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discovered, for the greater perspicuity of the account intended to be transmitted to his Majesty of the discoveries and transactions on this voyage. The ships were further supplied with a suitable number of soldiers and seamen, and well provided with all necessaries for a year. This expedition was therefore, in every respect, a notable one for the age. Its object the King of Spain himself informs us, was to find a port where the ships coming from the Philipine islands to Acapulco, a trade which had then been established some thirty years, might put in and provide themselves with water, wood, masts and other things of absolute necessity. The galleons from Manila had all this time been running down this coast before the northwest wind, and were even accustomed, as some say, to make the land as far to the north as cape Mendocino which Cabrillo had named. Sebastian Vizcayno with his fleet struggled up with immense difficulty against the same north-west wind. On the 10th of November 1602 he entered San Diego and found on its north-west side a forest of oaks and other trees, of considerable extent, of which I do not know that there are any traces now or even a tradition. In lower California he landed frequently and made an accurate survey of the coast, and to one bay gave the capricious appellation of the Bay of eleven thousand Virgins. Above San Diego he kept further from the shore, noting the most conspicuous land marks. But he came through the canal of Santa Barbara, which I suppose he so named, and when at anchor under one of the islands, was visited by the King of that country who came with a fleet of boats and earnestly pressed him to land, offering as proof of his hospitable intentions to furnish every one of his seamen with ten wives. Finally he anchored in the bay of Monterey on the 16th of December 1602-this was more than four years before the English landed at Jamestown. The name of Monterey was given to this port in honor of the Viceroy. On the 17th day of December 1602, a church-tent or arbor-was erected under a large oak close to the seaside, and Fathers Andrew de la Assumpcion and Antonio de la Ascension said Mass, and so continued to do whilst the expedition remained there. Yet this was not the first Christian worship on these shores, for

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Drake had worshipped according to a Protestant ritual at the place where he landed 25 years before. The port of Monterey as it appeared to those weary voyagers, and they were in a miserable plight from the affliction of scurvy, seems to have been very pleasing. It is described in the narrative of Father Andrew, as an excellent harbor, and secure against all winds. "Near the shore are an infinite number of very large pines, straight and smooth, fit for masts and yards, likewise oaks of a prodigious size for building ships. Here likewise are rose "trees, white thorns, firs, willows, and poplars; large clear "lakes, fine pastures and arable lands," &c. &c. A traveler of this day, perhaps might not color the picture so highly. Vizcayno sent back one of his ships with the news, and with the sick, and with the other left Monterey on the 3d of January 1603, and it was never visited more for a hundred and sixtysix years. On the 12th having a fair wind we are told that he passed the port of San Francisco, and that losing sight of his other vessel he returned to the port of San Francisco to wait for her. Father Andrew de la Assumpcion (as reported in Father Venegas) on this interesting point uses the following language: "Another reason which induced the Capitania (flag ship) to put into puerto Francisco was to take a survey "of it and see if anything was to be found of the San Augustin "which in the year 1595, had by order of his Majesty and the

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Viceroy, been sent from the Philippines to survey the coast "of California under the direction of Sebastian Rodriguez "Cermenon a pilot of known abilities; but was driven ashore "in this harbor by the violence of the wind. And among "others on board the San Augustin, was the pilot Francisco "Volanos, who was also chief pilot of this squadron. He was acquainted with the country and affirmed that they had left "ashore a great quantity of wax and several chests of silk; "and the General was desirous of putting in here to see if "there remained any vestiges of the ship and cargo. The Capitainia came to anchor behind a point of land called La "Punta de los Reyes."

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Did Vizcayno enter the Bay of San Francisco? I think it plain that he did not. Yet exceedingly curious and interest

ing is it to reflect that he was but a little way outside the heads, and that the indentation of the coast which opens into the bay of San Francisco was known to him from the report of the pilots of the ships from the Philippines, and by the same name. In the narratives of the explorers the reader is often puzzled by finding that objects upon the shore are spoken of as already known, as for example in this voyage of Vizcayno the highlands a little south of Monterey are mentioned by the name of the Sierra de Santa Lucia, so named at some previous time: the explanation follows in the same sentence where they are said to be a usual land-mark for the China ships-ie: undoubtedly the galleons from the Philippines. Vizcayno could reach no farther north than cape Mendocino, in which neighborhood he found himself with only six men able to keep the deck; his other vessel penetrated as far as the 43d degree; and then both returned to Acapulco. In those days there was a fabulous story very prevalent of a channel somewhere to the north of us which connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and it seems that some foreigner, had actually presented to the King of Spain a history of a voyage he had made directly across from New Foundland to the Pacific ocean by the staits of Anian. The King is said to have had an eye to the discovery of this desirable canal at the same time that he was making provision for his trade from the Western Islands.

In 1697, the Jesuits with patient art and devoted zeal, accomplished that which had defied the energy of Cortez and baffled the efforts of the Spanish monarchy for generations afterwards. They possessed themselves of Lower California, and occupied the greater portion of that peninsula, repulsive as it was, with their missions. In 1742, Anson, the English Commodore, cruising off the Western Coast of Mexico, watched for the Spanish galleon which still plied an annual trip between Acapulco and Manila. This galleon was half man-of-war, half merchantman, was armed, manned and officered by the King, but sailed on account of various houses of the Jesuits in the Philippines, who owned her tonnage in shares of a certain number of bales each, and enjoyed the monopoly of this trade by royal grant. She exchanged dollars from the Mexican

mines for the productions of the east, and we read that at that day the manufacturers of Valencia and Cadiz in Spain, clamored for protection against the silks and cotton cloths of India and China thus imported-by this sluggish craft which crept lazily through the tropics, relied upon rain to replenish the water jars on deck, and was commonly weakened by scurvy and required about six months for the return voyage—into Acapulco, thence transported on mules to Vera Cruz, and thence again after another tedious voyage to Europe. Anson watched in vain; the prudent galleon thought it best to remain under the shelter of the guns of Acapulco, in the presence of so dangerous a neighbor. He sailed away to the west, stopped and refreshed his crew at a romantic island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, went over to Macao and there refitted, and then captured the galleon at last, with a million and a half of dollars on board, as she was going into Manila, after a desperate combat with his ship, the Centurion. He then returned to China, extinguished a great fire in Canton with his crew, sold the galleon in Macao, and got back safe to England with his treasure. His chaplain, Mr. Richard Walter, the author of the admirable narrative of this celebrated voyage, goes on after relating the capture, to say: "I shall only add, that "there were taken on board the galleon, several draughts and journals. * Among the rest there was found a chart " of all the Ocean, between the Philippines and the Coast of Mexico, which was that made use of by the galleon in her own "navigation. A copy of this draught, corrected in some places by our own observations, is here annexed, together "with the route of the galleon traced thereon from her own journals, and likewise the route of the Centurion from A ca"pulco through the same Ocean.”

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Here we may look for information. We have at least one log-book and chart of the old Manila galleons. What if we

could have access to the books of account of those venerable old traders in their monasteries at Manila! Examining this chart we find that the coast of California from a little further north than Punta de los Reyes, is laid down with remarkable accuracy. We have a great indentation of the Coast immed

iately below Punta de los Reyes, a large land-locked bay with a narrow entrance, immediately off which lie seven little black spots called Los Farallones-in short, a Bay at San Francisco, but without a name. The Farallones, I think were named by Cabrillo in 1542, two hundred years before Anson's time. Was this our Port of San Francisco as we know it, or that which Vizcayno entered when he anchored on the 12th of Jan., 1603, under a point of land called La Punta de los Reyes? Lower down we have Point Año Nuevo and Point Pinos, and a bay between, but not the name of Monterey, then a great many islands, then Point Conception, then San Pedro and then the Port of San Diego, and Lower California to Cape San Lucas. The outward track of the galleon lies between 12 and 15 degrees North, and on her return she goes up as high as about 35 degrees, and there being off Point Conception, but a long way out to sea, she turns to the south and runs down the Coast to Cape San Lucas, where the Jesuit Fathers kept signal fires burning on the mountains to guide her into Port, and expected her return with the fruits and fresh provisions which the exhausted mariners so much needed. Such was the strange precursor of the steamship and clipper on the waters of the Pacific, and the first great carrier of the commerce between its opposite shores! You will observe how nature brings this commerce to our doors. The outward run of the galleon so near the Equator was to take the Eastern trade winds, which wafted her without the necessity of changing a sail directly to the Philippines;-China and the Indies—and her returning course was to avoid these trade winds and to catch the breezes which to the North blow from the West. And this great circle of the winds touches our shores at the Bay of San Francisco. This Chart was drawn for the use of the Spanish Generals, (for such was the title and rank of the commanders of the Spanish galleons) and "con"tained all the discoveries which the Manila ships have at any time made in traversing this vast Ocean."

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It was these discoveries that gave names to so many points upon our Coast undoubtedly, and prompted so many explorers, after Cabrillo, and both before and after Vizcayno. Knowing

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