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The government then passed into the hands of Caicedo. A military insurrection overthrew the President and the Vice-President, and the military element proclaimed Bolivar chief of the republic, granting him full powers. General Urdaneta, old friend and constant companion of Bolivar, was entrusted provisionally with the executive power, and he organized a cabinet.
The second section of this document treats of the navigation to the Western Islands: and Urdaneta maps out various routes which should be followed, according to the time of the year when the fleet shall depart on its voyage of discovery. These routes all have to do primarily with New Guinea as the objective point of the expedition, the Philippines being considered as only secondary thereto.
The news proved to be false. The army of Urdaneta, which had left Venezuela to await in the land of Nueva Granada new instructions from the Liberator, and had obtained the protection of that government, received him with the greatest enthusiasm. From there Bolivar proceeded to Tunja, where he was very well received by Congress. He requested that his conduct be examined and impartially judged.
They carry three hundred Spaniards, half soldiers and half sailors, a chosen lot of men.... Six religious of the order of Saint Augustine go with it, among them Fray Andres de Urdaneta, who is the most experienced and skilled navigator that can be had in either old or new España."
Also to the very venerable father Fray Andrés de Urdaneta whom you all each for himself, publicly and privately, at the same time when through our commission you were assembled in chapter have chosen canonically as your prior and prelate for this expedition, we grant the fulness of all our authority in corporals as well as spirituals, as far as we have, it and are enabled, without reserving anything whatsoever to ourselves.
Fray Andres de Urdaneta left the court for Nueva Espania, for, as he was so experienced and excellent a cosmographer, he offered to go with the fleet and to discover the return voyage.
On the twenty-second of January land was sighted which the pilots declared to be the Philippines, but which Urdaneta said might be the Ladrones, which he afterwards affirmed to be the case from the lateen-sails of the native boats, "which the inhabitants of the Filipinas do not make." The pilots continued to ridicule him, but Urdaneta's reasoning was correct.
Also there was one Salva Terra, a gentleman of Victoria in Spain, that came by chance out of the West Indies into Ireland, Anno 1568, who affirmed the North-West Passage from us to Cathay, constantly to be believed in America navigable; and further said, in the presence of Sir Henry Sidney, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, in my hearing, that a friar of Mexico, called Andre Urdaneta, more than eight years before his then coming into Ireland, told him there that he came from Mare del Sur into Germany through this North-West Passage, and showed Salva Terra at that time being then with him in Mexico a sea-card made by his own experience and travel in that voyage, wherein was plainly set down and described this North-West Passage, agreeing in all points with Ortelius' map.
Paez here, Bolívar there, Monágas, Piar, Urdaneta, and a score of other chieftains, at every vulnerable point, harassed, without ceasing, the common foe.
It hath been attempted by Corterialis the Portuguese, Scolmus the Dane, and by Sebastian Cabot in the time of King Henry VII. And it hath been performed by the three brethren, the Indians aforesaid, and by Urdaneta, the friar of Mexico.
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