1588. MALDONADO. 127 



though not so easily detected at the time it was 

 written, ought not for the last fifty years to have 

 imposed on any one in the least acquainted with 

 the subject of it; and might, indeed, have been 

 dectected at the time the voyage was supposed to 

 be made, by an attentive examination. The Spa- 

 niards, however, have afforded some countenance 

 to the authority of this pretended voyage, even so 

 recently as the year 1789; for when the corvettes, 

 la Discubierta and VAtravida^ were dispatched 

 under the orders of Malaspina, to examine the 

 passages and inlets which might be observed to 

 break the continuity of the line of coast of north- 

 west America, between the degrees of 53 and 60 

 of north latitude, one object of this expedition 

 was " to discover the strait by which Laurent 

 Ferrer Maldonado was supposed to have passed in 

 1588, from the coast of Labrador to the Great 

 Ocean." This voyage of Malaspina has not yet 

 been published, though long ago said to be in the 

 press ; but that this was a main part of the voyage 

 would further appear from a letter of a particular 

 friend of Malaspina's employed on the expedition, 

 who states, that a copy of Maldonado's journal was 

 procured from the Due de ITpfantado.'^ We also 

 find, from the Introduction to the Voyage of Le 



* Voyage de la Mer Atlantique d VOcean Pacifiquey SfC, traduit 

 d'm M. S. Espagnolf par Ch. Amoreitij 1812. Plaisance, 1812. 



