sailed in company from the port of Cadiz, on the 30th of July, 1789, in order to co-operate with the other maritime powers in the extension of the human knowledge, and more particularly of navigation. The commanders of these vessels made correct charts of the coasts of America and the adjacent islands, from the river La Plata to Cape Horn, and from that cape to the farthermost northern extremeties [sic] of that part of the world. Their intentions in this was merely to repeat the attempts of the same kind, formerly undertaken either by foreigners or their own countrymen, and thus acquire a more minute knowledge of the subject. On their arrival at the north-west coast of America, in lat 59.60. and 61 degrees, they searched, in vain, for a passage by which they might penetrate into the Atlantic ocean; they accordingly concluded that the predictions of Cook were founded in sound reasoning, and that the gut mentioned by Maldonado, an old Spanish navigator, had no existence, except in his own brain. In the beginning of the year 1792, the Subtile, and a galliot, called the Mexicana, under the command of don Dion Galvano [Dionisio Galiano] and don Cais de Taldes [Cayetano Valdes], joined the English squadron commanded by captain Vancouver, with an intention to examine the immense Archipelago, known by the name of the Admiral’s Fonte [Admiral de Fonte], and Juan de Fuca. They continued the greater part of the year 1792 in visiting the Mariannes and Philippines, as also the Macas [Macao], on the coast of Guiana [China]. They afterwards passed between the isles Mindanoa and the isles called Mountay [Morintay], shaping course along the coasts of New-Guinea, and crossing the equator. On this occasion they discovered a gulph of about 500 maritime leagues in extent, which no former navigator had traversed. They then stopped at New-Zealand and New-Holland, and discovered in the Archipelago, called the Friendly Isles, the Babacos [Babaos/Vavau], a range of islands which had never before been seen by any European mariner. After a variety of other researches in the southern ocean, they arrived in June 1793, at Callao. From this port they made other occasional expeditions; and each separately examined the port of Conception, and the rest of the coast of America, which extends to the south-west, as well as the western coast of Moluccas [Malvinas/Malouines/Falklands]. They then entered the river La Plata, after