On their coming up, they anchored just abreast of the two points which form Sydney Cove, declining saluting, as it was not in our power to return it.  These ships were of three hundred and five tons burden each, and were built for the particular voyage on which they were sent.  Great care was observable in their construction, both as to the strength of the vessels and the accommodation of the officers and the equipage.  They were well manned, and had, beside the officers customary in king’s ships, a botanist and limner on board each vessel.

They had visited all the Spanish possessions in South America and other parts of the world, ascertaining with precision their boundaries and situations; gaining much information respecting their customs and manners, their importance with regard to the mother country, their various productions commercial, agricultural, botanical, and mineral.  For all which purposes the officers on board appeared to have been selected with the happiest success.  They most forcibly reminded us of the unfortunate Count de la Perouse and his followers, of whom these gentlemen had only heard that they were no more; and for whose destiny they expressed a feeling arising from their having traversed the ocean in the same pursuit, and followed in the same path.  Equally sincere and polite as Count de la Perouse, the Spanish commodore paid a tribute to the abilities and memory of our circumnavigator Cook, in whose steps the Chevalier Malaspina, who was an Italian marquis and a knight of Malta, declared it was a pleasure to follow, as it left him nothing to attend to, but to remark the accuracy of his observations.  They lost at the island of Luconia Don Antonio Pineda, a colonel of the Spanish guards, who was charged with that department of the expedition which respected the natural history of the places they visited.  They spoke of him in high terms as a man of science and a gentleman, and favoured us with an engraving of the monument which they had caused to be erected over his grave at the place where he died; and from which the following inscription was copied: 

ANTONIO .  PINEDA . 
Tribuno .  Militum . 
Virtute .  In .  Patriam .  Bello .  Armisque .  Insigni . 
Naturae .  Demum .  Indefesso .  Scrutatori . 
Trienni .  Arduo .  Itinere .  Orbis .  Extrema .  Adiit . 
Telluris .  Viscera .  Pelagi .  Abyssos .  Andiumque .  Cacumina.  Lustrans . 
Vitae .  Simul .  Et .  Laborum .  Gravium . 
Diem .  Supremum .  Obiit .  In .  Luconia .  Phillipicarum . 
VI Calendas .  Julii .  M.D.C.C.X.C.II. 
Prematuram .  Optimi .  Mortem . 
Luget .  Patria .  Luget .  Fauna .  Lugent .  Amici . 
Qui .  Hocce .  Posuere .  Monumenturn .

The monument was designed by Don Fernando Brambila, the landscape-painter on board the Atrevida; and the inscription did credit to the classical knowledge of Senor Don Fadeo Heencke, the botanist on board the Descuvierta.