Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/172

 24 A MEMORIAL RESPECTING

respects so different from those of Chili and Peru, it was taken for certain that it was the coast of the southern conti- nent, and seemed to be far better and richer than that of Peru. Besides all this, the great number of large islands which, as has been stated, have been discovered on voyages from the coast of Peru, made with the object of discover- ing the southern land, are necessarily the evidences of the proximity of a very large and not very distant continent, as we see in the islands of the archipelago of San Lazaro, near which are the Phillippines, the Moluccas, Amboina, those of Banda,^ the Javas, and many others in their neighbour- hood, which are the evidences of the proximity of the great coast of the continent of Asia ; I now allude to India beyond the Ganges, the kingdoms of Siam and Cambodia, that of the Great Mogul and China, leaving out what lies more to the westward.

From all which it follows how infallibly certain is the great- ness, populousness, fertility, and riches of the southern conti- nent, and how readily, according to what has been above de- monstrated, it may be discovered and subjected to an evangeli- cal and spiritual conquest, by which may be attracted to our Mother, the Catholic Church, millions upon millions of most faithful and sincere sons as the result of this mighty evan- gelical conquest. And if the vast extent of the southern continent of which we have been writing, were not such as it has thus evidently been shown to be, for planting therein the purity of our holy and Catholic religion, nevertheless we have in that portion of the southern hemisphere which we have already seen and visited, if we take into considera- tion all the above-mentioned islands, more land than half of Europe, and as rich, populous, and fertile, in which there is the full harvest of which Christ our Lord and treasure spoke, to be cultivated by the holy labourers and preachers of His gospel.

' Printed in the original thus, " Bandalaizavas", probably misprinted for Bauda, las Zavas, or Javas,