumference, in 80° N. L. He himself in the meantime had sailed as far north as 79°, and then the land trended north, and the ice rested on the land. The result of this expedition was, that they returned home, “having found there was no passage into the South Seas by what they call the North-west Passage.”
Such is the substance of this rather dull story, which may be read in full in the third volume of Burney’s History of Voyages in the South Sea, p. 190. Mr. Greenhow (p. 84) observes, that “the account is very confused and badly written, and is filled with absurdities and contradictions, which should have prevented it from receiving credit at any time since its appearance: yet, as will be shown, it was seriously examined and defended, so recently as in the middle of the last century, by scientific men of great eminence, and some faith continued to be attached to it for many years afterwards.”