Postscript.

I hazarded a comment, in Volume II (p. xviii), to the effect that the records presented in these pages disclose the history of the Spanish operations at Tahiti and the neighbouring islands in a practically complete form; adding that the omission of two subsidiary documents, extant but not available, was a matter of no real moment. Since Volume II was issued, in 1915, the existence of a manuscript bearing upon the subject, but previously unknown to me, has been brought to my notice, with true Castilian courtesy and nobility of thought, by the author of a scholarly Memoir on Spanish enterprise in the South Seas ¹ —Señor D. Ramón de Manjarrés y Bofarull. The narrative which Señor Manjarrés has found is intituled an “Extracto,” i.e. a summary or abstract, and relates to the Águila’s second voyage to Tahiti, in which its author, Juan Pantoja y Arriaga, took part in the capacity of Master’s Mate (piloto), though his name does not occur in any of the documents at the Archivo de Indias. Pantoja’s ms. ² is preserved in the University Library at Sevilla; and has been examined and quoted by Señor Manjarrés, who considers that it is not an official writing but one penned by Pantoja for his private use, being couched in free, picturesque, and jaunty language quite unlike the formal phraseology of a man-o’-war’s log-book. It is written, moreover, on paper folded to half-foolscap size, and presents other material features which equally point to the above conclusion.