54 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



the ship was löst, they succeeded in saving a good part of the cargo. Still worse was the 

 ill luck that overtook the "Santa Margarita". That ship, with a cargo whose value is given 

 as 1,200,000 ducats, was, af ter a fruitless struggle against storm and sea, driven to the 

 island of Saypan, one of the Ladrones. The crew was so exhausted that they couid not 

 prevent the natives from coming on board and cutting the moorings, af ter which the ship 

 drove on land and was plundered. Some of the people perished; others were slain by the 

 natives; the survivors were sa ved by vessels which låter called at the Ladrones. — "These 

 losses were attributed by some to disagreement among the officers, and by others to the 

 late sailing of the ships and to lack of sailors, and (what is more nearly correct) to the 

 general overloading of the vessels." (Morga, p. 188. Colin. I. pp. 25, 204; II, pp. 239, 242. 

 Bl. & Rob. XI, p. 192; XII, p. 49; XIII, p. 115; XXVII, p. 190.) 



The unhappy fäte of these vessels is also mentioned by the Portuguese traveller, 

 Pedro Teixeira, who arrived at Manila from Malacca on 22 June 1600. At that time 

 four ships were lying there ready to sail for New Spain. Teixeira thanks his stars that 

 he was miable, as had been agreed, to make the voyage on one of the two vessels which 

 were afterwards wrecked. As regards the third, "La Contadora", he says that she was 

 seven months on her voyage to Acapulco, and got there little better than a wreck. 

 Teixeira himself travelled on the fourth vessel, whose name is not mentioned, but whose 

 owner was Gabriel de Ribera and whose Captain was Domingo Hortis de Chaboya. 

 They saiied from Cavite on 18 July 1600, and reached the Embocadero as early as 26 

 July, which is mentioned as an unusually quick passage, whereas many vessels needed 

 as much as two months to cover the same distance. After taking provisions on board at 

 the island of Capul, they steered out in to the open sea, with a course laid for Japan. When 

 they had reached the latitude of Japan and believed that they were not far from land, 

 the course was altered to E. As regards the continuation of the voyage Teixeira' s narra- 

 tive contains only the following short notice: "Sighting some islands new and unknown, 

 we saiied many days on that wide South Sea, for the lands of New Spain. On 3 Novem- 

 ber, we made the land in 40 deg. N. lat., at Cape Mendocino. This is a point of no variation 

 of the compass. Thence we ran down the coast southward, looking out for certain islands 

 that lie thereby." — The "new and unknown" islands which were seen during the voyage 

 can scarcely have been anything but some of the Shitchito Islands, south of Japan. 



While sailing along the coast of California they met three vessels belonging to a 

 squadron that the Viceroy of Peru had sent out to look for the Dutch privateers, who, 

 under the command of Olivier van Noort, had appeared in the Pacific Ocean shortly 

 before. In the course of their fruitless search for these privateers the Spanish fleet had 

 been scattered by a storm, 21 September 1600: on this occasion the flagship itself, under 

 the command of Don Juan de Velasco, disappeared without leaving any trace of its 

 fäte. On 1 December 1600, Teixeira arrived at Acapulco: "he had been four months and 

 a half at sea, which was a good voyage enough." (The Travels of Pedro Teixeira, transl. 

 and annotated by William F. Sinclair. Lond. Hakluyt Soc. 1902, pp. 9—13.) 



1601. The galleon "Santo Tomas", Captain Don Antonio de Ribera Maldonado, 

 and a patache under the command of Don Juan de Olea, sail from Acapulco on 16 Febru- 



