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 fensive object. The plan was to explore minutely the coast of Upper California, and establish forts at two good harbours which were to be refitting stations for the ships from Manila when they arrived after the terrible buffetings of the long voyage across the Pacific. Sebastian Vizcaino made the necessary explorations in 1602–3, mapping carefully the California harbours of Monterey and San Diego.

Vizcaino's voyages. The activity of Vizcaino, which was not followed up by the fortification of the California harbours, as he advised, marks the end of Spanish exploring activity on the coast for more than a century and a half. The Manila ships, as the vessels trading to the Philippines were called, were almost the only Spanish craft to approach the coast of Upper California during that long interval, while the tribes and peoples seen by Cabrillo, Drake and Vizcaino remained during the same period in their earlier condition of unrelieved barbarism.

Decline of Spain. Spain, meantime, entered upon that remarkable era of relative decline, beginning with the destruction of her Great Armada in 1588, which gave opportunity to England, France, and Holland to participate in the colonization of America as competitors of Spain. England, on account of her naval development, was enabled to outstrip all of her rivals and finally, at the conclusion of the French war in 1763, to gain the whole eastern half of North America, all of which had once been claimed by Spain under the name of Florida.