Malaspina Expedition
Astrea called at Concepción, Chile, in February 1787, whose military governor, the Irish-born Ambrose O'Higgins, had recommended six months before that Spain organize an expedition to the Pacific similar to those led by Lapérouse and Cook.
Following the Astrea's return to Spain, Malaspina produced, in partnership with José de Bustamante, a proposal for an expedition along the lines set out in O'Higgins' memorandum.
José de Espinoza y Tello, one of the officers of the Malaspina expedition, subsequently confirmed the importance of the information sent by O'Higgins in stimulating the Government to initiate an extensive program of exploration in the Pacific.
The expedition carried on board the elite of astronomers and surveyors of the Spanish Navy, headed by Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha, with the young Felipe Bauzá as cartographer.
Continuing north, Bustamante mapped the coast while Malaspina sailed to Juan Fernández Islands in order to resolve conflicting data on their location.
Spanish scholars made a study of the tribe, recording information on social mores, language, economy, warfare methods, and burial practices.
Artists with the expedition, Tomas de Suria and José Cardero, produced portraits of tribal members and scenes of Tlingit daily life.
Due in part to Malaspina's ability to bequeath generous gifts from his well-supplied ships about to return to Mexico, the friendship between the Spanish and the Nootkas was strengthened.
After weeks of negotiations the principal Nootka chief, Maquinna, agreed that the Spanish would always remain owners of the land they then occupied, and that they had acquired it with all due properness.
Botanical studies were carried out, including an attempt to make a type of beer out of conifer needles that was hoped to have anti-scorbutic properties for combating scurvy.
The expedition ships took on water and wood, and provided the Spanish outpost with many useful goods, including medicines, food, various tools and utensils, and a Réaumur scale thermometer.
They explored Doubtful Sound at the southern end of New Zealand's South Island, mapping its entrance and lower reaches but failing because of adverse weather to carry out the gravity experiments which were the reason for going there.
[13] During the expedition’s stay at Sydney Cove, New South Wales, in March–April 1793, Thaddäus Haenke carried out observations and made collections relating to the natural history of the place, as he reported to the colony’s patron, Sir Joseph Banks, saying: "I here express the public testimony of a grateful soul for the very extraordinary humanity and kindness with which the English in their new Colony welcomed us wandering vagabonds, Ulysses' companions.
A Nation renowned throughout the world, which has left nothing untried, will also overcome with the happiest omens, by the most assiduous labour and by its own determined spirit the great obstacles opposing it in the foundation of what may one day become another Rome".
[14] During its visit to Port Jackson, twelve drawings were done by members of the expedition, which are a valuable record of the settlement in its early years, especially as among them are the only depictions of the convict settlers from this period.
[15] The recently founded English colony had been included in the expedition’s itinerary in response to a memorandum drawn up in September 1788 by one of Malaspina’s fellow naval officers, Francisco Muñoz y San Clemente, who warned of the dangers it posed to the Spanish possessions in the Pacific in peace time from the development of a contraband commerce and in war time as a base for British naval operations.
These possessions will have a navy of their own, obtaining from the Southern region whatever is necessary to establish it, and when they have it ready formed they will be able to invade our nearby possessions..."[16] In the confidential report he wrote following his visit, Malaspina echoed the warning from Muñoz, writing of the "terrible" future danger for Spain from the English colony at Port Jackson, from whence with the greatest ease a crossing of two or three months through healthy climates, and a secure navigation, could bring to our defenceless coasts two or three thousand castaway bandits to serve interpolated with an excellent body of regular troops.
While recognizing the strategic threat it posed to Spain's Pacific possessions in time of war, Malaspina wrote: "It is not the concern of these paragraphs to demonstrate in detail the many schemes for these projected plunderings, so much as the easiest ways of preventing them".
Having seen carts and even ploughs being drawn by convicts for want of draught animals in the colony, and having eaten meals with the colonists at which beef and mutton were regarded as rare luxuries, Malaspina saw the trade in Chilean livestock as the key to a profitable commerce.
Conscious that the policy he was proposing was a bold and imaginative one in the face of Spain's traditional insistence on a national monopoly of trade and other relations within her empire, Malaspina declared that "this affair is exceedingly favourable to the commercial balance of our Colonies", and it would have the advantage of calming and tranquilizing "a lively, turbulent and even insolent neighbour....not with sacrifices on our part but rather with many and very considerable profits".
A magnificent work is at this present moment in the Madrid press, containing a full and ample detail of all the transactions that occurred during this voyage of discovery; and, on its publication, we shall be gratified with an account of the manners and customs of the Babaco [Babao/Vavau] Isles, a non-descript cluster, then visited for the first time by Europeans.
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.
Having been equipped and supplied anew with provisions at Montevedia [Montevideo], they joined a fleet of frigates and register ships, and sailed for Cadiz, where they arrived after a passage of nine days [weeks], with cargoes to the amount of eight millions of dollars in money and merchandize.
In both hemispheres, and in a variety of different latitudes, many experiments were made relative to the weight of bodies [gravity], which will tend to very important discoveries, connected with the irregular form of our globe; these will also be highly useful, so far as respects a fixed and general measure [metric system].
The vessels brought back nearly the whole of their crews; neither of them, in short, lost more than three or four men; which is wonderful, if we but consider the unhealthy climates of the Torrid Zone, to which they were so long exposed.
Don Antonio de Valdes, the minister of the marine, who encouraged and supported the expedition, is busied at this moment in drawing up a detailed account of this voyage, so as to render the enterprize of general utility.
Unfortunately, Malaspina's political judgment led him to take part in a failed conspiracy to overthrow Spain's Prime Minister Godoy, and he was arrested on November 23 on charges of plotting against the state.
José de Bustamante attempted to have the journal and reports of the expedition published, but the cost was beyond the resources of the Spanish treasury, particularly its naval budget, during the years of strife that followed Malaspina’s arrest.
[25] In 1809, José Espinosa y Tello published the astronomical and geodesic observations made during the expedition in a two-volume work that also contained an abbreviated narrative of the voyage.
250 scientists were on board the oceanographic research vessels Hespérides and Sarmiento de Gamboa, embarking on a nine-month expedition between December 2010 and July 2011.
