426 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 27, 
How did the word mosquito come into our 
language? From the Spanish, Portuguese, or 
Italian? How old is it with us? Todd adds the 
word Mushitto, or Musquitto, to Johnson’s Dic- 
tionary; and gives an example from Purchas’s 
Pilgrimage (1617), where the word is spelt more 
like the Italian form :— ‘“ They paint themselves 
to keep off the muskitas.” 
There is a passage in Southey’s Omniana (vol. i. 
p- 21.) giving an account of a curious custom 
among the Mozcas, a tribe of New Granada: his 
authority is Hist. del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, 
l.i.c.4. These are some way south of the other 
Moscos, but it is probably the same word. 
One of the Virgin Islands in the West Indies 
has the name of Mosquito. 
Some “ Mosquito Kays” are laid down on the 
chart off Cape Gracias 4 Dios, on the Mosquito 
coast; but these probably would have been named 
from the Mosquito Indians of the continent. And 
these Mosquito Indians appear to have spread 
themselves from Cape Gracias 3 Dios. 
It is stated, however, in Strangeways’ Account 
of the Mosquito Shore, (not a work of authority), 
that these Mosquito Kays give the name to the 
country : — 
“ This country, as is generally supposed, derives its 
name from a clustre of small islands or-banks situated 
near its coasts, and called the Mosquitos.” 
I should be glad if these Notes and Queries 
would bring assistance to settle the origin of the 
name of the Mosquito country from some of your 
correspondents who are learned in the history of 
Spanish conquest and English enterprise in that 
ah of America, or who may have attended to the 
anguages of the American Indians. 
2. I propose to jot down a few Notes as to the 
early connexion between the English and the 
Mosquito Indians, and shall be thankful for refer- 
ences to additional sources of information. 
I have read somewhere, that a Mosquito:king, 
or prince, was brought to England in Charles I's 
reion by Richard Earl of Warwick, who had com- 
manded a ship in the West Indies; but I forget 
where I read it. JI remember, however, that no 
authority was given for the statement. Can any of 
your readers give information about this’? 
Dampier mentions a party of English who, 
about the year 1654, ascended the Cape River 
(the mouth of which is at Cape Gracias 4 ‘Dios) to 
Segovia, a Spanish town in the interior; and an- 
other party of English and French who, after the 
year 1684, when he was in these parts, crossed 
from the Pacific to the Atlantic, descending the 
Cape River. (Harris's Collection of Voyages, 
vol.i. p. 92.) Are there any accounts of these 
expeditions ? 
Dampier also speaks of a confederacy ‘having 
been formed between a party of English ynder a 
Captain Wright and the San Blas Indians of Da- 
rien, which was brought about by Captain Wright's 
taking two San Blas boys to be educated “in the 
country of the Moskitoes,” and afterwards faith- 
fully restoring them, and which opened to the 
English the way by land to the Pacific Sea. (Harris, 
vol. i. p.97.) Are there any accounts of English 
travellers by this way, which would be in the very 
part of the isthmus of which Humboldt has lately 
recommended a careful survey? (See Aspects of 
Nature, Sabine’s translation.) 
Esquemeling, inthis History of the Buccaneers, of 
whom he was one, says that in 1671 many of the 
Indians at Cape-Gracias spoke English and French 
from their intercourse with the pirates. He gives 
a curious and not very intelligible account of Cape 
Gracias, as an island of about thirty leagues reund 
[formed, I suppose, by rivers and the sea], con- 
taining about 1600 or 1700 persons, who have no 
king; (this is quite at variance with all other ac- 
counts of the Mosquito Indians of Cape Gracias ;] 
and having, he proceeds to say, no correspondence 
with the neighbouring islands. {I cannot explain 
this; there is certainly no island ninety miles in 
circumference at sea near Cape Gracias.] 
A quarto volume published by Cadell in 1789, 
entitled The Case of His Majesty's Subjects having 
Property in and lately established upon the Mosquito 
Shore, gives the fullest account of the early con- 
nexion between the Mosquito Indians and the 
English. The writer says that Jeremy, king of 
the Mosquitos, in Charles II-’s reign, after formally 
ceding his country to officers sent to him by the 
Governor of Jamaica to receive the cession, went 
to Jamaica, and thence to England, where he was 
generously received by Charles IL., “who had 
him often with ‘him in ‘his private parties of plea- 
sure, admired his activity, strength, and manly 
accomplishments ; and not only defrayed every 
expense, but loaded him with presents.” Is there 
any notice of this visit in any of our numerous 
memoirs and diaries of Charles II.’s reign ? 
AA curious tract, printed in the sixth volume of 
Churchill’s Voyages, ‘The Mosquito Indian and 
his Golden River, being a familiar Description of 
the Mosquito Kingdom, &c., written in or about 
the Year 1699 by M. W.,” from which Southey 
drew some touches of Indian manners for his 
Madoc,” speaks of another King Jeremy, son of 
the previous one; who, it is said, esteemed himself 
a subject of the King of England, and thad visited 
the Duke of Albemarle in Jamaica. His father 
had -been carried to England, and received from 
the King of England a crown and commission. 
The writer. of this account says that the Mosquito 
Indians generally esteem themselves English :— 
« And, indeed, they are extremely courteous to all 
Englishmen, esteeming themselves to be such, although 
some Jamaica men have very much abused them.” 
I will conclude this communication, whose length 
will I hope be excused for the newness of the sub- 
