VAUGONDY AND DALRYMPLE MAPS 95 



stalled. Among the arguments employed are the achievements 

 of early Spanish navigators (recounted at some length), including 

 those of Torres. 



Internal evidence dates this remarkable document between 

 1614 (referred to as the year of Quiros' death) and 1621 (when 

 Philip III died). The Memorial was published in Spanish in 

 Edinburgh, and translated by Dalrymple, who printed it as an 

 appendix to his Charts and Memoirs in 1772. 



After relating the parting of Quiros and Torres, in 1606, the 

 memorialist goes on to say : 



" The Admiral Luis Vaes de Torres being left in the Bay, and most disconsolate 

 for the loss of the ' Capitano ' [Quiros' vessel] resolved to continue the discovery. . . . 

 Finding himself in great straits in 21 S., to which high latitude he had persevered 

 in sailing in about a SW. direction from the 15 or 20 S., in which lay the aforesaid 

 Baia, he put back to the NW. and NE. up to 14, in which he sighted a very extensive 

 coast, which he took for that of New Guadalcanal. From thence he sailed westwards, 

 having constantly on the right hand the coast of another very great land, which he 

 continued coasting, according to his own reckoning, more than 600 leagues, having 

 it still on the right hand (in which course may be understood to be comprehended 

 New Guadalcanal and New Guinea). Along the same course he discovered a great 

 diversity of islands. The whole country was very fertile and populous. He 

 continued his voyage on to Bachan and Ternate, and from thence to Manila, which 

 was the end of his discovery." * 



Had Arias and his colleagues themselves seen Torres' report 

 they would not have had to conjecture, as they did (and rightly), 

 that the land which lay on Torres' right hand included New 

 Guinea, as Torres' report leaves no room for question on the 

 point. They therefore must have obtained the information at 

 second hand. The report was almost new at the most not 

 fourteen years old and must -have been zealously kept a secret 

 if even priests powerful enough to lecture the King on his neglect 

 of duty, with impunity, were denied a sight of it. 



It was not Torres' report but Arias' summary of it which 

 was known to Dalrymple in 1768 (although it may have been in 

 his possession, but still untranslated), and we may believe that 

 it had already come to the knowledge of Robert de Vaugondy 

 between 1752 and 1756. 



Torres' report, or a copy of it, was discovered in the archives 

 of Manila in 1762.' It was first presented to English readers in 

 a translation by Dalrymple in Captain James Burney's Discoveries 

 in the South Sea, 1806, Part II, p. 467. The translation is 



1 An English translation is given by R. H. Major in Early Voyages to Terra Australis. 

 London, Hakluyt Soc., 1859. Another is printed in the same Society's Voyages of 

 Quiros, 1904. A portion of it is given by Collingridge, p. 225. 



3 Flinders, Voyage to Terra Australis in 1801, 1802 and 1803. London, 1814. In 

 vol. i. p. io, Flinders writes: " Torres, it should appear, took the precaution to lodge 

 a copy of his letter in the Archives of Manila, for after that town was taken by the 

 British forces in 1762, Mr. DALRYMPLE found out and drew from oblivion this interesting 

 document of early discovery ; and . . . NAMED the passage TORRES STRAIT." 



