It Is Very Probable,
That The Spanish Government Continued From Mere Habit To Reserve The
More Perfect Memorials, After All
The views of policy which first
occasioned their being withheld from the public, had been abandoned.
The affairs of that
Ill-fated kingdom have been long very unfavourable
to the investigations, which certainly unimportant curiosity might
prompt on the subject - E.
[4] Two relations have been given of Mendana's voyage; one by Quiros
above-mentioned, in a letter to Don Antonio Morga, lieutenant-general
of the Phillipines, when Quiros landed at Manila, which was inserted
in a work published at Mexico in 1609; and the other contained in
Thevenot's French collection, being, as Mr Dalrymple has remarked, a
transcript from Figueroa's history of Garcia Hurtado de Mendoca, and
of less authority. The discoveries of Quiros, real and supposed, have
attracted very peculiar notice, and deservedly so. Almost every
collection specifies them. That which the president de Brosses has
given on the authority of several Spanish works, has been generally
followed. Mr Dalrymple is earnest in securing to this immortal
name, the honour of discovering the southern continent. It is most
certain that he did discover something in the Pacific Ocean, but it
never yet has been shewn, that this something any way corresponds with
the wonderful description he thought proper to give of it, in his
memorial to the Spanish king. "Its longitude," says he, (we copy from
Mr Dalrymple's translation) "is as much as that of all Europe, Asia-
Minor, and to the Caspian Sea, and Persia, with all the islands of the
Mediterranean and Ocean, which are in its limits embraced, including
England and Ireland.
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