Henry E.J. Stanley - The Philippine Islands, Moluccas, Siam, Cambodia, Japan, and China, at the Close of the Sixteenth Century, by Antonio De Morga

T HE original work of De Morga was printed in Mexico in 1609, and has become extremely rare; there is no copy of it in the Bibliothque Impriale of Paris. This translation is from a transcription made for the Hakluyt Society from the copy in the Gren-ville Library of the British Museum; the catalogue of which states that this book, printed at Mexico, is for that reason probably unknown to bibliographers, though a book of great rarity. However, it is mentioned in the Bibliotheca Scriptorum Hispanice, Matriti, 1783, which says, Antonius de Morga, juris doctor, in Philipinas, extremae Asiae nsulas non dudum inventas & armis occupatas, perductus ut gubernatoris vices gereret anno 1598, institutae ibidem Regiae curiae senator sive triumvir fuit cooptatus, quo muere functus dicitur non sine laude alacris cujusdam prudenti, virtutisque etiam bellicis expeditionibus compert. Jam vero ad prrerium urbis Mexicanae inter quatuor viros rerum criminalism vindices fuerat translatus quando edidit: Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. Mexici 1609 in 4 ex officina Hieronymi Balli. It is also quoted in some histories of the Philippines, and in the Dialogo Cortesano Philipino of P. Fr. Joseph Torrubia, of which there were two editions, Madrid, 1736, 4to., and Madrid, 1753, 8vo. In this book the inhabitant of the court of Madrid says that he has not heard of such a book nor of the author: the Philippine Spaniard answers him that the hook was printed in Mexico in 1609 and is now scarcely to be found, but that he possessed a copy; and he describes de Morga as a man in whom arms and science were united in a most friendly manner, and says that he composed his book from original documents since he was the first auditor of the Audiencia of Manila. From a printed document in the British Museum, , it appears that Dr. Antonio de Morga was President of the Royal Audiencia of Quito in April of 1616, seven years after he published this work in Mexico. This document, dated April 14, 1616, a legalised copy of which was made by the notary public Juan de Zamudio on the 21st March, 1617, refers to the opening of a road between Quito and Caracas; and by it the offer of P. fray Diego de Velasco and his companions to open the road is accepted, and conditions are laid down, amongst which it said that the unsettled Indians and Mulatos are to be paid for their labour and treated with gentleness.

This work of De Morga's was announced in the reports of the Hakluyt Society as in progress as long ago as 1851, but the translation of it has been deferred till the present year. Dr. De Morga is less remarkable for his literary merits than for his qualities as a jurist, and administrator, and a commander. His book is rather an historical than a geographical work; but the account of Alvaro de Mendaila's second voyage, by his pilot Fernandez de Quiros, given by De Morga, brings it entirely within the scope of the Hak-luyt Society's publications. The account contained in De Morga's work has not hitherto been published in French or English, though M. E. Charton refers to it in his fourth volume of Voyages (Paris 1855), where he gives another account of this voyage to the islands of Sta, Cruz, compiled from two French translations of a narrative of Alvaro de Mendana's second voyage. These French translations wereI, that of President De Brosses, in his Histoire des Navigations aux terres Australes, Paris, 1756; il, that of Pingr, in his Mmoire sur le choix et l'tat des lieux o le passage de Venus du 3 Juin 1769 pourra tre observ, etc., Paris, 1767. It appears from M. Charton's notes, that the text translated by De Brosses was not so complete as that which Pingr had in his hands, and he has completed De Brosses' translation by that of Pingr.

Pingr says, in a note at page 30 of his Mmoire, The author of the Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes, copied by the Dutch editors of the large French collection of Voyages, in giving the account of this expedition, had under his eyes a printed copy of the sixth book of Figueroa; but that copy was terribly mutilated; two sheets (cahiers) were wanting,the first of all, and another: so that there could not be any title-page. Nevertheless, the author says that the copy was entitled,