[6] Perhaps the region known as Miztecapan, which has fertile valleys.
[7] A truce of eight months, to begin with May, 1607, was arranged between Spain and the United Provinces, in which for the first time Spain gave up its claims to control the latter. This paved the way to the long truce of twelve years signed at the meeting of the States-General at Bergen-op-Zoom, in April, 1609, in which the independence of the United Provinces was recognized (see Vol. XI, p. 166, note 27). But that independence was completely recognized and assured only by the treaty of Westphalia or Münster (in October, 1648), which also opened to the Dutch the ports of the Eastern and Western Indias.
[8] Thus in the text, according to the editor of Docs. inéditos; apparently an error for Manila.
[9] That is, if the Philippine trade to Nueva España were suppressed the commodities from Spain which are now shipped to Manila via Acapulco, and are mainly articles of luxury, would not find any greater sale in the Orient than before.
[10] In 1525 Esteban Gomez—who had been one of Magalhães’s pilots (Vol. 1, pp. 263, 319) was sent by Charles V “to find a route to Cathay” north of Florida. He had but one caravel with which to make this voyage, but he went to the Bacalaos (New-foundland coast), and thence as far south as Florida. His discoveries were noted on the map of the cosmographer Diego Ribero (1529). Gomez’s voyage is described by Peter Martyr.
[11] Referring to the treaty of Zaragoza (Vol. II, pp. 222–240).
[12] Montesclaros has forgotten the capture of the “Santa Ana” by Candish. See Vol. VI, p. 311, and Vol. XV, appendix A.
[13] The fictitious strait of Anian (for which name see Bancroft’s History of Northwest Coast, i, pp. 53–56), was the supposed western terminus of the northwest passage, whose eastern terminus Cortereal was thought to have found in Hudson Strait. A kingdom marked Anian is shown On Ortelius’s map (Theatrum orbis terrarum, Antwerp, 1574), with the strait just north of it, above 60°. Both the kingdom and district are shown on a number of old maps. Du Val’s map (Paris, 1684) of North America, which shows California as an island, portrays the strait of Anian directly north of it, between 45° and 50° of latitude. Vaugondy’s map (that of 1750 corrected), Paris, 1783, shows the strait between 50° and 55°. Comparing the latter with Russel’s general map of North America, 1794, the Anian strait appears to coincide with the strait between Queen Charlotte’s Island and the mainland, the modern Hecate Strait. Vizcaino had orders to look for this strait on his voyage, and explore it.
[14] Puertobelo, now called Porto Bello, is situated on the isthmus of Panama, almost directly north of Panama—in the old department of Panama of the United States of Colombia; but now (as the other places herein named) in the independent state of Panama—and but little west of Aspinwall, the Atlantic terminus of the Panama Canal. Chagre is the modern Chagres, and lies on the Atlantic side of the isthmus southwest of Porto Bello; there empties the Chagres River, which can be ascended to Cruces, which is twenty miles north of Panama, the Pacific terminus of the canal, capital of the old department of Panama, and of the present state of Panama.