Note 7 — Introduction.

Quiros was devoted to the Franciscans, and had several in his fleet. Torquemada was Provincial of the Order in Mexico. At a later date, two historians of the Order of St. Francis in Peru gave accounts of the voyage, quoting from Torquemada, and without any other original sources of information. One was Fray Antonio Daza, who wrote Cronica General de la Orden de San Francisco. The other is a folio with double columns: Cronica de la religiosissima provincia de la Orden de San Francisco de la regular observancia compuesta por el R.P. Fray Diego de Cordova, Salinas (1651). This work is very rare. There is no copy in the British Museum. There was one in the Library at Lima. Cordova gives a brief account of the voyage of Quiros, copying from Torquemada. Neither of these Franciscan historians, writing in Peru many years afterwards, are of any authority on the voyage of Quiros beyond what they derive from Torquemada. Daza, however, gives the Act of Possession at Espiritu Santo, which is not quoted in full by Torquemada (see p. 444). Antonio de Ulloa, in his Resumen, quotes from Cordova respecting an island discovered in 28° S. by Quiros, but the quotation is not correct. It is referred to by Mr. Major in his Early Voyages to Australia, p. lxxii. Mr. Major had never seen the work of Cordova.