Terra Australis Incognita; Or, A New Southern Discovery, containing A Fifth Part of the World — A Reader’s Guide

A Voice of Desperate Persistence

The opening paragraphs of the petition establish a tone of weary insistence. Queirós reminds the king that this is his eighth petition, and that he has received “no Answer or Hope.” The language is that of a supplicant who has exhausted patience: he has “desperately exposed” himself to perils, “diminished and sunk” his estate, and suffered “strange and extraordinary Crosses.” The repetition of first-person testimony—what he has seen with his own eyes, what his admiral has represented—serves to anchor the appeal in lived experience. Yet the voice is also that of a man performing humility before power, using phrases like “most humble Servant” and “Bowels of the Divine Charity” to frame his ambition as pious service. The tension between self-abasement and self-assertion runs through every paragraph.

The Rhetoric of Absence

One of the most striking features of Queirós’s description is what he says the land lacks. He catalogs absences: “no barren and sandy Ground, nor any Thistles, or Trees that are thorny … no Marshes or Fenns, no Snow upon the Mountains, no Snakes or Serpents, no Crocodiles in the Rivers, no Worms … no Fleas, Catterpillers, or Gnats.” This negative enumeration is a deliberate rhetorical strategy. By listing what is not there, Queirós constructs an Edenic counter-image to the known hardships of other colonial outposts. The passage gains force from its accumulation of denied nuisances, each item a small victory over the expected. He even notes that unsalted meat keeps sweet for two days—a detail that turns a mundane observation into proof of the soil’s “Wholesomeness and Pureness.” The land is defined by its lack of the ordinary irritants of life.

Ritual and Possession

The petition’s middle section shifts from complaint to ceremony. Queirós describes the formal acts of taking possession: erecting a cross, building a church, celebrating twenty masses, and processing with the king’s banner. The language becomes liturgical, with capitalized nouns—“the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament,” “the Presence of the same”—and a rhythm of solemn repetition. He sets up titles and columns “with the Arms of your Majesty tricked and garnished thereupon.” The word tricked (meaning adorned or decorated) is a small lexical marker of the period’s formal vocabulary. This section functions as legal evidence: the acts are enumerated as proof that possession was taken according to the required forms. Queirós then pivots to a grand claim: the discovery fulfills the motto Plus ultra, extending the bounds of the Spanish dominions. The tone here is confident, even triumphant, a contrast to the earlier desperation.

Readers should approach this text as a piece of persuasive writing rather than a straightforward account. Queirós’s petition is shaped by its audience and purpose: every detail is selected to move a monarch to action. The shifts in register—from abject plea to confident inventory to ceremonial recitation—are part of a calculated rhetorical performance. Pay attention to what is emphasized and what is omitted, and consider how the author’s voice adapts to the demands of the court. The work offers a window into the language of early modern colonial advocacy, where personal testimony, religious duty, and the promise of a land without thistles all served the same end.