might result thereby." Besides, Spaniards as well as natives cannot be depended upon to keep the peace. By leaving New Spain before the beginning of October, 1562, much expense and the idleness of the ships will be avoided. In case land be discovered within Spain's demarcation, Urdaneta requests the king to provide for its colonization by supplying a captain and some of the people and religious—or even that the general himself remain there, "if the natives thereof beg that some Spaniards remain among them." He asks the king to ascertain the truth of the report that the French have discovered a westward route "between the land of the Bacallaos and the land north of it."[1] If it be true then trade might be carried on more economically from Spain direct to the west than by way of New Spain, and the fleets will be better provided with men and equipments. (Tomo ii, no. xvii, pp. 119–138).
Mexico, May 26, 1563. Legazpi writes to the king that "the viceroy of this New Spain, without any merit on my part, has thought best to appoint me for the voyage to the Western Islands, to serve your majesty, putting under my charge the fleet prepared for it—not because this land has few men who would do it better than I, and by whom your majesty would be
- ↑ Although this allusion cannot well be identified, it indicates some episode of the great eagerness and readiness for western discovery then prevalent in France. Cartier's explorations (1534–36, and 1540–43), and later those of Jean Allefonsce, had already been published to the world; and maps of the eastern coast of North America showed, as early as 1544, the great St. Lawrence River, which afforded an easy entrance to the interior, and might readily be supposed to form a waterway for passage to the "Western Sea"—especially as New France was then generally imagined to be a part of Asia; Japan and China being not very far west of the newly-discovered coast.
