Alejandro Malaspina: Portrait of a Visionary

216 Pages·1999·0.53 MB·English

by  John Kendrick

Alejandro Malaspina
Portrait of a Visionary
The thirst for knowledge and adventure have always been at the fore-
front of human imagination. In this chronicle of the life of Alejandro
Malaspina, an eighteenth-century Italian navigator in the service of
Spain, John Kendrick takes us on a voyage across the Pacific via the
Philippines, New Zealand, the infant British colony at Sydney Cove,
and the Tonga Islands.
Malaspina arrived in Spain with a scientific background and an
ardent interest in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The Pacific
voyage on which he sailed in 1789 was the last and most important
of his career - a five-year scientific and political examination of the
Spanish colonies in the Americas and the Philippines. One of his
appraisals was of the British colony at Sydney Cove. From there, he
sailed to Tonga, which allowed him to compare life at a place almost
untouched by European contact with the situation in the colonies.
Malaspina eventually returned to Spain, where he was received by
King Charles IV and was commissioned to produce a work covering all
aspects of his studies that would establish Spain's reputation as a modern
enlightened state. His advice to the king was that this could be achieved
only if all the present ministers were dismissed and replaced with a slate
of Malaspina's choosing who would back his visionary ideas. This naive
proposal resulted in a unanimous vote by the State Council that his plan
was false, seditious, and injurious to the sovereignty of Their Majesties,
and he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in the fortress of San
Anton. At the urging of Napoleon he was released after eight years and
exiled to Italy where he died in 1810, just as the revolts in the Americas
were starting, as he had predicted.
Using Malaspina's writings, including the journal of his great voyage
and his personal letters, John Kendrick makes the life of this extraor-
dinary man available for the first time in English.
JOHN KENDRICK has studied nautical history as a private scholar for
twenty years, publishing papers in Canada, Spain, and the United
States. This is his fourth book.
Alejandro Malaspina as a flag officer
Alejandro Malaspina
PORTRAIT OF A VISIONARY
John Kendrick
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
© McGill-Queen's University Press 1999
ISBN 0-7735-1830-4
Legal deposit second quarter 1999
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of a grant
from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of
Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the
financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development
Program for its activities. We also acknowledge
the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
for our publishing program.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Kendrick, John (John C.)
Alejandro Malaspina: portrait of a visionary
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7735-1830-4
1. Malaspina, Alessandro, 1754-1809. 2,. Discoveries in
geography - Spanish. 3. Explorers - Spain - Biography.
4. Spain - Colonies - History - 18th century, I. Title.
DPZOO.8.M34K45 1999 910'.92 C98-90142,1-5
Typeset in Sabon 10.5/13
by Caractera inc., Quebec City
Published under the patronage of
the Ministry of External Affairs of Spain,
General Directorate of Cultural and Scientific Relations
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Contents
Illustrations viii
Preface ix
1 The Prisoner of San Anton 3
2 The Italian Student 6
3 The Spanish Officer 21
4 The Great Voyage: South America 33
5 The Great Voyage: North America 52
6 The Great Voyage: The Pacific 63
7 Vavao 76
8 The Voyage Home 86
9 The Political Thought of Alejandro Malaspina 101
10 From Courtier to State Criminal 123
11 De Profundis Clamavi 140
12 Pontremoli 156
13 Malaspina Remembered 164
Notes 171
Bibliography 183
Index 191
Illustrations
Alejandro Malaspina Frontispiece
Antonio Valdes 14
Cadiz Harbour 20
Midshipmen's college, San Fernando 24
Descubierta and Atrevida at anchor 38
Lima 48
Drawing of bird, Northwest America 61
Parramatta, New South Wales 70
Vavao, Tongans with Spanish officer 81
Jose Espinosa y Tello 92
Botanical drawing, La Magdalena 93
Gravity experiment 98
Felipe Bauza 102
Queretaro, Mexico 162
MAP
Route of Descubierta 3 2
Preface
El poeta puede contar o cantar las cosas, no como
fueron, sino como debian ser; y el historiador las ha de
escribir, no como debian ser, sino como fueron.
Cervantes, Don Quixote, II, 3.
Cervantes tells us that the poet may write or sing of things as they
ought to have been, but the historian has a duty to write of things
as they were, a duty I have heeded in the historical part of this
work, and in what I have written of the events of the life of
Alejandro Malaspina. He was beyond doubt a great navigator and
commander, a careful scientist, and a loyal naval officer in the
service of Spain. Nonetheless, in his letters to his friends, in his
ideals for the future of America, in his fascination with philosophy,
and in his misguided and ultimately futile advocacy of a new form
of government and a new administration for Spain and its empire,
he appears as quite a different person. It is that aspect of Malaspina
which is the main subject of this work, written with the intent of
adding a human dimension to the great historical figure.
In 1992 the Real Academia Hispano-Americana sponsored a
series of symposia in Spain on the Malaspina expedition, under the
rubric of the Jornadas Internacionales Malaspina. I was both
honoured by and grateful for their invitation to join the Jornadas
and to act as a member of the scientific committee. The present
work took form with the benefit of new research reported and new
ideas expressed by many contributors to the Jornadas. These are
acknowledged in the notes, but I must especially thank my friends
Antonio Orozco and Mercedes Palau, illustrious members of the