The west shore., July 01, 1884, Page 201, Image 3

THE WEST SHORE.
201
Sir Walter Kaleigh, and to Master Richard Ilakluyt, thut
famous coRmwThr) certifying tLoiu Wf. And I
prayed them to disburse 100, to bring the said Greek
pilot into England, with myself, for that ray own purse
would not stretch so wide at that time. And I had
answer that this action was well liked and greatly desired
in England; but the money was not ready, and therefore
this action died at that time, though the Baid Greek
pilot, perchance, liveth still in his own country, in Ccpha
Ionia, towards which place he went within a fortnight
after this conference had at Venice."
. There is more of the document, detailing quite a cor
respondence between Lock and the Greek, from which it
appears that the old pilot was alive in 1598, but that in
1002, when Lock had finished his business in Venice and
was preparing to return to England, he addressed a letter
to Fuca, to which he received no answer, ond that a short
time afterwards he learned that the Greek was dead.
There has been much controversy among historians
as to the authenticity of this document In the long
negotiations between England and the United States in
regard to the location of the international boundary line,
it was vigorously, supported by the Americans and as
earnestly combated by the representatives of Great
Britain. As in the discussion of Sir Francis Drake's
voyage, writers were divided strictly upon national lines,
and thus ore subject to the charge of bias and prejudice.
A fair examination will convince an impartial person
that, although it is not imjMwsible the voyage was mode,
the probabilities are that the letter of Mr. Lock was one
composed for the purpose of creating a sensation, and no
such personage as Juan de Fuca ever existed. The Eng
lish writers seem to have espoused the bettor side of the
argument, though there is no reason to suppose they
would not have as readily advocated the opposite one had
the interests of Great Britain required it The question
was long Bince Bettled and the boundary established at
the forty-ninth parallol and the Straits of Fuca; and now,
freed from national prejudice, American writers gen
erally declare their belief that the voyage of the Greek
pilot was a myth. Briefly presented, the arguments on
either Bide are as follows:
It is maintained by the snpimrters of the document
tiiat the statements therein contained are many of them
known to be true; that in its geographical descriptions it
is more accurate than the rejxirt of any previous Spanish
voyage; that the fact of his locating the entrance to the
passage between latitudes 47 and 48 degrees, instead of
48 ond 49 degrees, is not as serious as their opponent
assert since much greater errors in locating well-known
objects appear in the accounts of voyages of whose
authenticity there is no dispute. The Spaniards were
not scientific 'navigators, and their reports bristle with
errors in latitude, while longitude seems to have been
entirely beyond them. This lack of accuracy prevented
them from making a correct map of the coast line of
California, even after they had explored and soiled along
it for two centuries. There is, also, a marked absence of
those stereotyped descriptions of wonderful cities and
strange pooplos which Booms to have formed noh on
important part of the acoonnts of many previous and
subsequent voyages. A careful comparison by one who
is familiar with the geography of that region will oon
vince him that in the narrative the Straits of Fuca are
very occurotely described -with the exception of the
groat rocky pillar on the northwest especially in the
fact that the land north of the straits ( Vanoouvor Island)
trends to the northwest He sailed in the passage twenty
days, finding numerous islands and arms of the ocean
running in oil directions, and finally emerged into the
North Sea. What could more accurately describe a voy.
age through the Straits of Fuca and Gulf of Georgia,
between Vancouver Island and the mninland, until the
open ocean was again reaohod on the northwest? It is
not claimed that he entered the Atlantic, but the North
Sea of Moldonodo; and it must be borne in mind that the
Straits of Anion as then understood-Mint described by
Maldonado was a long passage leading in a general
north and south direction, connecting the South Sea with
the supjKwed North Sea, and that to reach the Atlantic
required a long voyogo across this North Sea and through
the Straits of Labrador. It must be admitted, then, that
the descriptions given in Lock's account are wonderfully
accurate if they are wholly imaginary and as to the
error in latitude a matter of only a few miles -aside
from the reasons already given, may it not lw accounted
for by the fact that tho narrative is written from memory
by n second party who had received but an oral account
of tho voyage?
Tho chief objection to Mie voyage is that there is uo
confirmatory evidence whatever to supxrt it Neither
the royal nor colonial records of Spain contain the faint
est allusion to it although other voyages, and sociolly
some made but a few years loter, are recorded at length.
The narrative of Lock was not given to the public until a
quarter of a century had elapsed, and every one who
might have had any jwsonol knowledge of it was prob
ably dead. Richard llukluyt one of tho three gentle,
men to whom it is said Lock wrote in relation to the
matter from Venice, was one of the greatest men of his
age. He was an enthusiastic geographer, who Ncnt
much time and money in collecting and publishing the
accounts of all iiiixrtunt voyages made by the repre
sentatives of England or any other notion. It is impossi.
bio to believe that he could have been so indifferent to
the subject of Lock's letter, since the Htraite of Anion
were the absorbing geographical enigma of the times, as
to hove let the matter of 100 prevent him from bringing
the Greek pilot to England; and it is equally strange that
no hint of such a voyage is given in any of his works,
though ho is admitted to have mm the most thorough
and correct geographer of the sixteenth century. Another
objection, and primps the strongest one, is the fact Miat
at the very time Juan de Fuca is asserted to have been
urging his claim for a reward ujxm the King of Sjmin,
another Sjmiiish expedition was dispatched in search of
the Straits of Anion, and in the letter of instrucUous,
which details at length the reasons for ordering the