In all ‘the tragical history of the Sea’ there can scarcely be a more moving and terrible story than that of Mendaña's second, and last, voyage, unless it be Sarmiento's lingering disaster in the Straits. Mendaña's story is recorded by a poet, Luis de Belmonte Bermudez, the secretary to the Chief Pilot, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, or, to give him his Portuguese name, Queiroz. The substance of the account is definitely from Quiros; the words are often those of the poet; it is an astonishingly vivid narrative, with much use of direct speech, which has been an inspiration to poets in our own day. The story, with its sequel in Quiros's own voyage ten years later, is one of almost unrelieved tragedy, and tragedy in the true and highest sense, that of the collapse of an ideal which its holders believed to be divinely inspired, in the hands of the pitiable human instruments.[43]
Mendaña's aim was to found a God-fearing colony whence the light of the Gospel should spread. His instruments were four ships and 378 men and women, who included six religious; and also his wife Doña Isabel Barreto and her three brothers. On these, and on the Camp-Master Manrique, a quarrelsome old soldier, the divine light did not shine. The only leading figure, apart from the friars, who fully shared Mendaña's enthusiasm (the word is used in its older theological sense) was probably Quiros, though some humbler men and women had at least the gift of charity. There were others, such as the soldier rebuked by Quiros for wantonly shooting and slaying an islander with a child in his arms, who replied that he was very sorry the Devil had to take those destined for him, but then he had a reputation to maintain as a good shot.
From the start, the expedition was confused and disorderly. The moment he came aboard Manrique interfered in seamen's matters and quarrelled with Doña Isabel and Quiros. The two galleons and two smaller ships left Callao on 9 April 1595, and went north to Paita, provisioning, or rather requisitioning, at small ports en route: at one the almiranta was exchanged, by mixed force and fraud, for what they thought would be a better ship. At Paita there were more quarrels with Manrique, and only Mendaña's urgent pleadings persuaded Quiros to continue on board. After they sailed from Paita on 16 June, things improved for a while; winds and weather were favourable, and the ships made good progress southwestwards, and then in a generally westerly direction. Spirits were high,- 128 -and there were fifteen marriages in the first month at sea. But if Mendaña's weakness as a leader was displayed at Paita, his limitations as a navigator were no less clearly shown at their first landfall.
He had instructed Quiros to prepare a chart showing only the Peruvian coast and two points in 7 and 12°S, 1500 leagues from Lima: these showed where the Isles of Solomon would be found; all else was omitted lest one of the captains should be tempted to go discovering on his own account. The course was easy: once in 7–12°S, all that was needed was latitude sailing westwards, with both winds and currents helping them on. Yet after 1000 leagues Mendaña was sure that the first islands he came to, on 21 July, were the Solomons: they were in the right latitude, but in reality nearly 50° of longitude distant from San Cristobal. It was soon obvious, however, that their fair-skinned smooth-haired people could not be the fuzzy blacks of the Solomons, and Mendaña gave his discovery the name, still in part retained, of Las Marquesas de Mendoza, for Cañete's family name.
Four hundred of their people came out in canoes, people ‘almost white, and of very graceful shape’, one youth so clear and fresh and beautiful that Quiros ‘never in my life felt such pain as when I thought that so fair a creature [the word was more literal then] should be left to go to perdition’.[44] For a time there was merrymaking in a spirit of mutual curiosity, until the freedom with which the islanders helped themselves to odd gear about the ships became annoying. A gun was fired, which scared most of them off; but one man who would not leave the flagship San Geronimo was wounded in the arm with a sword, and his fellows brandished spears, threw stones, and tried to tow the ship ashore. Then the shooting began. It was repeated, with less provocation, on other islands; there were intermittent friendly passages, but when the Spaniards left, only two weeks later, Quiros estimated that 200 Marquesans had been killed, for the most part in mere wantonness. And this was the first substantial contact between Europeans and Polynesians.
Mendaña accepted that these were not the islands which he sought, but three or four days after leaving the Marquesas (that is on 8 or 9 August) he announced that they would find the land they were seeking before nightfall on that very day. Supplies were running out, but at this news people ate and drank more freely; and then they saw no land for days, until 20 August, 400 leagues from the Marquesas: and then the land was only an atoll, which they called ‘San Bernardo’. Nine days later they came upon another island, ‘La Solitaria’, but the surrounding sea was studded with reefs, too dangerous to attempt a landing. The authorities, in unwonted agreement, identify these as Pukapuka (Danger Island; not to be confused with Magellan's ‘San Pablo’ in the Tuamotus) and Niulakita, in the Cooks and Ellices respectively. With these meagre sightings, murmuring grew among the soldiers, abetted by some of the pilots, jealous of Quiros: they had sailed over the hypothetical islands, erased from the chart he had produced at Mendaña's behest, and they could sail on forever, or at least to- 129 -Great Tartary. For the sake of his promised Marquisate, Mendaña was prepared to send them fishing for his boasted pearls, on the bottom of the sea … But the end of the outward voyage was at hand, though it was not the sought-for end. Thirty days after Mendaña had announced land for that very day, they saw ahead a great bank of dark smoke: a less auspicious but more appropriate omen than the bright star of his first voyage.
The morning, 8 September, showed them clearly a large and beautiful island, which they had seen when the rain lifted the night before: this was Ndeni, which Mendaña called Santa Cruz.[45] To the northwest was the source of the smoke-bank, the volcano of Tinakula rising steeply from the sea like a sugar-loaf, and in active eruption. But they could not see the almiranta, and a search by the smaller ships found no traces of her. This mystery of the sea was not cleared up until 1970–1, when excavations at Pamua, on the north coast of San Cristobal, turned up Spanish colonial pottery in quantities indicating a longer stay, by more people, than could be accounted for by Gallego's exploration in the bergantin in 1568, which did not camp on the coast: there can be no reasonable doubt that this represents settlement by the company of the Santa Isabel. Despite the fact that Mendaña had recently refused an appeal by her captain for more water, the parting was probably not deliberate: the almirante's wife was left behind on the flagship, San Cristobal could have been recognised from Gallego's description, and whether or not the ship, which was in poor condition, was wrecked, it would have made good sense for it to wait for the rest of the fleet at its presumed destination.[46]
At Santa Cruz, Mendaña again professed to recognize the island: the people were of the right colour, though their language differed from those of Santa Ysabel and Guadalcanal. The first reception was hostile, arrows being shot (harmlessly) from canoes; the arquebusiers soon drove off this feeble attack, with loss. After several tentative anchorings, the expedition finally came to rest at the head of a deep bay on the northwest coast of Santa Cruz, where the people were friendly, especially their chief Malope, who exchanged names with Mendaña. Here the settlement was commenced, at a point which can be precisely located from Quiros's relation, confirmed by pottery finds: Graciosa Bay still retains its singularly ill-fitting name.
The sickening cycle of friendly welcome, misunderstandings, sullen retreats, occasional reconciliations, robberies and killings began all over again, and was compounded by violent dissension within the thoroughly demoralised company. Mendaña stayed aboard ship—the Governor's house was not ready—and although the soldiers worked willingly at first, ‘The Devil was able to work so well with some of them, that they kept in mind the delights of Lima’. Quiros was convinced that when matters had been put on a friendly footing with the inhabitants, some soldiers deliberately murdered villagers in order to provoke hostilities and so force the abandonment of the colony. Seditious petitions were signed, shots were fired over the ships—‘I know not at what birds they were- 130 -aiming’. When Mendaña at last took action, it was, in Jack-Hinton's words, ‘as little more than the vassal of Doña Isabel and her brothers.’ The Camp-Master was cut down at Mendaña's behest and in his presence, and another malcontent killed; and on the same day the Spaniards' best friend, Malope, was murdered by some of Manrique's gang while actually feasting them. In a futile attempt at reparation, the head of the ensign mainly responsible was left at the door of Malope's house in his deserted village; the other murderer was reprieved—nearly 200 people had been lost with the almiranta, and not another man could be wasted—but died of shame and the scorn in which he was held. Manriques' head and that of the man killed with him should have been buried, but nobody bothered, and they were found on the beach, gnawed by dogs.
In all this, Quiros appears as an ineffectual peace-maker; such control as existed was in the arbitrary hands of the Barretos. Mendaña was ill and broken, sunk in a religious stupor; he died in mid-October, nominating his wife as Governess and his brother-in-law Lorenzo Barreto as Captain-General; but he in turn soon died of a wound received from the islanders. Naturally their hostility was now more persistent, and there were only fifteen healthy soldiers left. When most of the company moved to the ships, on 7 November, the first European colony in the South Seas ended its dismal and bloody existence of two months.
The agony, however, was far from ended. Morale was further depressed by the death of their conscientious Vicar, who had risen from his dying bed to confess Lorenzo Barreto. Two incursions were made for provisions, to a small off-lying island; the usual syndrome was acted out again. Mendaña's body was disinterred, that it might not be desecrated by the savages, but those on the capitana refused to take it aboard; it was placed on the frigate. They abandoned their dogs, which ran along the beach barking distractedly, all but the smallest one, which swam for the ships and ‘for such fidelity was taken on board; and of him it may be said that fortune favours the brave.’ At last, on 18 November, all three ships sailed, though Quiros had very sensibly proposed abandoning the two small vessels and using their men and gear on the capitana.
The plan was to sail westsouthwest as far as 11°S, in the hope of finding San Cristobal and the almiranta; failing that, to turn for Manila. Probably the Santa Isabel’s people were still camped at Pamua, a hill-top on a headland with excellent visibility to sea, and had the San Geronimo pressed on when 11° was reached, the two might well have rejoined; in which case, in all probability, all would have shared the same unknown fate, for the ships were rotten and supplies were short. But seeing no land at 11°S, Quiros bore northwest, to avoid New Guinea, which he thought was close at hand; had his ships been well-found, he would have preferred to explore the lands of which, a few days later, he saw signs—a tree trunk and masses of reeds. But in his desperate position he felt under the necessity of avoiding the hazards of unknown coasts and islands.[47]
The voyage to Manila was terrible in the extreme, and not relieved by human- 131 -solidarity in distress. Unremitting labour, by weakened men, was needed to keep sails and rigging workable. Quiros did his best to see that the workers and the sick were looked after; the Governess refused to share her ample stores, and raided the scanty water supply to wash her clothes. She suggested hanging murmurers, but at last released two jars of oil for the sick, which did not last long. Probably the people were too weary and broken to mutiny; if ever an officer were justified in heading a mutiny, this was the time, but Quiros devoted himself to the desperate and thankless task of acting as peace-maker between the generality and the hard-core gang around the Barretos. The galleot parted company early in December, after being specifically warned not to do so, for Quiros feared that the capitana might sink at any moment. A few days later the frigate disappeared; in this case Quiros had wished to bring her worn-out crew aboard the San Geronimo, but was over-ruled. For lack of gear to hoist in the boat, he was unable to land at Ponape or at Guam, which he reached on 1 January 1596; but here they were at least able to exchange scrap-iron for provisions brought out in canoes, though two Guanamese ‘were killed by an arquebus, owing to a matter of a piece of cask hoop’.
In mid-January they reached the Philippines, but Quiros had no charts of the archipelago, and without them it was difficult and dangerous to find safe anchorage; there can be little doubt that only his insistence on his own expertise saved the capitana from disaster almost in sight of relief. They met a man who had guided Cavendish through the islands, and he told them that the land which they saw was indeed Cape Espiritu Santo, the northwest point of Samar, for which Quiros had been making. Here they found a good port and above all food; some of the sick died from over-eating. Recalcitrant to the last, Doña Isabel ordered the flogging of a married soldier who had gone ashore for food, allegedly against her orders; but the tough old boatswain protested so strongly that she had to yield. She continued to threaten condign justice in Manila, and sent her two surviving brothers ahead to report. Before the ship reached Luzon, provisions were short again, and when Quiros approached the Governess she upbraided him for his ill-service to Mendaña, who had spent so much on the expedition, before she grudgingly gave up a calf. At the entrance to Manila Bay the Spanish coastguard came aboard, and was horrified at the sight of the sick and starving men and women—and babies—below, when there were two pigs—but Doña Isabel's pigs—on the deck above. At his angry ‘What the Devil! Is this a time for courtesy with pigs?’ she reluctantly ordered them to be killed. It was difficult, with a weak and sullen crew, to work into the Bay, but soon food and supplies were sent from Manila. Fifty people had died on the twelve weeks' voyage, and of the nearly 400 who had sailed from Paita, about 100 survived when, on 11 February 1596, they anchored at Cavite, and the long horror at last was over.
The galleot reached Mindanao, in such distress that it was said that her crew landed to kill and eat a dog they saw on the beach. Of the frigate bearing Mendaña's body, there was only a vague report that she had been seen aground- 132 -on some unnamed coast, with sails set and all her crew dead. As for Mendaña's wife, on the voyage that evil woman had gone into retreat and prepared to meet her God; in Manila she met and married the Governor's young cousin.[48] Re-equipped and revictualled, the San Geronimo sailed for Acapulco, arriving there on 11 December 1597. There Quiros left her and sailed for Peru, but not out of this history.
Quiros, caught between the devil of Doña Isabel and the potentially turbulent sea of the sailors and soldiers, appears in all this as a man of stature approaching moral heroism; and it may plausibly be objected that the flattering portrait is drawn by himself or by his secretary, a poet who loved him. However, the account is not only psychologically and internally consistent, it is also consistent with what we know of him from other and not always friendly sources. His loyalty is unimpeachable, to Mendaña but also to Doña Isabel, whom he cannot have respected in herself, only in her office; indeed, this loyalty overrode his earnest desire to secure fair and decent treatment for his company. Those qualities of humanity and forbearance so apparent in the Quiros/Belmonte relation, and which so much appeal to us, are vouched for by a hostile witness, Prado, and indeed are precisely those qualities which earned Prado's scorn, and to a lesser extent that of a better man, Torres. And even in the relation, there are clear indications of the points where his very virtues became, in the context within which he had to act, failings and weaknesses.
As for his competence as a cosmographer, that was attested by such contemporary authorities as the notable Jesuit mathematician Clavius, the reformer of the calendar, and, given his technical resources, it stands up to modern criticism. It is notable that when he does assert himself, it is nearly always in matters of navigation, and he alone brought the San Geronimo through her dreadful voyage. The nobility of his dream, the intensity of his spiritual vision, will appear in the sequel; the passion with which he held them may seem to us, in an age psychologically conditioned to scepticism in such matters, extravagant to absurdity; but it must be seen in the context of his time, his country, and his Faith: he and Mendaña were men not of the Conquista but of the Counter-Reformation. His weaknesses are too marked to allow him true greatness; but he was a remarkable personality, and if not a great, then surely a good man: in no satiric sense, a ‘Spiritual Quixote’.