History of a Voyage to the Falkland Islands

believed since Columbus, that landing in an unknown region, it

" known as low-lying islands almost at water level,
" he judged it appropriate to tack. This
" chain of islands are those that Fouquet of Saint-
" Malo discovered, and which he called by the name
" of Anican, his shipowner The Anican family were prominent merchant-shipowners in Saint-Malo.. The routes that I have
" traced will show the bearing of the lands
" in relation to the Strait of Le Maire, from where
" the Saint-Jean Baptiste was departing when it
" saw them; and in relation to Staten Island original: "Terre des Etats",
" which the two others had knowledge of
" before finding them.

" The northern part of these lands, which is
" here under the name of the Assumption Coasts,
" was discovered on July 16th of the year 1708,
" by Poré of Saint-Malo, who gave it the
" name of the vessel he commanded. It was
" believed to be a new land distant about
" one hundred leagues to the east of the new islands
" of which I speak; but I have made no diffi-
" culty in joining it to the others, based on
" convincing reasons.

" The first is that the latitudes ob-
" served to the north and south of these islands, and the
" bearing of the known parts, concur
" perfectly well at the same point of re-
" union on the eastern side, without leaving any

is to take possession of it, one can
no longer dispute our do-

" gap between the two. The second is that there
" is no reason to estimate this coast to
" the east of the Anican Islands. For Mr. Gobien of the
" Saint-Jean, who was kind enough to communi-
" cate an extract of his Journal to me, estimates
" that it is south of the River Plate original: "riviere de la Plata";
" which, taken strictly, could only
" distance it to the east by two or three
" degrees, that is to say 25 or 30 leagues. But
" the diversity of estimates is always a mark
" of uncertainty. The first time they
" saw this coast, coming from Saint Catherine Island
" (in Brazil), they estimated it at
" 329 degrees; and the second, coming from the
" River Plate, where contrary winds
" had forced them to go for relief after
" having attempted to pass Cape Horn, they
" judged it at 322 degrees, and according to some
" 324 on the charts of Pieter Goos A celebrated 17th-century Dutch cartographer.,
" whose errors we noted on
" page 28. Thus, little regard should be paid to them.
" However, as they had con-
" fidence in them, they believed themselves very far from the
" mainland, and counting themselves too far to the east, they
" also ran 300 leagues too far to the west in the
" South Sea The Pacific Ocean, so that they believed themselves