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THE GALLEON.

WHEN the world was settling down to peace at the close of the wars of Queen Anne, a French diplomatist suggested that Harley should ask the Cortes of Castile to guarantee the due performance of certain Spanish treaty obligations. The cautious Minister replied that the Cortes of Castile was magni nominis umbra, thereby showing his belief that the security was but shadowy. It has been the fate of Spain to enrich the ghost world of the past with not a few shadows of great names. One of them, and not the least romantic among them, is the shade of the vessel which the Spaniards name a "galeon," and we spell "galleon." We are quite right; for the parent name of the " galeon is in Spanish 'galera," and in English 'galley." A long story of heroism, enterprise, greed, folly, achievement, and disaster gathered round the galleon, and now makes 8 large part of the history of man's doings on the sea.

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To begin by defining your terms is the counsel of honesty and of common-sense. Therefore the first question to be asked, and, as far as may be, answered, is, What was the galleon? The reply that it was just the Spanish equivalent for the capital ship" of our Elizabethan ancestors is accurate, but insufficient. The galleon was the capital ship, but with a Spanish char

acter of its own. must

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We

not be misled into thinking that because the name "galeon was born of "galera," the two types had their origin in the same seas, or were not essentially different. The galera, our galley, and its legitimate offspring, the "galeaza" or "galleasse," the and galizabra," came from the Mediterranean, and were rowed. They were provided with masts and sails, but only for secondary use. Their main dependence was on the oar. It is true that the "galiza bra" was a cross between the galley and the "zabra " of the Cantabrian coast; but it was more of the Mediterranean than of the Bay. The galleon had its origin from the Bay of Biscay, and was a sailing-ship. It came from the medieval "nao" or "carabela," which fought with Edward III. in the battle off Winchelsea, named by Froissart "Espagnols sur mer." We have good testimony as to what the naos" and "carabelas "-i.e., caravels-were. The ancient formula of the shipbuilders of Biscay and Santander, Asturias and Galicia, survives. It is monosyllabic and laconic, consisting of no more than the three words, "Tres, Dos, As "

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Three, Two, Ace. It means that the keel was to be twice the beam (in Spanish, manga), and three times the height at the waist (puntal), or at any rate that the height must never

be more than a third of the keel. There were two subordinate measures. The breadth of the bottom was one third of the beam, and the total length (esloria) including the rake of bow and stern was equal to the combined keel and beam. A vessel was constructed on these lines in our time, to show the visitors at an American exhibition what the caravel of Columbus was. A Spanish erew took her from Palos to New Orleans. They found that she was not unhandy, and could make eight or nine knots an hour when running free, or going large in a good breeze, but, as might be expected from her lines, that she had one horrible vice. She pitched atrociously. The Spaniard has a better word for the maddening movement. He says to "cabecear," to take headers, to "piquer une tête, to put your nose into everything. And the caravel was not only ill proportioned, but was ill constructed and rigged. The lack of internal lining left her dependent on the caulking to keep out the water. excessive length of the single spar masts, and the exaggerated size of their one big square sail, or course (papahigo), worked with a ruinous leverage on the weak hull. Columbus and Vasco da Gama were better provided as to rigging than the medieval seamen. But they had not a better ship. When we see what were the vessels in which America was reached, the Cape was rounded, Magellan reached the Philippines, and Sebastian de Elcano com

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pleted the first voyage round the world, it surely behoves the seamen of to-day to take their caps off to the memory of the Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese who opened the great ocean routes.

The galleon was, properly speaking, and at the beginning, only a "carabela" somewhat improved as to her rigging and increased in size. The word came into use in the early part of the sixteenth century. Our historians have been too much in the habit of taking it for granted that she was built on one unvarying model, and also that she was always a large ship-as ships went in the sixteenth century. But these assumptions will not stand examination. The galleon was in fact very considerably modified and improved even in the sixteenth century. Until the disasters of the war with England taught her some wisdom, Spain was indeed content to build enlarged carabelas-weak, lumbering ships which rolled much and pitched insufferably. But after 1588 our seamen saw a marked improvement in the quality of the Spanish ships. The Government of Philip II. and his successors showed more intelligence than the world has given it credit for, and it was served in its naval administration by some able men-Cristobal de Barros and the Knight of Malta, Diego de Brochero, among others. Royal Commissions were appointed to hear witnesses and report on shipbuilding policy in 1591, in 1611, 1614, and 1640. There

was much speculation and some scientific experiment. Naval officers and naval experts wrote treatises which have been summarised and extracted in the 'Naval Disquisitions' of Don Cesareo Duro. The galleon changed for the better. It is not necessary to give reasons for the direction in which the change was made. There was one obvious way of modifying the "Three, Two, Ace" formula with advantage. The proportion of keel to beam was altered till by successive steps it reached three to one. The Spaniards continued to build higher at bow and stern than their neighbours, but in the end the galleons did not differ materially in proportions from the ships of England or Holland. The models finally selected are described with their measurements in the great store of knowledge concerning them which bears the name of 'Norte de la Contratacion,' and was published in folio at Seville in 1672. It is easy to translate the title literally, for it signifies 'The Polestar of Trade,' but that is a mere dictionary rendering. Our prolific translator from the Spanish, Captain John Stevens, who published a summary of the Norte' in 1702, shirked the difficulty in

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the Board of Trade to the Indies, had left his title to speak for itself all had been easy. But he did not. He explains in his preface that as a painter is careful to choose a studio which shall have a window opening to the north, so that he may work in freedom from the distracting rays of the sun and in a pure light, so it behoves an honest author to avoid all beams of prejudice and passion from one hand or the other. Therefore it is to be presumed that he wished his 'Norte' to mean not only the north star, by which a course may be steered, but also a pervading atmosphere of "dry-light" accuracy and impartiality.

The book is truly a good one, and the author spoke of what he knew. For one of his varied functions as an officer, both administrative and judicial, of that wonderful body the Council of the Indies, was to superintend the choice and testify to the seaworthiness of all vessels employed in the "carrera de las Indias," the course to the Indies. Moreover, he did not rely wholly on his his own knowledge, but called in an experienced naval officer and writer on shipbuilding, Don Juan de Echeverri, to write his technical chapters. With the help of Don Juan we can see what a great galleon was. He cites as an example the San Josef. Observe that the measurements of a Spanish ship intended to be employed in the "carrera 'de las Indias" were taken in "codos reales" or royal cubits.

Now the royal cubit was twothirds and a thirty-second part of two-thirds of the Spanish yard, or "vara," according to the standard which was kept in the Cathedral of Burgos. The size of the royal cubit may be given in another way, namely, as being thirty-three of those digits, whereof there are forty-eight in the vara, which is divided not only into three feet of twelve inches, but also into four spans of twelve digits. Now note that the vara is about three inches less than the English yard, and the plain man who has no call to go into hundredths of inches can work the simple sum which will show him that the "codo real" is, as near as he need want to go, twenty-three English inches. Then he can appreciate the size of the great galleon San Josef. She measured sixty royal cubits, say 115 ft., on the keel, and seventytwo, say 139 ft., on the gundeck. Her beam was twentyone cubits 40 ft., and the depth of the hold was ten = 19 ft. Therefore the San Josef was a somewhat smaller vessel than a British 50-gun ship of the early eighteenth century, which measured 117 ft. on the keel, 144 ft. on the gundeck, and 42 ft. in the beam, and had a depth of 17 ft. in the hold. The burden of the galleon is given as 1109 tons, while the official measurement of the British 50-gun ship was 1053 tons. But measurement for tonnage was like the money affairs of Mr Tulliver, "all a moodle," in the days before Moorsom. We see that the

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San Josef was not a very large vessel, even according to the standard of the seventeenth century. But she ranked as a great ship. As a rule the Spaniards preferred a vessel of from 500 to 700 tons for war, and of from 200 to 400 tons for commerce. The great question of size versus number was briskly debated in Seville in and about 1672, as it had been no doubt at the Piræus, when the "triêrês was 8 novelty, and as it is to-day between the friends and the enemies of "monsters" and

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Dreadnoughts." All the arguments for and against will be found stated in terms of galleons in the chapters which Don Juan de Echeverri contributed to the Norte de la Contratacion,' in very sound Castilian.

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The San Josef and her sister galleons were the carriers of the bullion of Peru and Mexico, the emeralds, cochineal, chocolate, and other riches of the Indies of small bulk but high price. Therefore it was that they were sought after by all those who were resolved to share the good things of the New World with Spain. They were many. First in order of time come the Barbary pirates, who began to plunder as early as 1506. The French seamen of Havre, Dieppe, and La Rochelle followed. They were the forerunners, and in after times the associates, of Hawkins and Drake. Then came the Dutch. The time of danger for the galleons was on the homeward voyage. They went out laden with European goods,

which were not worth plunder- 'Don Quixote' will remember,

ing. Indeed, as the Spaniards were not a manufacturing people they purchased a great part of the cargoes they sent out in Italy, France, England, and the Low Countries. So no one had an interest in injuring their export trade. The desire of their rivals was for the bullion and the colonial produce. For them hostile squadrons, privateers, and pirates cruised in the summer months. The course of Spanish trade was governed by fixed rules, drawn up and designed to give safety. In truth they were of no small use to Spain's assailants, for they told everybody exactly when and where the galleons were to be found.

All galleons sailed either in the "flotas or in the "armada de galeones." Flota, according to the dictionaries, means a fleet, and an armada is properly a squadron. But in the trade with the Indies the words had particular meanings. The flotas were the swarms of merchant galleons, and the armada de galeones was the armed force which went to protect them. The flotas went out in two detachments and came back together. With, or so soon as might be after, the first spring-tides in May, the flota of New Spain-i.e., Mexico-sailed. The flota for the "Firm Land," Tierra Firme, sailed in September or October. By the Firm Land is to be understood the Spanish Main-that is to say, the north and north-east of the continent of South America. The Spaniards, as readers of

had a leaning to believe that islands might at any moment be found to be afloat. Therefore, "the islands of the ocean sea,' "otherwise the Antilles, were placed in opposition to the Tierra Firme, which we call the Spanish Main. The springtides were of vast importance, in the earlier days at least. Seville had the monopoly of the trade, and the vessels started from San Lucar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. Now, San Lucar has a bar which could not be crossed by any but the smallest craft, except at the highest tides. In later times the bar became so serious an obstacle that the staple of the trade was moved to Cadiz. The flotas went first to Dominica, in the Leeward Islands, and there the ships separated for the different ports to which they were bound. To each flota there was a General, who sailed in his "capitana,' and an Admiral, who sailed in his "almiranta." The General was the commander-in-chief, and the Admiral was the second in command. Their vessels carried one-third less cargo than others, so as to have room for the detachment of soldiers, who formed their main, if not their sole, sole, defence. They carried few guns. It was the flota of of New Spain which destroyed the squadron of Hawkins and his French friends at the anchorage of San Juan de Ulloa.

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The armada de galeones belonged to the trade of the Indies as fully as the flotas,

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