1779.] VOYAGE OF ARTEAGA AND BODEGA. 125 



have the discovery of the west coasts of America completed with- 

 out delay, under the care of the same officers who had already 

 effected so much for that object. With this view, the viceroy, 

 Bucareli, ordered a large ship to be built at San Bias, and another 

 was, at the same time, constructed at Guayaquil, in Quito. In 

 these preparations, nearly three years were consumed, so that the 

 vessels were not ready for the expedition until the beginning of 

 1779; they then quitted San Bias, under the command of Captain 

 Ignacio Arteaga, who sailed in the larger ship, the Princesa, the 

 other, called the Favorita, being commanded by Bodega, with Mau- 

 relle as second officer. Heceta had been transferred to new duties. 



Of this voyage a short notice will suffice, as all the places dis- 

 covered in the course of it had been visited, and minutely examined, 

 in the preceding year, 1778, by the English, under Captain James 

 Cook.* 



On the 7th of February, 1779, Arteaga and Bodega sailed from 

 San Bias directly for Port Bucareli, which they entered after a 

 voyage of four months ; and there they remained nearly two months, 

 engaged in surveying the bay, in refitting their vessels, and in 

 trading with the natives, of whom very minute and interesting 

 accounts are given in the journals of this voyage. From Port 

 Bucareli they sailed northward, on the 1st of July, and in a few 

 days saw the land stretching before them from north-east to north- 

 west : on approaching it, they beheld rising from the coast a great 

 mountain, " higher than Orizaba," which was, no doubt, Mount St. 

 Elias ; and they began their search, west of these places, for a pas- 

 sage leading northwards into the Arctic Sea, as laid down in the 

 charts of Bellin, which they carried with them. In the course of 

 this search, they entered a great bay, containing many islands, on 

 the western side of the largest of which, called by them Ma de la 

 Magdalena, they found a good harbor, where they cast anchor on 

 the 25th, and took possession of the whole region for the king of 

 Spain. From this harbor, named by the Spaniards Port Santiago, 

 parties were sent out in boats to explore the coasts ; but the com- 



* The papers relative to this voyage, which have been obtained, in manuscript, 

 from the hydrographical department at Madrid, are — the official account of the whole 

 expedition — and the journals of Bodega and Maurelle — accompanied by several tables 

 of the navigation, and vocabularies of Indian languages, and the chart of the coast 

 about Prince William's Sound, which is utterly worthless. A translation of a part 

 of Maurelle's journal may be found in the first volume of the narrative of the expedi- 

 tion of La Perouse, accompanied by some severe, and not altogether just, reflections 

 on the conduct of the Spanish navigators in general. 



