94 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



As early as 1774, Dalrymple had claimed, in a letter to the 

 editor of Cook's Voyages, that he had marked Torres' route on his 

 map from information contained in Arias' Memorial, and that he 

 had given a copy of that map to Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph Banks 

 before the latter sailed with Cook in the " Endeavour " (i.e., before 

 27th May, I768). 1 He therefore was quite justified in assuming 

 that Cook's passage through the strait was " determined by " that 

 information. It is reasonable to suppose that Cook took into 

 consideration the probability of there being a passage, but that he 

 considered it open to doubt as being based on maps only 

 (Vaugondy's 1756 map and Dalrymple's 1767 map probably then 

 in manuscript supplied by him to Banks). 



It is clear that Dalrymple, although he had been in possession 

 of Torres' Narrative since 1762, had not yet seen, or at any rate 

 had not yet translated, the narrative of Torres when he furnished 

 Banks (prior to 27th May, 1768) with a map showing Torres 

 Strait. He himself states that the information which he had 

 at that date was taken from Arias' Memorial. 



I believe that TORRES' REPORT, written in 1607, was, to begin 

 with, kept secret by the Spanish Government, and was then 

 pigeon-holed and forgotten. It need not, however, be supposed 

 that Torres sent in his report, or narrative, without keeping a 

 copy, and there is nothing in the narrative, as given by Dalrymple, 

 to indicate that it was accompanied by a chart.* A man who 

 had a genuine grievance against his government, Torres probably 

 (perhaps long after 1607) showed, or gave copies of the narrative 

 and chart to people of importance whom he wished to interest. 

 It is more than likely that he himself gave some high officer of 

 the Dutch East India Company at Manila the copy of the narra- 

 tive which was found by Alexander Dalrymple in the archives of 

 the city when it was taken by the British in 1762. It is probable 

 that a copy of Prado's general chart had come into Vaugondy's 

 hands between 1752 and 1756, but if a copy of Torres' own 

 narrative had come into Dalrymple's possession in 1762, he had 

 evidently not mastered its contents perhaps had not reached it 

 in the course of working through the translations when he 

 published his Collection of Voyages in 1770. 



DR. JEAN Luis ARIAS, acting as the mouthpiece of a Committee 

 of priests, in a MEMORIAL to King Philip III of Spain, exhorted 

 the King to rise to a sense of the duties of his position and conquer 

 the Southern Land, to the end that Christianity might be spread, 

 and, above all, that Dutch and English heretics might be fore- 



1 Collingridge, p. 200. 



2 Three very accurate charts of localities on the south side of New Guinea, all of 

 which are described as having been discovered by Torres, were made by Captain Prado, 

 Torres' companion, but they only came to light about 1778. Prado referred, in a letter 

 dated 24th December, 1613, to a general chart of the Quiros Torres Voyage, which 

 has not yet been discovered. The report of Torres himself bears internal evidence of 

 having been written at a time when he had not the charts of his voyage to refer to. 



