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Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.Major, Richard Henry

History

Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

Name: Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.
Author: Major, Richard Henry

Major, Richard Henry

Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels

But while examining these indications of a discovery of Australia in the
sixteenth century, it will be asked what explorations had been made by
the Spaniards in that part of the world in the course of that century.
From the period of the voyage of Don Alvaro de Saavedra to the Moluccas
in 1527, already alluded to, we meet with no such active spirit of
exploration on the part of the Spaniards in the South Seas. Embarrassed
by his political position, and with an exhausted treasury, the emperor,
in 1529, definitely renounced his pretensions to the Moluccas for a sum
of money, although he retained his claim to the islands discovered by
his subjects to the east of the line of demarcation now confined to the
Portuguese. In 1542 an unsuccessful attempt to form a settlement in the
Philippine Islands was made by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, but its failure
having been attributed to mismanagement, a new expedition in 1564 was
despatched with the like object under Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, which was
completely successful, and a Spanish colony was established at Zebu. It
is not impossible that this settlement gave rise to voyages of discovery
about this time by the Spaniards, of which no accounts have been
published. In 1567 Alvaro de Mendana sailed from Callao on a voyage of
discovery, in which he discovered the Solomon Islands and several
others. There are great discrepancies in the different relations of this
voyage. In 1595 he made a second voyage from Peru, in which he
discovered the Marquesas, and the group afterwards named by Carteret
Queen Charlotte’s Islands. The object of this expedition was to found a
colony on the Solomon Islands, which he had discovered in his previous
voyage, but from the incorrectness of his reckoning he was unable to
find them. In the island of Santa Cruz he attempted to establish a
colony, but without success, and in this island he died. In this second
voyage he had for his chief pilot Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, who may be
regarded as the last of the distinguished mariners of Spain, and whose
name claims especial notice in a work treating of the early indications
of Australia, although he himself never saw the shores of that great
continental island.[7]

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Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

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