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British Travel Accounts on Argentina Before 1810

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Extract

British curiosity about Spanish possessions in the New World was manifested as early as 1516, when a certain Thomas Pert, in the company of Sebastian Cabot, is said to have penetrated the South American seas, and to have made a half-hearted attempt at a landing at the island of Hispaniola.

There were instances of English sailors in the service of Spain who accompanied some of the very earliest South American expeditions. One is said to have been with Pizarro, and three—John Rutter of London, Nicholas Coleman of Hampton, and Richard Limon of Plymouth—were members of Pedro Mendoza's crew in 1534, when he sailed to the mouth of the Río de la Plata.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1960

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References

1 Koebel, W. H., British Exploits in South America (New York, 1917), p. 47.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 103.

3 Haring, Clarence H., Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies (Cambridge, 1918), p. 96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Taylor, E. G. R., Introduction to Roger Barlow, A Brief Summe of Geographie, The Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No. 69 (London, 1932), p. vii.Google Scholar

5 Parish, Woodbine, Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata (London, 1852), p. 4.Google Scholar

6 Ibid.

7 Taylor, , op. cit., p. xxxix.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. xi.

9 Ibid., p. xxxi. According to Harrisse, Henry, John Cabot the Discoverer of ‘North America, and Sebastian Cabot his Son. A Chapter in the Maritime History of England under the Tudors, 1496-1557 (London, 1896), p. 201 Google Scholar, Ramirez's letter has been published in the original Spanish by Adolfo de Varnhagen, in the Revista de Instituto Geográfico do Brasil Trimesal, Rio de Janeiro, XC (1852) pp. 14-41. In 1843, this letter was translated into French and appeared in Ternaux-Compans, Nouvelles Annueles des Voyages, III (1943). This French translation, undoubtedly, led Taylor to assume that Ramirez was a Frenchman.

10 Parish, , op. cit., p. 7.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., pp. 9-10.

12 Koebel, , op. cit., p. 422.Google Scholar

13 Koebel, , Romance of the River Plate (London, 1914), I, 233.Google Scholar

14 Temple, Richard Carnac, Introduction to Francis Drake, The World Encompassed (London, 1926), p. xxiv.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 13.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., p. 15.

18 Ibid., p. 22.

19 Roy, Robert Fitz, Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships “Adventure” and “Beagle” (London, 1839), II, 133134.Google Scholar

20 Drake, , op. cit., p. 22.Google Scholar Cf. de Malkiel, María Rosa Lida, “Para la toponimia argentina; Patagonia,” Hispanic Review, XX (1952), 321323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Narbrough, John, An Account of Several Late Voyages and Discoveries (London, 1711), p. 10.Google Scholar

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., p. 45.

24 Ibid., p. 50.

25 Ibid., p. 51. The Bezoar stone was believed, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to possess miraculous curative powers. This stone was a concretion found in the stomach and intestines of ruminants and some other animals, of which the guanaco was supposed to be one.

26 Ibid., pp. 58-59.

27 Walter, Richard, Anson's Voyage Round the World (London, 1928), pp. 6061.Google Scholar

28 Bulkeley, John and Cummins, John, A Voyage to the South Seas in His Majesty's Ship the “Wager” in the Years 1740-1741 (New York, 1927), p. 110.Google Scholar

29 Hawkesworth, John, An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty, for Making Discoveries, in the Southern Hemisphere (Dublin, 1775), p. 23.Google Scholar John Hawkesworth was entrusted with the task of organizing into systematic form, the records of the logs of the four voyages around the world that had been sent out by the Crown of Great Britain for the purpose of “making discoveries hitherto unknown.” These voyages, which form the subject matter of the above-cited work, were those performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook. As is stated on the title page, the account was drawn up from the journals which were kept by these commanders.

30 Ibid., p. 124

31 Ibid., p. 414.

32 A. E. S. Neumann, in a note in Thomas Falkner's A Description of Patagonia and the Adjoining Parts of South America (Facsimile edition of original published in Hereford, 1774. Chicago, 1935), p. iv.

33 Ibid. Quoted by Neumann.

34 At the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, Philip V of Spain granted to Queen Anne of England, the coveted Asiento, or the contract for supplying the Spanish colonies in America with negro slaves, a privilege formerly enjoyed by France. The agreement stipulated that English merchants would have the right to sell to Spanish America 4,800 negroes annually for thirty years. In addition, the British were allowed to send annually to the fair at Porto Bello one 500-ton shipload of English goods. The South Sea Company was organized to carry out the terms of the Asiento agreement. Cf. Diffie, Bailey W., Latin American Civilization (Harrisburg, Pa., 1947), p. 408.Google Scholar

35 Neumann, , op. cit., pp. vvi.Google Scholar

36 Falkner, , op. cit., p. 26.Google Scholar

37 Davie, John Constanse, Letters from Paraguay (London, 1805), p. v.Google Scholar

38 Ibid., pp. 120-121.

39 The Trial at Large of Lieut. Gen. Whitelocke (London, 1808), p. 5.

40 White, John W., Argentina: The Life Story of a Nation (New York, 1942), p. 58.Google Scholar

41 Kaufmann, William W., British Policy and the Independence of Latin America, 1804-1828 (New Haven, 1951), p. 7.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., p. 9.

43 Thorning, Joseph F., Miranda: World Citizen (Gainesville, Fla., 1952), p. 153.Google Scholar

44 Kirkpatrick, E. A., A History of the Argentine Republic (Cambridge, 1931), pp. 4748.Google Scholar

45 Kaufmann, , op. cit., p. 12.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., p. 15.

47 Ibid., p. 23.

48 Kirkpatrick, , op. cit., p. 48.Google Scholar

49 Levene, Ricardo, A History of Argentina, trans, and ed. Robertson, William Spence (Chapel Hill, 1937), p. 194.Google Scholar

50 Ibid.

51 Kirkpatrick, , op. cit., p. 27.Google Scholar

52 An Authentic Narrative of the Proceedings of the Expedition under the Command of Brigadier-Gen. Craufurd, until its Arrival at Monte Video (London, 1808), p. 3.

53 Levene, , op. cit., p. 198.Google Scholar

54 Kaufmann, , op. cit., p. 3.Google Scholar

55 Kirkpatrick, , op. cit., p. 54.Google Scholar

56 The Trial at Large of Lieut. Gen. Whitelocke, Letter From Whitelocke to Windham, Appendix, pp. 14-15.

57 Kirkpatrick, , op. cit., p. 57.Google Scholar

58 The Trial at Large of Lieut. Gen. Whitelocke, Appendix, pp. 15-17.

59 Ibid., “General Whitelocke's Sentence,” p. 2.

60 “Journal of a Soldier of the Seventy-first Regiment, (Highland Light Infantry), from 1806-1815,” Constable Miscellany XXVII (Edinburgh, 1831), p. 4.

61 The Argentines Groussac and Mitre both used this work for their studies of the English invasions of Buenos Aires.