Allusions had been occasionally made to this work by Spanish writers in the 17th century, amongst others by De Luque, the author of the "Establecimientos Ultramarinos de las Naceones Europeas." It was not, however, till so late a period as 1790 that the attention of men of science was drawn to the Madrid manuscript by J. N. Buache, the geographer of the King of France, in a paper read before the Academy of Sciences at Paris in that year. Captain Burney states, that the manuscript had been brought to notice shortly before by M. de Mendoza, a captain in the Spanish navy, who was employed in forming a collection of voyages for the use of that service. M. Buache, who had succeeded D'Anville as Geographer Royal in 1768, followed the geographical system of Ph. Buache, his relative and predecessor, and, like him, clung fondly to questionable discoveries. He had been employed to prepare instructions for the expedition of La Perouse, and thus his attention had been especially drawn to voyages of discovery on the north-west coast of America. He declared himself in his memoir so strongly in favor of the genuineness of the manuscript, and of the good faith of Maldonado, that the Spanish government, in order that the question might be definitively set at rest, directed its archives to be searched, and the manuscript in the library of the Duke of Infantado to be carefully examined, and at the same time gave orders that the corvettes Descubierta and Atrevida, which were fitting out at Acapulco for a voyage round the world, should explore the coasts and port which Maldonado pretended to have discovered in the South Sea. The archives, however, furnished ample evidence of the correctness of the ancient opinion that Maldonado was an impostor, and the expedition of the corvettes, which sailed in 1791, confirmed this fact beyond dispute. A memoir to that effect, founded upon their observations, was published in 1797, by Don Ciriaco Cevallos, who had accompanied the expedition, to prove the utter falsity of Maldonado's story.
It was, however, once more revived by the discovery of the Ambrosian manuscript in 1812 by Carlo Amoretti. This is said to give a more succinct account than the Madrid document, and it has been thought by some to be an abridgment of it. The article in the Quarterly Review above alluded to was occasioned by its appearance, and to the curious will furnish ample information. The Milan account of the voyage may be referred to in the fifth volume of Burney's History of Voyages. The Madrid document will be found in Barrow's Chronological History of Voyages in the Arctic Regions.