It is most remarkable that, by the concurrent
testimony of all the Spanish navigators, there is not one port, nor even
a tolerable road, as yet found out betwixt the Philippine Islands and the
coast of California and Mexico,* so that from the time the Manila ship
first loses sight of land she never lets go her anchor till she arrives
on the coast of California, and very often not till she gets to its
southernmost extremity.
(*Note. The Sandwich Islands were discovered by Captain Cook in 1779. The
Spanish ships had usually crossed the Pacific 9 or 10 degrees south of
them.)
ACAPULCO.
The most usual time of the arrival of the galleon at Acapulco is towards
the middle of January, but this navigation is so uncertain that she
sometimes gets in a month sooner, and at other times has been detained at
sea above a month longer. The port of Acapulco is by much the securest
and finest in all the northern parts of the Pacific Ocean, being as it
were, a basin surrounded with very high mountains, but the town is a most
wretched place and extremely unhealthy, for the air about it is so pent
up by the hills that it has scarcely any circulation. The place is,
besides, destitute of fresh water, except what is brought from a
considerable distance, and is in all respects so inconvenient that except
at the time of the mart, whilst the Manila galleon is in the port, it is
almost deserted. When the galleon arrives in this port she is generally
moored on its western side, and her cargo is delivered with all possible
expedition; and now the town of Acapulco, from almost a solitude, is
immediately thronged with merchants from all parts of the kingdom of
Mexico.
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