184 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OP THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



Cabrera Bueno, 1734. The above-mentioned work of this man (p. 135) is not 

 accompanied by any map; but it is nevertheless evident that the detailed list of 

 geographical positions which is there included was taken from a contemporary chart of the 

 North Pacific Ocean. The place-names with the relevant latitudes and longitudes are 

 divided under two headings: one runs "latitudes and longitudes from San Bernard ino 

 to Acapulco, during the voyage from the Philippines to the port named"; the other "the 

 return-voyage from Acapulco to Cape Espiritu Santo". One might imagine from this 

 that it was the author's intention to give in the first division the islands which were 

 touched during the voyage of the galleons from west to east, and in the latter division 

 those that lay on the route of the voyage in the opposite direction. This, however, is 

 not the case: we find Guam and the other southerly Mariannes, which were touched at 

 only on the westward voyage, included in the first division, and the Isla de Paxaros in 

 the latter division, although the galleons in their return-journey from Acapulco certainly 

 never got so far north as the supposed position of that island (26° 23' N. ). Although 

 the Los Monges group is also included in the second division of the list, we cannot infer 

 from that fact that it was regarded as lying either on or near the track of the galleons 

 from Acapulco to Cape Espiritu Santo. A comparison between Cabrera Bueno' s list and 

 the charts to which we are now to pass, shows so complete an agreement that there cannot 

 exist the slightest doubt that this list is based on a chart identical with those enumerated 

 below. 



The Anson Chart, 1743 (Pl. III). This chart, which forms the chief document 

 in the question that here engages our attention, was found, as has been previously said, 

 on the galleon "Nuestra Sehora de Cobadonga", which was captured by Commodorc 

 George Anson on 30 June 1743 (see p. 126). A reproduction of the chart was afterwards 

 published by the ship's Chaplain Richard Walter, in his account of Anson's voyage, 

 but the original seems to ha ve disappeared. On the reproduction the editor laid out the 

 course both of the captured galleon to and fro between Manila and Acapulco, and also 

 Anson's track from Acapulco to China; and he also introduced into the chart a number 

 of variation observations, taken from different sources; and finally he admits that the 

 chart was "corrected in some places by our own observations", 1 without stating the nature 

 of these corrections. The great sensation that Anson' s exploits aroused and the extensive 

 circulation that the account of them obtained in his own country and through translations 

 into all civilized languages, have contributed to give authority to the chart in question, 

 although a critical examination of it, and also the statement of the editor' s arbitrary 

 alterations, ought, one would think, to have made that authority suspected from the 

 verv outset. 



The longitudes are reckoned, as was usual with the pilots of the galleons, from the 

 Embocadero de San Bernardino, which is practically the same as Cape Espiritu Santo. 

 But while the Anson chart makes the distance between that point and Acapulco 134° 30', 

 that distance is onlv 124° 30' in Cabrera Bueno. James Burney observed that in this respect 



1 A»son's Voi/uc/e. 1749, p. 385. 



