156 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



valour was needed." Others threw doubt on the 

 utility of such conquests, saying that "sufficient lands 

 had been discovered for His Majesty, and that what 

 signified was to people and settle them, rather than 

 go in search of those which I said were new, which 

 were so distant that they would be difficult and costly 

 to maintain after they had been conquered and settled." 

 On the other hand were the very weighty testimonies 

 from Rome, summed up by the Lord Duke, who wrote, 

 says the King, " giving me a good account of his parts, 

 good judgment, and experience in his profession," and 

 " assuring me that he is a worker, quiet, disinterested, 

 of decent life, zealous for the service of God and for my 

 service." So at length Quiros, after much importunity, 

 " submitting new Memorials every day," obtained his 

 heart's desire ; and the King wrote an order to the Viceroy 

 of Peru, that he must provide two very good ships, with 

 sailors good, useful, and obedient, and with all things 

 necessary for a voyage which aimed at the discovery 

 of " the Southern islands and lands as far as New Guinea 

 and Java Major (Java)." The Viceroy was also " to 

 give orders that some barefoot friars of the Order of 



^Franciscan St. Francis, exemplary and of good life, are taken." The 

 dission. ' . . 



voyage of discovery, in its inmost intention, was to be 



a Franciscan Mission. 



Neither Pope nor King nor Lord Duke thought it necessary 

 to pay a Pilgrim's passage to Peru ; and Quiros, after the 

 )on Quixote usual shipwreck, arrived at Panama, " so poor " (says he) 

 " that for eight days I had .not one rial, and owing for 

 the hire of mules." He asked the Governor of Panama 

 for a loan of two hundred dollars, which was refused ; 

 so he had to retire to his lodgings, to be sued by the mule- 

 teers and other creditors. He attended a religious ceremony 

 in the upper storey of the Hospital ; and " as the weight 

 of people was great, a large part of the building gave 

 way, and we fell, sixty of us, with the beds and patients, 

 a height of more than twenty feet. A priest was killed ; 

 there were many broken limbs ; I escaped with what 

 I got, which was a severe blow on the left side, a wound 



