CHAPTER VIII. 



Sailing Directions for the Pacific Ocean from the Seventeenth 



and Eighteenth Centnries. 



Before we entirely leave the history of the voyages of the galleons, we wish — as 

 in the case of the preceding period - — to see whether any information relevant to our 

 subject is to be obtained from original sources other than the narratives of the voyages 

 themselves. 



The collection of legal ordinances applying to the Spanish colonies, which was issued 

 in 1680 under the title of Eecopilacibn de leyes de las Indias, also contains regulations 

 concerning trade and navigation in the Philippine Islands. 1 There are there included 

 regulations concerning the right to take part in this trade, the number of vessels, the value 

 of the cargoes, etc. Extremely minute prescripts are given regarding the equipment and 

 crews of the galleons, but as regards the voyages themselves there are only regulations 

 as to the times of departure from Manila and from Acapulco, while concerning the course 

 that the galleons should follow nothing is said. There are various indications, however, 

 that very detailed regulations for the navigation of the galleons found a place in the 

 instructions which were issued to the Generals by the Governor of Manila; but no such 

 instructions have been accessible to me, and I have not even seen it stated that any such 

 have been preserved. Sailing directions, derroteros, on the other hand, for the course of 

 the galleons are by no means lacking; probably there are several more than I have come 

 across, especially inSpain. 2 From there some have found their way to other countries, 



1 Lib. IX, Tit. xxxxv. 



2 In the bibliography attached to the treatise Les lies Carolines by the Colonel D. Francisco Coello t 

 Quesada (Bull. de la Soc. Acad. Indo-Chinoise, Sér. 2, T. III, Paris 1890, pp. 336 — 397) mention is made, 

 under No. 35, of a manuscript preserved in Madrid with the title "Derroteros de Filipinas a Nueva Espana". 

 — In the library of Deposito hidrografico in Madrid there is a manuscript with the title "Derrotero general 

 del mar del Sur, sacado de diferentes autores. Hecha en Panama en 30. del mes de Diciembre de 1684, por 

 D. Fernando Mehedano de Saavedra y Cordova". A manuscript with exactly the same title and date, but 

 without any author's name, was offered for sale some years ago by the Leipzig bookseller, Karl W. Hiersemann 

 for 34,000 marks! — Don Juan Bautista Funes de Pavia wrote in 1700 a "Derrotero general de las costas que 

 contiene la mar del Sur en los reinos y provincias del Peru y Neuva Espana con las derrotas y advertencias 

 necesarias. MS. en fol. que existe original en la bibi. Mayansiana" (Navarrete, Bibi. Marit. II, p. 231). 



