For certain reasons (they ought to have been very weighty) which hitherto have not been ascertained with entire certainty, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros left the Almiranta and the Zabra in the said bay, and himself sailed with his ship, the Capitana, for Mexico, from whence he again came to this court to advocate anew the colonization of that land, and was again sent back to the viceroy of Peru, and died at Panamá on his return voyage to Lima. The admiral Luis Vaez de Torres being left in the bay and most disconsolate for the loss of the Capitana, resolved, with the consent of his companions, to continue the discovery. Being prevented by stress of weather from making the circuit of the land of the Baia, to see whether it were an island or mainland as they had imagined, and finding himself in great straits in twenty-one degrees south, to which high latitude he had persevered in sailing in about a south-westerly direction from the fifteen or twenty minutes south in which lay the aforesaid Baia, he put back to the north-west and north-east up to fourteen degrees, in which he sighted a very extensive coast, which he took for that of New Guadalcanal; _from thence he sailed westwards, having constantly on the right hand the coast of another very great land, which he continued coasting, according to his own reckoning, more than six hundred leagues, having it still to the right hand_[10] (in which course may be understood to be comprehended New Guadalcanal and New Guinea). Along the same coast he discovered a great diversity of islands. The whole country was very fertile and populous; he continued his voyage on to Bachan and Ternate, and from thence to Manilla, which was the end of this discovery.
There was also a pilot named Juan Fernandez, who discovered the track from Lima to Chili by going to the westward (which till then had been made with much difficulty, as they kept along shore, where the southerly winds almost constantly prevail): he sailing from the coast of Chili about the latitude of forty degrees, little more or less, in a small ship, with some of his companions, in courses between west and south-west, was brought in a month’s time to what was, to the best of their judgment, a very fertile and agreeable continent, inhabited by a white and well-proportioned people, of our own height, well clad, and of so peaceable and gentle a disposition that, in every way they could express, they showed the greatest hospitality, both with respect to the fruits and productions of their country, which appeared in every respect very rich and plentiful. But (being overjoyed to have discovered the coast of that great and so much desired continent) he returned to Chili, intending to go back properly fitted, and to keep it a secret till they and their friends could return on the discovery. It was delayed from day to day till Juan Fernandez died, when, with his death, this important matter fell to the ground.