SPANISH SEAMEN IN THE NEW WORLD CGI 



best remedy against it, is going ashore. This is no other, but the 

 eea-scurvy. 142 



The proportion of deaths among the crew and passengers was 

 often enormous. For instance, on one vessel with 400 persons 

 aboard, 208 died before Acapulco was reached. 143 On another, 

 the San Nicolas, 330 died. 144 A voyage on which only three 

 persons died was regarded as most "propitious". 145 Probably 

 extremely few, if indeed any at all, of the voyages from Manila 

 to America were made without suffering to a greater or less degree 

 from the ravages of these diseases. And on most trips, the 

 sufferings were terrible, and the death list very long. 



Small wonder then, that from such a voyage, and such condi- 

 tions, the survivors frequently preferred to desert at Acapulco 

 (or California, when the galleon stopped there), 146 rather than 

 return to the Philippines. Wages were paid only in the Philip- 

 pines, and bonds were required of sailors and seamen in the 

 endeavor to check the large number of desertions in Mexico. 147 



Such were the conditions which prevailed among seamen 

 engaged in Spanish commerce across the Pacific, a trade which 

 flourished for over three centuries. 



PAUL S. TAYLOR. 148 



University of California. 



142 Ibid., p. 468. 



143 Pedro Cubero Sebastian, Peregrination del Mu-ndo de. . . (Zaragoza, 

 1088), p. 268. Quoted, Blair and Robertson, I. 65, 66, note 105. 



144 Alonso Fajardo de Tenza, [Letter to the King.], Manila, December 10, 

 1621. Translation in Blair and Robertson, XX. 127-155. See p. 128. 



145 Diaz, op tit., in Blair and Robertson, XXXVII, 190. 



146 Bancroft, op. tit., XVIII. 484. 



147 Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, [Letter to Felipe IV.], Cavite, July 11, 

 1636. Translation in Blair and Robertson, XXVI. 269-290. See p. 284. 



148 Acknowledgment is gratefully made for the very helpful guidance and 

 criticism of Professors Herbert Ingram Priestley and Herbert Eugene Bolton. 



