1 86 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



passed astern, without that talker seeing it, for he was 

 in his cabin aft. Next morning the land they had left 

 was out of sight. He was not listened to, and they told 

 him to keep in his cabin, and hold his tongue. He thus 

 saved his life, and they landed at Acapulco. His own 

 commander told the Marquis of Montes Claros (Viceroy 

 A mutiny of Mexico) what sort of a man he was, and that he might 

 hfnatfc a as we ^ ke confined as a lunatic. I know not what respect 

 the Spaniards of Peru can have for one who was but yester- 

 day a clerk of a ship of merchants, and a Portuguese. . . . 

 Such low and mendacious fellows ought to be of no account. 

 He is a liar and a fraud. By his fault he did not discover 

 the Crown of the Antarctic Pole, though we were so near 

 it. His men treated him as the man he is fit to be, of the 

 Rua Nova in Lisbon, in whose mouth there is nought 

 but lies, bragging and dishonesty. He is fit to be clerk 

 in a merchant ship ; and he was the cause of the Adelan- 

 tado Mendafia being lost with his fleet." 



The doubt of This discord.of voices seems to have left public opinion 

 Dr. Anas. - Jn ^ Q uncertainty that is expressed in the words of Dr. 

 Arias, an Advocate of Santiago in Chili, who, after the 

 death of Quiros, wrote a memorial vehemently urging 

 the King to persevere in the great mission in which Quiros, 

 nearly succeeding, had failed. " For certain reasons 

 (they ought to have been very weighty), which hitherto 

 have not been ascertained with entire certainty, Pedro 

 Fernandez de Quiros left the Almirante and the Launch 

 in the said Bay, and himself sailed with his ship the Capitana 

 for Mexico." Even those most heartily in sympathy 

 with the aims of the mission were puzzled and offended. 

 What was It is impossible to discover the correct detail of the 



the truth. story. But certain facts stand evident. Quiros was 

 desperately ill. Though a skilful Pilot he was a weak 

 commander. To Spanish soldiers and seamen he was 

 at best " that talker." To them the voyage was a proved 

 failure. There were no King Solomon's gold mines. 

 The soil was good, but the natives were bad. Quiros 

 himself admitted that " there was not a chance on our 

 side," and that " the place which seemed so important 



