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BOOK 1. - AUSTRALIAN DISCOVERY BY SEA

I. TERRA AUSTRALIS INCOGNITA

[THE memorial of Dr. Juan Arias, addressed to King Philip III of Spain, presents an argument for the discovery and occupation of the supposed great southern continent by the Spanish nation for the various reasons set forth by the writer; it also supplies a statement of the ideas which were prevalent at this period as to the nature of the southern regions. The original document is in the British Museum, and the translation was published by R. H. Major in his Early Voyages to Australia*, Hakluyt Society, 1859.]

[* This work by R. H. Major is available in full on the Project Gutenberg Australia website at Major's listing]

Sire,—The memorial of the Doctor Juan Luis Arias showeth: That in consideration of the great advantage which will accrue to the service of Your Majesty, to the entension of the Catholic Church, and to the increase of our holy faith, from the conversion of the Gentiles of the southern land, which is the principal obligation to which Your Majesty and your crown are pledged, he now earnestly begs (great as have been his former importunities) to solicit Your Majesty's consideration to that which is here set forth.

For the English and Dutch heretics, whom the devil unites for this purpose by every means in his power, most diligently continue the exploration, discovery, and colonisation of the principal ports of this large part of the world in the Pacific Ocean, and sow in it the most pernicious poisons of their apostasy, which they put forth with the most pressing anxiety in advance of us, who should put forth the sovereign light of the gospel. This they are now perseveringly doing in that great continent in which are the provinces of Florida, and they will afterwards proceed to do the same with New Spain, and then with New Mexico, the kingdom of Quivira, the Californias, and other most extensive provinces. For which purpose, and for other reasons connected with their machinations against our kingdom, they have already colonised Virginia. To further the same object also, they have fortified and colonised Bermuda, and continue most zealously and rapidly sowing the infernal poison of their heresy, and infecting with it the millions upon millions of excellent people who inhabit those regions. From Virginia also they are advancing most rapidly inland, with the most ardent desire to deprive the Catholic Church of the inestimable treasure of an infinite number of souls; and to found in that land an empire in which they will at length possess much better and richer Indies than our own, and from which position they will be able to lord it absolutely over all our territories, and over all our navigation and commerce with the West Indies. This is a most grievous case for us, and most offensive to our Lord God and His Church, and this kingdom has reason to dread from so mischievous a state of things very great injuries from the hands of these enemies, and no less punishment from the divine indignation for having allowed these basilisks to locate themselves in such a position; from whence, before we of the Catholic Church arrive with the preaching of the gospel with which we are commissioned, they draw to themselves and infect with the depravity of their apostasy that countless number of Gentiles which inhabit the said provinces, and which cover a greater surface of land than all Europe.

In order to understand the question, it must be premised that the whole globe of earth and water is divided into two equal parts or halves by the equinoctial line. The northern hemisphere, which stretches from the equinoctial to the Arctic Pole, contains all which has been hitherto discovered and peopled in Asia, Europe, and the chief part of Africa. The remaining half, or southern hemisphere, which reaches from the equinoctial to the Antarctic Pole, comprises part of what we call America, and the whole of that Austral land the discovery and apostolic conquest of which is now treated of. Now, if we except from this southern hemisphere all that there is of Africa lying between the equinoctial line and the Cape of Good Hope, and all that there is of Peru from the parallel of the said equinoctial line, which passes near Quito, down to the straits of Magellan, and that small portion of land which lies to the south of the strait, all the rest of the firm land of the said southern hemisphere remains to be discovered. Thus of the whole globe, there is little less than one entire half which remains to be discovered, and to have the gospel preached in it; and this discovery and evangelical conquest forms the principal part of the obligation under which these kingdoms lie for the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, in conformity with the agreement made with the Catholic Church and its head, the supreme pontiffs Alexander VI and Paul III.

Some have asked, as already pointed out, whether the southern hemisphere be not all water, forming, as it were, a great part of the ocean, so as to leave but little of the surface of the earth in it uncovered. The reply to this is, that, according to what we are taught by sacred writ and by philosophical reasoning, there is proportionately as great a surface of land uncovered in the southern hemisphere as in the northern. For the fiat of the Creator, that the waters should be collected into certain hollows of the earth, in order that there should remain uncovered the portion that was necessary for the production of vegetation; as where He says in Genesis the 1st: "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear", supposes this water to have been created an entire orb, which covered and surrounded the whole of the earth, in the same manner as we reckon the positions of the elements; the land the lowest, in the middle of which is the centre of the whole elementary and celestial machine, then the water, and after that the air and igneous substance or the fire, which reaches its culmination or convex part in the concave of the celestial firmament. Then if, when God commanded that the waters should be gathered together, it was to be understood solely with reference to the northern hemisphere, the water in the southern hemisphere would remain as it was, surrounding and covering all, and the whole sphere of water could not be contained beneath one spherical surface equidistant to the centre of gravity, which always seeks to be united with the centre of the whole machine. And thus all the water of the southern hemisphere would be more remote from the said centre than that of the other hemisphere, without being contained in any sinus, and thus would be much higher, and naturally could not contain itself without flowing towards the other hemisphere, until it placed itself in equilibrium with the said centre of gravity; as is plainly gathered from the demonstration of Archimedes, in his work De Insidentibus Aquae, and is manifestly seen in the ebb and flow of the ocean; in which it is observed, that when the water rises above the surface of equidistance from its centre of gravity, it immediately outflows its ordinary limits until it finds its level with that surface; so that the gathering together of the waters was proportional in the two halves of the sphere of earth and water, gathering itself into certain hollows of the earth, which also have their means of correspondence between the two hemispheres. For as the quiet and equilibrium of the parts of the earth and water with respect to the centre of gravity consist in the equal tendencies of the opposite parts towards the same centre, it follows that the sinuses or receptacles of water in the one half are nearly proportioned in their position and other respects to those of the other. From all which it follows, that in the southern hemisphere there is an uncovered surface of land correspondent, or nearly so, to that which has been discovered in the northern hemisphere.

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