INDEX

• Introduction
• Maps
• Significant Places in Australia's Maritime History
• Naming Australia
• Naming Australia's Coastal Features

WHO DID DISCOVER AUSTRALIA?

• The Phoenecians & Egyptians
• The Greeks & Romans
• The Chinese
• The Muslims
• The Portuguese
• The Dutch
• The British
• The French

COLONIAL EXPLORATION

• Index
• The French
• The British
• Other
• Inland explorers

Colonial Exploration: 1793 - Don Alexandro Malaspina

The voyage of exploration to the Pacific led by Don Alexandro Malaspina was one of the great eighteenth-century expeditions in the style of those led by James Cook and the Comte de la Pérouse. But while it was a major scientific expedition, it also has hidden objectives. Spain at the time possessed the largest colonial empire. For many years it had laid claim to a monopoly of colonial enterprise in the Pacific. Was this monopoly under threat? One of the expedition's secret aims was to discover the condition and the purpose of the new British outposts at Port Jackson. Malaspina, with the Spanish discovery ships Descobierta and Atrevida, arrived at Sydney in 1793.

After examining the political situation of the Spanish colonies in the Pacific, Malaspina concluded that instead of plundering them economically, Spain should develop a confederation of states whose members would conduct international trade. He suggested that Spain should abandon the military domination of far-off lands and establish a Pacific Rim trading bloc, managed by the Spaniards from Acapulco.On September 21, 1794 the expedition returned to Cádiz after 62 months at sea.

On December 7 Malaspina was received at El Escorial by King Charles IV and Prime Minister Manuel Godoy. In March he was promoted to fleet-brigadier. In September 1795 he tried to influence government politics with proposals and memoranda that did not reflect favourably on Godoy. On November 22, on the initiative of Godoy, the Council of State, presided over by Charles IV, ordered the arrest of Malaspina on a charge of plotting against the state. The officer was arrested twenty-four hours later. On April 20, 1796, after an inconclusive trial, Charles IV decreed on his own initiative that Malaspina be demoted and imprisoned in La Coruña (in Galicia), in the isolated fortress of San Antón. From 1796 to 1802, sequestered in the castle, Alexander Malaspina wrote a variety of essays in economics, aesthetics and literary criticism.

Malaspina's secret report on the new colony of New South Wales does more than demonstrate how the European power of the rime used scientific enquiry as a cover, a means of furthering political and strategic designs. It presents evidence that Britain's Botany Bay project was part of a long term strategy to weaken her rival, Spain, by challenging her vulnerable Pacific empire. Malaspina's report had remained long forgotten until about a decade ago when it was found and translated into English. Robert King's translation of the report, headed "Political Examination of the English Settlements in the Pacific", with his introduction placing it in its historical context, reveals at last the secret history of Britain's imperial venture via the book, The Secret History of the Convict Colony. Alexandro Malaspina's Report on the British Settlement of New South Wales.

• Biography of Don Alexandro Malaspina
• Full biography of Don Alexandro Malaspina