Part 4

The Spanish commissioners then settled the line of demarcation at three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, as it had been fixed in 1494; and as, on the basis of the charts which they had then before them, they made the opposite line, which was to be at the distance of a hundred and eighty degrees, pass through the Malay peninsula, they included in their own hemisphere not only the Moluccas, but also the islands of Java and Borneo, part of Sumatra, the coast of China, and part of the Malay peninsula itself. The Portuguese did not agree to this limitation, which was too disadvantageous for themselves; on the contrary, they went away very discontented, storming, and threatning war, which gave occasion to the jocose observation of Peter Martyr of Anghiera, a talented man, at that time the historiographer of the court of Spain, that the commissioners, after having well syllogized, concluded by being unable to decide the question except by cannon balls.

In spite of the unsuccessful issue of this negociation, the two courts did not come to a quarrel; they were on the point of forming alliances. The question of the marriage of the Infanta Catherine, the emperor’s sister, with king John, which was celebrated in 1525, was being then entertained. In the following year, 1526, the emperor espoused, with great pomp, Isabella, king John’s sister. Charles V, however, believing himself in the right, continued to permit his subjects to carry on commerce with the Spice Islands; and he himself fitted out fleets to dispute the possession of them with the Portuguese. Some of these vessels landed at the Moluccas in 1527 and 1528; but, as these expeditions were generally unsuccessful, and as, moreover, he was in need of money for his coronation in Italy, he listened to the proposals of king John to purchase his right to these islands. He parted with them by a secret treaty, which was signed at Saragossa the 22nd of April, 1529, for the sum, it is said, of 350,000 golden ducats, against the expressed wish of his subjects, who often, but in vain, besought him to retract it. By his refusal, it was thought that he had received much more. Thenceforth the Spaniards were not permitted to traffic with the Moluccas.

This termination of the quarrel on the part of Portugal was a justification of the claims of the Spaniards, and an acknowledgment in some sort that the Moluccas were in their hemisphere. After such an arrangement, the Portuguese could not show any discoveries made to the eastward, or even under the meridian of these islands. The greatest part of New Holland is more to the east than the Moluccas; hence it is to be believed that for this reason the Portuguese have kept silence respecting their discovery of it.

This discovery, as we have said, must be comprised between the years 1512 and 1542. There is, however, no mention made of it in the voyages of the time, which would sufficiently prove that the Portuguese had suppressed, or at least concealed, the account of it. But I propose to endeavour to supply this defect from the narrative of two of their historians.

Castanheda, a Portuguese author, who had been in India, tells us that in the beginning of July, 1525, the Portuguese of Ternate, one of the Moluccas, dispatched a vessel to the island of Celebes to traffic there; that this vessel on its return was driven by violent winds and currents into an open sea, between the Straits of Magellan and the Moluccas; that the Portuguese found themselves thrown more than three hundred leagues out of their route, and were several times nearly lost. One night their rudder was carried away, and they beat about till the morning, when they discovered an island thirty leagues in circumference, on which they landed, with thanks to God for affording them this asylum. The islanders gave them an excellent reception; they were of a tawny colour, but well made and good looking, both men and women. The men had long black beards. The Portuguese remained four months in this island, not only for the purpose of refitting, but because the winds were contrary for the return to the Moluccas. At length they departed, and reached Ternate on the 20th of January, 1526.

Such is the narrative of Castanheda. The Jesuit Maffei, who has given us a history of India, has supplied us with less details, but his account is not less valuable, inasmuch as he gives us the name of the captain who commanded the ship. He says: Some Portuguese of the Moluccas, having gone to the islands of Celebes to seek for gold, but not having been able to land, were driven by a fearful tempest upon an island, which is distant therefrom three hundred leagues, when they went ashore. The inhabitants, who were simple people, received them very well, and soon became familiar with them. They comprehended their signs, and even understood a little of the language spoken at the Moluccas. All the inhabitants were well-looking, both male and female; they were cheerful, and the men wore beards and long hair. The existence of this island was previously unknown, but in consideration of the account given of it by the captain, whose name was Gomez de Sequeira, and of the map which he drew of this island, his name was given to it.

From the details supplied to us by these two authors, it is evident that the island on which Gomez de Sequeira was thrown was to the eastward of the Moluccas, because, in returning, the Portuguese had to sail westward. Now three hundred Portuguese leagues, starting from the Moluccas or the island of Celebes, lead us to within a trifle of Endeavour Straits; we may therefore conclude that it was upon one of the rocks in this strait that Gomez de Sequeira lost his rudder, and that the island on which he landed was one of the westernmost of those which lie along its western extremity. The Portuguese did not advance far into this strait, for it is plain that they met with no obstacle in returning to the Moluccas. I think, therefore, that the island on which Gomez de Sequeira landed was one of those which were called Prince of Wales’s Islands by Captain Cook, and which are inhabited, because this navigator states that he saw smoke there. What confirms me in this opinion, is the agreement of our two authors in stating that the men of Gomez de Sequeira’s Island had long and black hair and beards. We still find this characteristic distinguishing the natives of New Holland from those of New Guinea, whose hair and beards are crisped. This island, therefore, was nearer to New Holland than to New Guinea, which is, in fact, the case with the Prince of Wales’s Islands.

The Portuguese having discovered in 1525 an island so near as this to New Holland, we must believe that the discovery of that continent followed very soon after that of this island. It was at that time that the controversies between the courts of Portugal and Spain were at their highest; the Portuguese, therefore, needed to be cautious respecting their new discoveries; they were obliged to conceal them carefully. It will not, therefore, be surprising that no mention was made in their works of the discovery of New Holland.

But, after having shown how much importance the Portuguese must have attached to the concealment of their discoveries, and having examined at what period the discovery of New Holland may have been made, it will be not less interesting to inquire how this discovery may have become known in France, and afterwards in England, so early as 1542. There was nothing at that time to induce the court of Portugal to disclose their discoveries to the court of France; there was nothing to bind these two courts in intimate union; on the contrary, their intercourse had for some time been rather cool. As a proof of this, the king of Portugal had in 1543 married his daughter Mary to Philip the Infant of Spain, without giving notice thereof to Francis I, who thereupon showed his vexation in his conduct towards Francis de Norough, the ambassador of Portugal, who, to avoid a rupture between the two courts, answered with considerable reserve. We cannot, therefore, presume that the court of Portugal would ever have frankly communicated its discoveries to the court of France.

For my part, if it is permitted me to offer a conjecture, I think that this information may have resulted from the faithlessness of Don Miguel de Sylva, bishop of Viseo, and secretary of La Purité, a favourite of the king of Portugal, who, according to De la Clede, left the kingdom about 1542, carrying with him some papers of importance with which the king had intrusted him.[5] This historian adds, that Don John was so indignant at the treachery of his favourite, that he outlawed him by a public decree, deprived him of all his benefices, and degraded him from his nobility. He decreed the same penalties against all his followers, and forbad all his subjects to hold any intercourse whatever with him, under pain of his displeasure. The count of Portalegre, the brother of the fugitive, was even confined as prisoner in the tower of Belem for having written to him, and kept under strict guard, until the Infanta Maria, on the point of her departure to marry Philip II, the son of the emperor Charles V, begged his liberation. The king granted the request, on condition that the count should go to Arzilla to fight against the Moors, and earn by his services the forgiveness of his fault.

The severity which the king Don John exhibited on this occasion, sufficiently shows the value which he attached to the papers which had been taken away. It is evident that they were of the greatest importance. They were secret papers; and may they not have been those which gave information of the discoveries of the Portuguese? Our atlases, therefore, may have been copied from these stolen documents; and it only remains for us to discover what has become of the originals.

Now, although the theories to which these maps have given rise have been so complacently accepted by successive geographical writers, the subject has never yet been minutely investigated by any English writer, nor, indeed, have the foregoing arguments of the French been ever before brought together into a focus. The editor, therefore, first proposes to answer the hypothesis of M. Barbié du Bocage respecting the voyage he adduces of Gomez de Sequeira, and then, finally, to deal with the general question of the suggestive evidence of the maps.

With respect to Gomez de Sequeira’s voyage, it is certainly surprising that M. Barbié du Bocage should have contented himself with referring to Castanheda and Maffei for a slight and loose description of this voyage, when it was equally competent to him to have resorted to the more ample description of Barros, the most distinguished of all the early Portuguese historians, who lived in the middle of the sixteenth century, and who has devoted a whole chapter to the minute description of the voyage in question. (See Dec. 3, liv. x, cap. 5.) So full and ample is Barros’ narrative that, with a modern map before us, we can track Sequeira’s course with a nicety which, so far as the main question is concerned, is not interrupted even by the accidents of the storm and the unshipping of his rudder. Let the reader for a moment consult any modern map of the Moluccas and neighbouring islands, and he will find that the island of Celebes, to which Sequeira directed his course from Ternate, presents the northernmost of the three horns of its oddly-shaped outline at a distance of about sixty leagues from Ternate. This is the distance which Barros states that he had to sail in order to reach that island. Had he sailed to the nearest of the two other points his voyage would have been, instead of sixty leagues, more than twice that distance; whereas the very nearness of the island was a leading inducement for undertaking the voyage, as the object was to relieve the immediate necessities of the settlement at Ternate. Upon landing at the point thus shown to be the northernmost one, the fact of his having carried with him stuffs for barter being discovered by the natives, converted the friendly feeling with which they had at first received him into hostility, as, having heard of some previous acts of greediness on the part of the Portuguese, they immediately concluded that the visit was not made in a spirit of friendship, but from selfish and ulterior motives. Hence Sequeira and his party were compelled to make their escape in haste, and proceeded to four or five other small islands in the neighbourhood, at which they met with a like reception. The map will show these plainly to the north of Celebes. Resolving after these rebuffs to return to Ternate, they encountered a terrific storm, which drove them, to the best of their calculation, three hundred leagues, _into an open sea_, with not a single island in sight, _but constantly towards the east_. At length one night they struck upon an island and unshipped their rudder. They met with a most friendly reception from the natives, who are described as of a light, rather than a dark, colour, and clothed. The island is stated to have been large, and the natives pointed to a mountain to the westward in which they said there was gold. The Portuguese remained in the island four months, until the monsoon enabled them to return to Ternate.

Now, had Sequeira been driven by the storm towards Endeavour Strait, as presumed by M. Barbié du Bocage, a glance at the map will show us that his course would have been south-east instead of east, and that not through an open sea in which no island could be seen, but one bestudded with islands. In fact, so definite is the whole account as given in detail by Barros, that, as we have shown, his course under the driving of the tempest may be palpably traced in accordance therewith on modern maps as due east to the north of the Moluccas, and through an open sea, and is clearly at variance with the inference of M. Barbié du Bocage, who seems not to have consulted Barros at all upon the subject. To what island, the reader will ask, was Sequeira driven? Let the modern map be consulted, and the course described will bring us to the island Tobi, otherwise known as Lord North’s Island. A course so clearly defined is in itself a very strong point in the question, even though we may have to show some discrepancies between the description of the island on which Sequeira was thrown and that which we have in recent times received of Lord North’s Island. Let the reader, however, in connexion with Barros’ description of the course, take the following remarkable statement, as quoted in the 6th volume of the _Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition_, by H. Hale, in which, under the article “Tobi, or Lord North’s Island,” at p. 78, the following account is given, and he will perhaps not dissent from the editor in thinking it possible that this was the island on which Sequeira was driven.

“Tobi, or Lord North’s Island, is situated in about lat. 3° 2´ N., and long. 131° 4´ E. It is a small low islet, about three miles in circumference, with a population of between three and four hundred souls. Our information concerning it is derived from an American, by name Horace Holden, who, with eleven companions, after suffering shipwreck, reached the island in a boat, and was taken captive by the natives. He was detained by them two years, from December 6th, 1832, to November 27th, 1834, when he made his escape and returned to America, where he published in a small volume [which is in the British Museum], an interesting narrative of his adventures and sufferings, with a description of the island and its inhabitants.

“The complexion of the natives, says Holden in his narrative, is _a light copper colour_, much lighter than that of the Malays or Pelew Islanders, which last, however, they resemble in the breadth of their faces, high cheek bones, and broad flattened noses. Here we observe what has been before remarked of the Polynesian tribes, that the lightest complexion is found among those who are nearest the equator.

“According to the native traditions a personage, by name Pita-Ka’t (or Peeter Kart),[6] of copper colour like themselves, ‘_Came, many years ago, from the Island of Ternate, one of the Moluccas, and gave them their religion and such simple arts as they possessed_. It is probably to him that we are to attribute some peculiarities in their mode of worship, such as their temple, with rude images to represent their divinity. The natives wear the Polynesian girdle of barb cloth.

“The houses of the natives are built with small trees and rods, and thatched with leaves. They have two stories, a ground floor and a loft, which is entered by a hole or scuttle through the horizontal partition or upper floor.

“For ornament they sometimes wear in their ears, which are always bored, a folded leaf, and around their necks a necklace made of the shell of the cocoa-nut and a small white sea shell.”

With reference to the cruelties detailed in Holden’s narrative, Mr. Hale goes on to say:

“It should be mentioned that the release of the four Americans who survived (two of whom got free a short time after their capture), was voluntary on the part of the natives, a fact which shows that the feelings of humanity were not altogether extinct in their hearts. Indeed, although the sufferings of the captives were very great, it did not appear that they were worse, relatively to the condition in which the natives themselves lived, than they would have been on any other island of the Pacific. Men who were actually dying of starvation, like the people of Tobi, could not be expected to exercise that kindness towards others which nature refused to them.”

We have quoted this somewhat long passage respecting Lord North’s Island, as having an incidental interest in connexion with M. Barbié du Bocage’s argument; but whatever may really have been the island on which Sequeira was driven, it seems clear that it could not have been in the direction of Endeavour Strait as inferred by that geographer.

Having thus shown the surmises which have been suggested by geographers of good repute with respect to the main question of the discovery of Australia in the early part of the sixteenth century, and explained, as he hopes satisfactorily, the errors into which they have fallen in their attempts at explanation, the editor will now lay before the reader his own reasons for concluding that Australia is the country which these maps describe.

The first question that will naturally arise is—how far does the country thus represented, correspond in latitude, longitude, and outline with the recognized surveys of Australia as delineated in modern maps? And if the discrepancies exposed by the comparison do not forbid the supposition that Australia is the country represented on the early maps, the inquiry will then suggest itself—how, with any satisfactory show of reason, may these discrepancies be accounted for? To both these questions, the editor believes that he can give acceptable answers.

And first as respects latitude. In all of these maps, the latitude of the north of Java, which is the first certain starting point, is correct. The south coast of Java, or “the lytil Java,” though separated from “Java la Grande,” or the “Londe of Java,” by a narrow channel, as shown in the maps here given, has no names which indicate any pretension to a survey. There is enough proximity between the two to suggest alike the possibility of a connection or of a separation of the two countries. In the absence of so many words, the maps show as plainly as possible that it was as yet an unsettled question. With this fact, therefore, before us, implying, as it does, both conscientiousness in the statements on the maps, and the confession of an imperfect survey of the whole of the coasts supposed to be laid down, we have no difficulty in giving credence to the pretension that the great southern land there represented was, with all its errors, a reality and not a fiction. In all fairness, therefore, we pass the question of junction between the little and the great Java, as a point virtually declared to be unsettled, and supposing the latter to be Australia, test our supposition by inquiring as to the correctness of the latitude in which the coast line terminates on the western side. Here again we find exact correctness. In the one (Rotz’s map), the line ceases altogether at 35°, the real south-western point of Australia, and in the other at the same point all description ceases, and a meaningless line is drawn to the margin of the map, implying that no further exploration had been made. On the eastern side, we have in every respect greater inaccuracy; but for the present we deal only with the question of latitude. For the sake of convenience, our reduction of Rotz’s map is made to terminate at the point where the eastern coast line of “the londe of Java terminates,” namely in the sixtieth degree, a parallel far exceeding in its southing even the southernmost point of Tasmania, which is in 43° 35´; but if we look to the Dauphin map, we find that about ten degrees of the southernmost portion of the line is indefinite, and it must not be forgotten that for the Portuguese this was the remotest point for investigation, and consequently the least likely to be definite. There is, however, strong reason for supposing that the eastern side of Tasmania was included within this coast line.

With respect to longitude, it may be advanced that with all the discrepancies observable in the maps here presented, there is no other country but Australia lying between the same parallels, and of the same extent, between the east coast of Africa and the west coast of America, and that Australia does in reality lie between the same meridians as the great mass of the country here laid down. In Rotz’s map we have the longitude reckoned from the Cape Verde islands, the degrees running eastward from 1 to 360. The extreme western point of “the Londe of Java” is in about 126° (102 E. from Greenwich), whereas the westernmost point of Australia is in about 113° E. from Greenwich. The extreme eastern points of “the Londe of Java” is in about 207° (or 183° E. from Greenwich). The extreme eastern point however is on a peak of huge extent, which is a manifest blunder or exaggeration. The longitude of the easternmost side, excluding this peak, is in about 187° (or 163° E. from Greenwich), whereas the easternmost point of Australia is in something less than 154° E. from Greenwich. The difficulty of ascertaining the longitude in those days is well known, and the discoveries which these maps represent were, in all probability, made on a variety of occasions, and had a continuous line given to them on maps, not so much as an exact, but as an approximative guide to subsequent explorers. It were hard indeed, therefore, if sufficient concession were not made to the pioneers of maritime exploration, for the reconciliation of these comparatively light discrepancies, when inaccuracies as striking are observable in surveys made as late as in the eighteenth century.

Thus in taking a general survey of the outline of this immense country, we have this one striking fact presented to us, that the western side is comprised between exactly the same parallels as the corresponding side of Australia, allowance being made for the conjunction of Java, while the eastern side presents the same characteristic as the eastern side of Australia in being by far the longest.