¹ For reference to this article in manuscript form see THE AMERICAS, II, 91. In his series of articles Catholic Missionaries in the Pacific, which commenced in the Catholic Review (2 St. Patrick’s Sq., Auckland, N. Z.) II, 257, the writer deals with the background of geographical knowledge and the various attempts of Franciscans to reach the Terra Australis up till the year 1500.

² Major, Richard Henry, Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia (Hakluyt Society, London, 1859), pp. 1 and 2 Google Scholar. Also Markham, Clements Sir, The Voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros 1595 to 1606 (Hakluyt Society, London, 1904)Google Scholar, II, 517-536. Arias was an advocate at Santiago de Chile.

³ Morga, Antonio de, The Philippine Islands, Moluccas, Siam, Cambodia, Japan and China, at the close of the sixteenth century (trans, by Stanley, Henry E. J., Hakluyt Soc, London, 1868)Google Scholar, pp. 5 & 6. Philip II was the first monarch who could boast that the sun never set upon his dominions. When the sun rose in Madrid it was still early afternoon of the previous day in Manila.

⁴ Born 1436, Ximénez became a Franciscan 1483 (?), Provincial of the Castile Franciscan Province 1494, Archbishop of Toledo 1495, Cardinal 1507, (twice Regent of Spain), died 1517.

⁵ Fr. Marion A. Habig, O.F.M., THE AMERICAS, I, 92-95. Wadding, Lucas, Annales Minorum (3rd. Ed., Quaracchi, 1931–1933), XV, 32, 286–287 Google Scholar; also Engelhardt, Zephyrin, The Missions and Missionaries of California (James H. Barry Company, San Francisco, 1908–1916)Google Scholar I, 9 et seq.

⁶ Habig, op. cit., I, 217; II, 342; also Wadding, op. cit., XVI, 208-214. Quirós (1606) mentions a convent of the Franciscan Order at Acapulco (Markham, op. cit., I, 309); Mendaña (1569) did not delay at this port on his return journey, merely saluting it in passing. Antonio de Herrera, Novus Orbis (Amstelodami, 1622), fol. 14 mentions another convent of the Order at Guadalajara in New Galicia, near the port of Colima. it is interesting to note that the friars had reached the mainland at

⁷ Wadding, op. cit., XVI, 358; cf. Habig, op. cit., II, 74. For expansion of the Franciscan Order in the Americas see Habig, op. cit., I, 88.

⁸ The records of the various voyages of discovery to New Guinea have been exhaustively examined by Dr. Arthur Wichmann, in his valuable work, Entdeckungsges-chichte von Neu Guinea (Leiden, 1909). As far as the writer knows the first expedition westwards from the Americas in which there were Franciscans was that of Mendaña in 1567. In this category we do not include the abortive expedition of Hernando de Grijaiva and Diego Becerra from Tehuantepec (1533) and in which there were three Franciscan friars, nor the voyage of Ulloa from Acapulco (1539), accompanied by three Franciscan friars, Fray Antonio de Meno, Fray Raimundo (perhaps Anyelibus) and Fray Pedro de Ariche. Henry R. Wagner, Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast of America in the Sixteenth Century (California Historical Society, San Francisco, 1929), p. 6; 12; 16; 46-49. The Magellan expedition included four secular clergy: Pedro de Balderrama (Capellán; massacred at banquet on Cebu), Bernardo Calmeta (Capellán), Pero Sánchez de Reina (Clérigo), Licenciado Morales (Clérigo), but the list of those on board the Victoria when she reached Sanlucar de Barrameda makes no mention of any priests amongst the survivors. Cf. Martín Fernández de Navarrete, Colección de los Viajes y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del Siglo XV (Madrid, 1825-1837, 5 vols.), IV, 14, 25, 96. Regarding the Spanish claim to the Spice Islands it is sufficient here to note that according to Magellan the Moluccas lay east of the demarcation line in the eastern hemisphere and therefore belonged to the Crown of Spain. The claim of Spanish experts persisted, and for a century or more was frequently acted upon, that the line of demarcation in the east was somewhat to the west of Malacca.

With the Loaysa expedition there were several priests, one of whom Fray Juan de Areyzaga went up to Mexico, met Cortés, and told him his story of the voyage from Spain. See Navarrete, V, 24, 79. Cf. also Pacheco-Cárdenas, Colección de Documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y colonización (organización) de las (antiguas) posesiones españolas en América y Occeanía) (Oceania) (Madrid, 1864-1884, 42 vols.), V, 5-67, 117 et seq.

⁹ Emma Helen Blair and Alexander Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (The Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland, 1903-1909, 55 vols.), II, 36-43. Herrera, op. cit., gives another reason for the expedition: Primus Novam Guineam asperuit Alvarus de Saavedra cum missus a Marchione de Valle anno 1527 ad quaerendum insulas aromatiferas, errabundus ad haec loca appelleret, reditum in Novam Hispaniam parans. fol. 37. See Dahlgreen, E. W., Were the Hawaiian Islands visited by the Spaniards before their discovery by Captain Cook in 1778? (Stockholm, 1916), pp. 21–43 Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Galvano, Antonio, The Discoveries of the World, ed. by Bethune, Charles R. (Hakluyt Society, London, 1862), Pp. 203–204 Google Scholar. Alvarado did not go beyond Peru. After returning to Mexico he organized another expedition, but was killed there in 1541.

¹¹ Pacheco-Cárdenas, Col. Doc. Ined., V, 205.

¹² Blair and Robertson, op. cit., II, 105; XV, 45. The Augustinians accompanied this expedition in the belief that its destination was New Guinea, but on the fifth day (i. e. 25 November, 1564) after leaving Navidad, Legaspi opened the sealed orders of the Royal Audiencia of Mexico which directed that they were to undertake “the discovery of the Western Islands (Philippines) towards the Malucos”.

¹³ Lord Amherst of Hackney and Basil Thomson, The Discovery of the Solomon Islands by Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568 (Hakluyt Society, London, 1901, 2 vols.). In the preface of his Relación cierta y verdadera de la navegación de las Islas del Poniente en la mar del Sur (Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N. Z.). Gallego mentions how “the spirit of Christian zeal moved the most Catholic of Catholic monarchs, Don Philippe, our Lord, to write to his Governor, the most illustrious Lope Garcia de Castro, to enlighten and convert to Christianity all the infidels and to lead them as labourers into the vineyard of our Lord”, p. 3. In his narrative Mendaña emphasises that the expedition was sent “not to trade but to discover land”, concerning which he had to give an account. “To Discover” in those days meant “to take possession”. There can be no doubt that if a suitable place had been found by the Spaniards they would have formed a settlement and sent back the ships for reinforcements and munitions of war for defence. Of the Mendaña and Quirós expeditions it may be truly said that their interest in the salvation of souls in the Southern Lands was genuine and no mere cloak for conquest.

¹⁴ Francisco de Santa Inés, Cronica de la Provincia de San Gregorio Magno de Religiosos descalzos de N. S. P. San Francisco en las Islas Filipinas, China, Japón, etc., escrita…en 1616. (Manila, 1892, 2 vols.), II, 186-187. As far as the writer’s investigations are concerned the reference in Santa Inés’ Crònica is the only one that identifies the third priest on the 1595 voyage as a Franciscan. Dr. Cristóval Suárez de Figueroa, Hechos de Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza (Madrid, 1613), p. 241, says: “dos sacerdotes, y el uno con titulo de vicario”. James Burney, A Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean (London, 1803-1817, 5 vols.), II, 135, construes the statement of Figueroa thus: “three priests accompanied the expedition, one of them with the title of Vicar”. Marcellino da Civezza O. F. M., Storia Universale delle Missioni Francescane (Roma-Prato-Firenze, 1857-1895), VII, part 2, 217, states “Due sacerdoti del clero secolare”. In Quirós’ narrative of this voyage only the names of the two secular priests are mentioned. Cf. Markham, op. cit., 1, 4 et seq.

¹⁵ “Nuestros vestidos eran de frayliego, por el señor San Francisco, y lo hizo nuestro capitán, y todos sus oficiales”. Don Justo Zaragoza, Editor of Historia de descubrimiento de las regiones Austriales hecho por el General Pedrò Fernández de Quirós (Madrid, 1876-1882, 3 vols.), II, 78.

¹⁶ Dalrymple, Alexander, An Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean (London, 1770–1771, 2 vols.), I, 95 Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Sharp, D. E., Franciscan Philosophy at Oxford in the Thirteenth Century (British Society of Franciscan Studies, London, 1930)Google Scholar. XVI, 4, note. Ptolemy’s main work was devoted to astronomy and is contained in a book that had great influence on Arabic thought and is still known by the name the Arabs gave it—Almagest. His Geographia was first translated into Latin in 1410, and in 1478 a magnificent edition with fine maps was published in Rome.

¹⁸ Bridges, John Henry, Editor of Opus Majus Roger Bacon (London, 1900, 3 vols.)Google Scholar, I, 311. Bacon did not altogether accept the Ptolamaic view that the Indian Ocean was an enclosed sea: “Secundum vero quod praetendunt auctores et maxime Plinius, mare Indicum decurrens per latus Indiae a tropico Capricorni secans aequinoctialem transit per latus meridianum Indiae; deinde immensum spatium terrae absorbens flectit se versus occidens per meridiem donee recipiat fauces maris rubri et ostia ejus, decurrens versus aequinoctialem ultra meridiana Aethiopiae in mare occidentis.”

¹⁹ Ibid., I, 287.

²⁰ Ibid., I, 296. “Primo igitus figuram hujus quartae cum climatibus suis ponam, et signabo civitates famosas in locis suis per distantiam earum ab aequinoctiali, quae vocatur latitudo civitatis vel regionis; et per distantiam ab occidente vel oriente, quae longitudo regionis vocatur. Et in divisionibus climatum atque in latitudinibus et longitudinibus civitatum utar auctoritate et experientia sapientum.…His autem modus melior est et facilior et sufficit considerationi locorum mundi in hujusmodi figuratione sensibili.” It is evident from this and other passages that Bacon prepared a map of the world to illustrate this part of his Opus Majus. It is greatly to be regretted that no trace of this map has yet been discovered.

²¹ Ibid., I, 305. “…Ptolomaeus in Almagesti de plano erravit de situ Britanniae majoris et minoris, sicut manifestum est cuilibet, et sic isti de aliis multis, et caeteri auctores similiter.”

²² Ibid., I, 305, 371. “Propter quod recurram ad eos qui loca hujus mundi pro magna parte peragrati sunt. Et maxime in regionibus aquilonaribus sequar fratrem praedictum (Willielmum de Rubruquis), quern Dominus Rex Franciae Lodovicus misit ad Tártaros anno Domini 1253, qui perlustravit regiones orientis, et aquilonis et loca in medio mundi his annexa, et scripsit haec praedicta illustri regi; quem librum diligenter vidi, et cum ejus auctore contuli; et similiter cum multis aliis qui loca orientis et meridiana remati sunt”. Roger Bacon also quotes another equally famous Friar Traveller: “Et frater Johannes de Plano Carpini similiter in libro quem composuit de Tartaris, inter quos fuit anno Domini 1246, missus a Domino Papa in legationem ad imperatorem Tartarorum.” Colonel Sir Henry Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo (James Murray, London, 1903, 3rd Edit., revised by Henry Cordier, 2 vols.), I, 105, expresses his admiration of the Journal of Friar William of Rubruc thus: it is “a narrative of one great journey, which in its rich detail, its vivid pictures, its acuteness of observation and strong good sense, seems to me to form a book of travels of much higher claims than any one series of Polo’s chapters; a book indeed, which has never had justice done to it, for it has few superiors in the whole library of travel.” Cf. P. Anastasius Van den Wyngaert, O.F.M., Sinica Franciscana (Quaracchi, 1929), I, 270. Cataia est super occeanum; see also William Woodville Rockhill, The Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World (Hakluyt Society, London, 1900), p. 200.

²³ Bridges, op. cit., I, 290. “Dicit Aristoteles: quod mare parvum est inter finem Hispaniae a parte occidentis et inter principium Indiae a parte orientis.”

²⁴ Ibid., I, 290. “Et Seneca libro quinto naturalium dicit quod mare hoc est navigabile in paucissimis diebus, si ventus sit conveniens”.

²⁵ In a letter “De Orbis situ ac Descriptione” from a certain Franciscan, Friar Francis, addressed to the Archbishop of Palermo, the city of “Themistetan” or Mexico is identified with the Quinsai of Marco Polo, Hispaniola with Cipangu and so forth; Yule, Colonel Sir Henry cf., Cathay and the Way Thither (Hakluyt Society, London, 1913––1916 Google Scholar, New Edit, revised by Henry Cordier. 4 vols.), I, 180.

²⁶ Bridges, op. cit., I, 307, “Sed quamvis locus ultra tropicum Capricorni sit optimae habitationis, quia est superior pars in mundo et nobilior per Aristotelem et Averroem primo Coeli et Mundi, tamen non invenimus apud aliquem auctorem terram illam describi, nee homines illorum locorum vocari, nee quod ad nos venerunt, nee nostri ad eos…Et ideo opinio aliquorum est quod ibi sit paradisus, cum sit locus nobilissimus in hoc mundo secundum Aristotelem et Averroem secundo Coeli et Mundi”.

²⁷ Wyngaert, op. cit., I, 381 et seq; Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither (contains Journal of Blessed Odoric with Latin and Italian texts, II, 97-277). In May 1330, Blessed Odoric dictated to another friar at Padua “Paduae in loco Sancti Antonii” (II, 335), his Descriptio orientalium partium, and is given the credit of mentioning the Island of Sumatra for the first time in Europe (II, 149). The Polos (1260-1295)) followed Friars Carpini (1245-1347) and William of Rubruc (1253-1255), then came Friars John of Monte Corvino (1289-1328), Odoric (1314?-1329), and John of Marignolli (1338-1352). For Marignolli’s journeys, cf. Yule, Cathay, III, 209-269; Angelo Bogani, Gli Araldi (Firenze, 1925), pp. 68-72.

²⁸ Wyngaert, op. cit., p. Ixxxviii. “Of the Franciscans in Italy alone it is said that 30,000 died of this sickness”, i. e. the Black Death. Cf. Francis Aiden Gasquet, D.D., The Black Death of 1348-1349. (George Bell and Sons, London, 1908, 2nd Ed.), pp. 51-52.

²⁹ The first Franciscan actually to set foot on Australian soil was Père Louis Receveur, O.F.M., who accompanied the French scientific expedition led by La Perouse. This Expedition reached Botany Bay on 24th January 1788, a week after the “First Fleet”, under Captain Arthur Phillip, arrived from England. As a result of wounds received Father Receveur died at Botany Bay on 17th February, 1788, and was buried on the shore nearby. Obviously Engelhardt in The Missions and Missionaries of California (II, 676), was mistaken in stating that La Perouse “sailed from France without a ship chaplain”.

³⁰ Gama’s fleet had two Chaplains—Pedro de Covilhã, Prior of the Trinitarian Monastery at Lisbon (died at Callicut, July 7, 1498) and João Figueiró, who wrote a valuable diary of the voyage. Cf. E. G. Ravenstein, A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1497-1499 (Hakluyt Society, London, 1898), p. 177. The missionary activities of the Portuguese friars in India during this period was most impressive. Eight friars accompanied the expedition of Pedralvares Cabral in 1500 and thereafter almost every fleet brought friar-missionaries to consolidate and extend the work in India and the Portuguese possessions beyond. Eventually two Provinces of the Order were formed: that of St. Thomas, which numbered more than 400 Franciscans in 1635, and’that of the Mother of God which had foundations in India, Burma, Malacca and Macao (China). It is estimated that there were still 274 friars labouring in this Province about the year 1700. Walter de Gray Birch, The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India (Hakluyt Society, London, 4 vols., 1875, 1877, 1880, 1884), cf. Introduction, p. xix et seq. Samuel Purchas, His Pilgrimes (London, 1625-1626, in 5 books), II, p. 31. See Fr. Achilles Meersman, O.F.M., The Friars Minor or Franciscans in India (Rotti Press, Karachi, 1943). P. 10 et seq.

³¹ Galvano, op. cit., p. 77. Stanley, Henry E. J., The First Voyage round the World by Magellan (Hakluyt Society, London, 1874), pp. 64–65 Google Scholar. Pigafetta introduces us to the Pacific thus: “Wednesday, the 28th November, 1520, we came forth out of the said strait and entered into the Pacific Sea…This was well named Pacific, for during this time we met with no storm and saw no land except two small uninhabited islands in which we found only birds and trees”. It is of interest to note that the word “Papua” is mentioned for the first time in Pigafetta’s report of the voyage: “Il re de questi gentilli deto raya papua e richissimo de oro et habita dent⁰ ne laysola”. Cf. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., XXXIII, 262-263.

³² Cf. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Introduction to vol. I; John Fiske, The Discovery of America (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1892), p. 453 et seq. Demarcation Line established May 4, 1493, and readjusted by the Treaty of Tordesillas, June 7, 1494, by which Spain consented to the moving of the Papal meridian to a distance of 370 leagues west of Cape Verd Islands, that is, about 42 or 43 degrees west of Greenwich. This amendment had important and curious consequences. It presently gave the Brazilian coast to the Portuguese. If there were conflicts over the boundary in the Atlantic, there were bound to be more when Spaniards and Portuguese met on the other side of the world. The antipode of 43 degrees west of Greenwich is 137 degrees east—so that the Philippines and the Moluccas would belong to the Portuguese. But, owing to a miscalculation, Magellan thought they were within the Spanish zones. Whether those who came after him thought the same or not, they, nevertheless, laid claim to some of the Spice Islands, and conflict arose between the two countries over the rival claims. For translations, of the various Papal Bulls and Treaty discussions on question of Demarcation Line, cf. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., I, 89 et seq.

³³ Stevens, Henry N. and Barwick, George F., New Light on the Discovery of Australia as revealed by the Journal of Captain Don Diego de Prado y Tovar (Henry Stevens, Son and Stiles, London, 1930) pp. 159–165 Google Scholar. The honour of being the first to discover Australia is still a debated question. The Dutch claim it for William Jansz who in the “Duyfken” coasted the Cape York Peninsula (Gulf of Carpentaria) about March 1606. This would have been six months before Torres, who cleared the Strait bearing his name, in October of the same year. See Mutch, T. D., The First Discovery of Australia (Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Sydney, 1942), XXVIII, 327 Google Scholar. In Vol. II, p. 157, of his Historia da Expansão Portuguesa no Mundo (Lisbon, 1937) Armando Cortesão puts forward the claims of the Portuguese, Commander, Cristavão de Mendonça, as having discovered the west coast of Australia in 1522. In a letter to the writer (July 1947), Senhor Cortesão says: “I am quite convinced that the Portuguese really did reach Australia in 1522, and after I published my essay on the matter, I found some more evidence.”

³⁴ Winsor, Justin, Narrative and Critical History of America (London, 1889)Google Scholar, II, (1886) with facsimile of map at p. 116; Friar John shows the west coast of South America in broad outline by means of straight lines with the words Terra Incognita, which, nevertheless, represent uncertainty of knowledge. Obviously, he did not depend on Ptolemy for this happy conjecture of the western coast of South America. Cf. Fiske, op. cit., II, 178-179; Wadding, op. cit., XV, 221; XVI, 116. In his Suma Oriental written at Malacca and India between 1512-1515, Tomé Pires cites the cosmography of a certain Frade Anselmo. This is the same Friar Anselm, a Franciscan, who visited the Holy Land in 1507-1508, and in 1509 published a pamphlet—Descriptio Terrae Sanctae. Cortesão says that the geographical notes from this pamphlet were included in Friar John of Stobnicza’s Introductio in Ptolomaei cosmographiam. Cf. The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires, transl, and edited by Armando Cortesão (Hakluyt Society, London, 1944, 2 vols.), I, 5.

³⁵ Lelewel, Joachim, Atlas “Géographie du Moyen Age” (Bruxelles, 1850)Google Scholar, LXXII, 127; cf. A. E. Nordenskiold,Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of Cartography (Stockholm, 1889), p. 98, in which the title and the first page of a letter De Orbis situ ac descriptione, are reproduced. Commenting on Ptolemy, Friar Franciscus writes: “In qua (epistola) Ptolomae caeterorumq; superiorum geographorum hallucinatio refellitur?

³⁶ Nordenskiold, op. cit., Plate XLI.

³⁷ As far as the writer knows this is the first map on which the words “Terra Australis” appear.

³⁸ Ortelius, Abraham, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Antwerp, 1571)Google Scholar. Wagner, Henry R. Cf., Sir Francis Drake’s Voyage Around the World (San Francisco, 1926)Google Scholar for the 1570 map (first edition) of Ortelius, p. 39. For progressive state of geographical knowledge before the Mendaña-Quirós voyages, see Wagner, Spanish Voyages, pp. 321-329; also Wroth, Lawrence C., The Early Carthography of the Pacific [Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America], (New York, 1944), vol. 38, no. 2 Google Scholar.

³⁹ Stevens, and Barwick, , op. cit., pp. 159–167 Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Collingridge, George de Tourcey, The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea (William Brooks and Co., Sydney, 1906), p. 72 Google Scholar, says that the first map on which the Solomon Islands appear was by Mazza, 1583-1589.