The following quotation exemplifies very nicely the prejudices pervading the intellectual, academic, literary and why not popular Angloamerican thinking about Europeans other than themselves, and most importantly, before themselves, going into the Pacific. They might have been there, but they really did not do much and had no impact whatsoever on the local dynamics, the argument goes. The truth is that the early European navigations and expeditions, colonization attempts, and generally speaking contacts with islanders in Asia-Pacific during the 16th and 17th centuries by Dutch, Portuguese and especially Spanish, have never been seriously studied so far, but there are hints to believe that they may have had important consequences for the local populations. NAO is the first comprehensive attempt to tackle this question.
1740: the Centurion, a ship from the Royal Navy, plans to capture a Spanish squadron that carries gold in the Pacific. The midshipmen in their berth speak about the mission.
‘They mount three hundred and four guns to our combined two hundred and thirty-six,’ said Elliot, ‘and that gives them sixty-eight more than us, quite apart from their extra weight of metal – the Guipuscoa has thirty-sixes in her lower tier.’
‘But they are only Spaniards,’ observed Peter.
‘Dagoes,’ said Preston.
‘There you go again,’ said Ransome, ‘calling names. How can you be so simple? Don’t you know they have been rounding the Horn and sailing the South Sea these hundred year and more, where we never been? You got to be a right seaman to do that, ain’t you? It is just like these farming coves by land. They say, “Oh, it is only a parcel of Spaniards,” they say. “Our men beat them, in course.” So you get no thanks because it is only natural, and if you are beat because you was out-gunned and out-manned and you could not open your gun-deck ports, which we swim too low to open ‘em now in a hatful of wind, and the Spaniard has a tumble-home as high as a first-rate with all his guns in play –why, then they are down on you, these City coves and these farmers, like a hundred of bricks, and call you a pitiful fellow. No. You can say whatever you like,’ he continued obstinately, although no one had contradicted him, ‘but the Spaniards can build ships and sail ‘em and fight ‘em too.’
‘It stands to reason they can,’ said Elliot, ‘and in the wardroom they say there is a correspondence between the governor of this place and the Spaniards on the mainland: so they will know our force now, if they did not know it before; and they will take their measures accordingly.’
‘You can say what you like,’ repeated Ransome, shaking his head, ‘but if the Spaniards can’t build ships and sail ‘em and fight ‘em too, you may call me Jack Pudding.’
(From Patrick O’Brian’s The Golden Ocean: 121-122).
A highly advisable reading!