104 ALARMS OF THE COURT OF MADRID [1765. 



most authentic manner possible, illustrated by maps, plans, tables, 

 views of scenery, and portraits of natives, all conspiring to afford 

 the most exact ideas of the objects and places described in the 

 narratives. New lands and new objects and channels of com- 

 mercial and political enterprise were thus opened to all ; and new 

 principles of national right, adverse to the subsistence of the 

 exclusive system so long maintained by the Spanish government, 

 were established and recognized among all other states. 



The voyages of the British exploring ships were, until 17T8, con- 

 fined to the southern parts of the ocean ; but the Spanish govern- 

 ment had been constantly in dread of their appearance in the North 

 Pacific, particularly as a navigable communication between that 

 ocean and the Atlantic, in the north, was again generally believed 

 to exist. The acquisition of Canada by Great Britain rendered 

 the discovery of such a passage much more important to that 

 power, as there was less danger that any other nation should 

 derive advantages from it, to the injury of British interests ; while 

 Spain, becoming possessed of Louisiana, w r hich was supposed to 

 extend indefinitely northward, had thus additional reasons for 

 viewing with dissatisfaction any attempts of her rival to advance 

 westward across the continent. 



Serious grounds of apprehension were also afforded by the pro- 

 ceedings of the Russians on the northernmost coasts of the Pacific. 

 All that was generally known of them was obtained from the maps 

 and accounts of the French geographers, which, though vague and 

 contradictory, yet served to establish the certainty that this am- 

 bitious and enterprising nation had formed colonies and naval 

 stations in the north-easternmost part of Asia, and had found and 

 taken possession of extensive territories beyond the sea bathing 

 those shores ; and these circumstances were sufficient to alarm the 

 Spanish government for the safety of its provinces on the western 

 side of America. 



In order to avert the evils thus supposed to be impending, and 

 at the same time to revive the claims of Spain to the exclusive 

 navigation of the Pacific, and to the possession of the vacant terri- 

 tories of America adjoining her settled provinces, as well as to 

 render those provinces more advantageous to and dependent on 

 the mother country, a system was devised at Madrid, about the 

 year 1765, embracing a series of measures which were to be applied 

 as circumstances might dictate or permit. This system, which is 

 supposed to have been elaborated chiefly by Carrasco, the fiscal of 



