Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub
[graphic]

afterwards went on to Goa and other places, and back to Surat. In 1676 his stipend was increased to 3 li.' a month, and he was despatched into Persia, travelling by sea as far as Bandar Abbas and thence by the caravan route through Shiraz to Ispahan, visiting the ruins of Persepolis by the way. While in Persia his health broke down; and in January 1678/9 he returned to India. It was during the voyage thither from the Gulf that Fryer prepared his important monograph entitled 'The Present State of Persia,' which accompanies his Fifth Letter. He was next reappointed Chyrurgion' to the factory at Surat, where he discharged the functions of that office for nearly three years, after which he embarked for home, reaching England in August 1682.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

In the following year the degree of M.D. was conferred upon Fryer at Cambridge; and in 1697 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. His book was not published until the year next following, what prompted him to expose this Piece to the World, after so many yeares' silence' (he explains) being 'not so much the Importunity of some, as the Impertinencies of others,' and a virtuous ambition to show his Diligence in collecting, and Sinceritie in compiling, what may make the Road more easy to the next Adventurers, and satisfy the present Enquirers.' Let us hope that it did so, for it was worthy of those aims at the time, and is now, clarified by enlightened editing, palpably more interesting and instructive than ever.

One of the cardinal assets of the Hakluyt Society is, indeed, its remarkable faculty for enlisting the services, as editors, of scholars whose long residence abroad in various responsible capacities, and consequent familiarity at first hand with the countries, sea routes, languages, and peoples treated of in its volumes, confer upon them special qualifications for the task. They are thus able, by means of introductions, foot-notes, glossaries, bibliographies, and appendices, to give the reader every assistance he requires for the complete understanding of the texts and the identification of old-time names, foreign words, or archaisms occurring in them. The fact that all the Society's editorial work, and in nearly every case its translations from foreign originals, are done as a labour of love and pure devotion to the subject, further ensures

&

that no pains are spared in achieving results with scrupulous care and accurate scholarship.

Though the volumes of Fryer, Jourdain, Bowrey, and Mundy have been cited as typical examples of the work undertaken of late years by the Council of the Society, it is a fact that all these four relate principally to India. Yet it is not type alone, but diversity of types, that counts; the subscribers not being confined to any single or local interest. Taken as a whole, the Society's selection of works, now just a hundred and fifty in number, shows that this principle has been kept consistently in view. Every continent, every tract of ocean, excepting only the Antarctic, has had its share of the Council's attention, this one exception finding, at present, no place in the Society's prospectus for a definite reason -viz. that the Society prints nothing that relates to less than a century aforetime. The circumnavigation by Dampier, which marked approximately the transition from the 17th to the 18th century, was the limit of modernity adopted by the founders of the Society; but after fifty odd years of existence, when the 19th century had elapsed, the Council decided to revise this canon of its constitution, and selections from the records of another hundred years were declared eligible to receive its attention.

Apart from the reservation mentioned, the Society has not confined its output to any particular age or region, but has adopted the same broad scope as did Hakluyt himself in this respect. It has, indeed, widened its spiritual ancestor's purview in another direction, not limiting its editions to the 'traffiques and discoueries of the English nation,' nor restricting its researches to documents or printed texts originally indited in the vulgar tongue. It has published translations, most of them made by the Society's editors, from not less than a dozen foreign languages. Here and there, it is true, a document is inserted in its original text, either on account of its singularity or rarity, or for comparative reference. These are printed as appendices, as in the case of Odoric's travels, in the second volume of 'Cathay.' Such too is the Deed by which a compact of mutual support and obligation was sealed, in 1775, between Don

[graphic]

Domingo de Boenechea on behalf and by authority of the King of Spain and the ruling chiefs of Tahiti—a State Paper which lay hidden for 130 years in the maze of muniments treasured by the Spanish Government, at Seville, and but for the activities of the Hakluyt Society might still have remained there undisclosed. Akin to it is the Act of Cession by which the natives of Easter Island were induced, in 1770, to put their country at the disposal of the same sovereign, and to which they affixed marks (which have been miscalled signatures) of the same character as the mysterious 'glyphs' or graven tablets since found among that isolated remnant of a people, but never yet clearly explained or deciphered.

[ocr errors]

The work in which the former of these two documents is now published comprises a set of three volumes, entitled The Quest and Occupation of Tahiti by Emissaries of Spain, 1772-76,' with which may be bracketed an earlier one, 'The Voyage of Don Felipe González,' containing the glyphs. In these four volumes are described a series of exploratory voyages conducted by command of King Charles the Third of Spain, with the object of forestalling British and French enterprise in the southern Pacific. It was the wild scheme of MM. de Surville and Law de Lauriston for driving a trade with the natives of Easter Island, reputed to be 'Davis's Land' (which they confused with Bougainville's 'Nouvelle Cythère'), and the series of blunders and misadventures which brought about the délabrement of that scheme that inspired the Viceroy of Peru to despatch a naval expedition from Callao, for reconnaissance purposes, in 1770. This expedition consisted of a 70-gun ship and a frigate-a force afterwards characterised by the Comte de Fleurieu as an 'armement suffisant pour subjuguer tous les Archipels du Grand Océan.'

The commander bore instructions to find the island that Surville had missed, to bring its natives into submission as vassals of His Majesty of Castile, and to expel any foreigners who might be found settled there. In 'The Voyage of Captain Don Felipe González' the Hakluyt Society has brought to light and translated into English all the official documents which determined the expedition just referred to. With them are pub

lished the journals of the commander and two other officers, none of which had been printed before, even in Spanish. To these the editor has prefixed a translation of Meester Roggeveen's official log, in so far as it relates to the Hollanders' transactions at Easter Island in 1722. That log is the only official record of Roggeveen's voyage; having been impounded, it was only brought to light in 1836, at Middelburg. It adds interest to the collection of papers and facilitates a comparison between the methods, observations, and experiences of the two sets of explorers. As in the case of the Hollanders, so also the Spaniards' investigations covered a stay of barely one week; and, in reporting to His Majesty the result attained, the Viceroy expressed disappointment at the hurried and somewhat sketchy way in which his instructions had been applied. The King therefore directed that a second visit should be paid to the island, and that the opportunity should be utilised to establish a small settlement of Spanish soldiers there. Just at this time, however, rumours reached Lima of Captain Cook's return to England, and of his sojourn at Tahiti for the purpose of observing the transit of Venus; so the Viceroy, apprehensive, like his Sovereign, lest some deeper motive than zeal for astronomy should have influenced the British Government, decided that the projected re-examination and military occupation of 'San Carlos' (as they renamed Easter Island) should be supplemented by a similar move in respect of Tahiti.

The first volume of 'The Quest and Occupation of Tahiti' is really a sequel to the narrative of González' voyage, and opens with a brief review of these proceedings and the three voyages of the 'Águila' to Tahiti which ensued, written by the Viceroy, Don Manuel de Amat, for the information and guidance of his successor. It contains, too, a number of previously unpublished State Papers showing how the Spanish King and his Ministers were obsessed by a belief that the British Admiralty had established a naval settlement on some bay or river on the Patagonian coast, or among the intricate fiords and islands composing its western labyrinth. The post in question was eventually revealed to a small Spanish scout or surveying vessel, not where it was expected, but at Port Egmont in the

[graphic]

Falkland Islands, then known to the Spanish officials only as Las Islas Malvinas, where they themselves had a station, called Puerto de la Soledad. The history of our dislodgment from Port Egmont in 1770, our resettlement there four years afterwards, and subsequent abandonment of that foothold for no explicit reason, though without any surrender of our rights, is full of interest. Perhaps Lord Mahon's summary of the subject, in the fifth volume of his History of England,' affords the best conspectus of the chain of events comprised; but a detailed narrative, illustrated by all the official documents that were exchanged between the nations, and certain admirable water-colour drawings of Port Egmont and our block-house or watch-tower erected there, which are preserved in the Archivo de Indias at Seville, still awaits an author.

[ocr errors]

The volume under notice necessarily touches upon these incidents, and it supplies some of the interesting correspondence conducted by our opponents amongst themselves, translated by the editor from original despatches found in the repository just mentioned. But the Malvinas were outside the jurisdiction of the Viceroy of Peru; and that prudent officer wisely recommended that their affairs should be committed to the care of the Governor of Buenos Ayres, which was accordingly done.

[ocr errors]

From Callao Captain Boenechea of the 'Águila,' to whom the Viceroy entrusted the conduct of the expedition, directed his course firstly towards the situation where the scanty particulars in his possession indicated that he would find Tahiti; and in this Quest' he was entirely successful, sighting its lofty forest-clad acclivities on Nov. 8, 1772. Like Cook, the Spanish captain caused the island to be explored in its entire circuit by a party in one of the ship's boats. They were everywhere well received, and the lieutenant in charge of this duty made acquaintance with several of the native chiefs, including Otoo and Oreti, who had been friends and hosts to Cook and Bougainville before him. From these he gleaned some particulars of the visits of the English and French ships; but the natives' accounts were vague and confused. One of the marines serving in the Águila,' named Máximo Rodríguez, applied himself to learn the Tahitian

[ocr errors]
« VorigeDoorgaan »