Antonio de Ulloa

Antonio de Ulloa
Portrait of Antonio de Ulloa (c.1856), by Andrés Cortés y Aguilar, Seville City Hall.
Known for	discovery of platinum

Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Guiral (Seville, January 12, 1716 – Isla de León, July 5, 1795) was a Spanish naturalist, military officer and writer. He was Governor of Huancavelica and of Louisiana. Through one of his writings he made the existence of platinum known to the international scientific community.

Family

The Ulloa lineage originated in Toro, in the Province of Zamora, and had settled in Seville at the end of the 15th century. In 1567 Esteban de Ulloa had purchased the office of caballero veinticuatro, so that he and his heirs became municipal councilors of Seville.

Bernardo de Ulloa was a prominent economist and advocate of free trade who managed the soap factories of the Duke of Medinaceli. He was a caballero veinticuatro from 1705 and, together with the rest of the Sevillian councilors, obtained the favor of being made gentleman of the mouth (gentilhombre de boca) of the King, for having voted in favor of Philip V in the municipal Cabildo.

In 1713 Bernardo married, in the parish of San Miguel in Seville, Josefa de la Torre Guiral, from a well-to-do family of Palomares del Río.

The marriage of Bernardo and Josefa produced ten children.

The couple's first child was Martín de Ulloa, born in 1714. He was a member of the Royal Academy of History and of the Royal Spanish Academy, Lieutenant Governor of Havana, alcalde mayor and Oidor of the Audiencia of Seville, member of the Royal Sevillian Academy of Good Letters and director of the Patriotic Society of Seville. The next child was Admiral Antonio de Ulloa.

The family must have instilled Catholic devotion, since one son was a friar and superior of the Convent of San Acacio, one daughter was a nun in the Monastery of San Clemente and another in the Convent of Santa María del Socorro.

Two sons entered the Army's Infantry Corps. One of the offspring, Vicente, did as Antonio had and joined the Navy.

Another son, Fernando, born around 1730, was chief engineer of the works on the Canal de Castilla.

Biography

Antonio de Ulloa was born in Seville on January 12, 1716 at number 1 Calle del Clavel (today Almirante Ulloa), on the corner of Calle Armas (today Alfonso XII). He was baptized in the parish of San Vicente on February 22 of the same year.

His early education took place in the family home under private teachers and tutors.

One of his teachers was Fray Pedro Vázquez Tinoco, a professor at the College of Santo Tomás in Seville. Vázquez held a chair in Law, although he also had knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, which he taught to the young Antonio.

The Royal Decree (Real Cédula) of February 21, 1714 created the Royal Navy (Armada Real), which unified the existing scattered squadrons. To provide it with officers, the Royal Company of Gentlemen Midshipmen (Real Compañía de Caballeros Guardiamarinas) was created in Cádiz in 1717.

To enter the midshipmen's academy it was necessary to be a hidalgo or the son of a captain. Under the Instruction of 1718 drawn up by José Patiño Rosales, candidates for the academy had to be between 14 and 16 years old. Another requirement was good health.

In 1730 Antonio de Ulloa, who was fourteen, tried to enter the midshipmen's academy but was unable to. According to the historian Julio Guillén Tato, Ulloa was in poor health and his father decided that he should enlist in Manuel López Pintado's Tierra Firme Fleet so that he would acquire a liking for the sea and improve his health with the change of air. According to the historian Ascensión López Vázquez, this lack of health on Ulloa's part has not been proven, and it is more likely that he could not enter the academy because he did not present at that time the documents proving his hidalguía. While this documentation was being obtained, Bernardo would have asked Manuel López Pintado, also a caballero veinticuatro of Seville, who at that time commanded the Tierra Firme Fleet, to admit his son as an aventurero, that is, as a sailor on warships at the level of an aspirant to serve in the Navy. The aventurero had no right to pay. The historian Martín Fernández de Navarrete indicated that Ulloa may not have been able to enter the academy in 1730 because there were not enough places.

On January 27, 1730 he became a crew member of the galleon San Luis, flagship of the Tierra Firme Fleet. During the five months they waited to sail for America he acquired knowledge that qualified him to act as a privateer. In June of the same year he sailed from Cádiz on the San Luis bound for Cartagena de Indias. There, Lieutenant General López Pintado ordered him to embark on one of the two sloops he chartered to prevent smuggling on the coasts of Cartagena de Indias and Santa Marta.

In January 1731 he went with his fleet to Portobelo, where he stayed for five months. He then moved to Havana. Throughout this time he was trained by Juan José Navarro and López Pintado for the entrance examination to the midshipmen's academy. Ulloa had manuals used at the Cádiz academy, including those written by its director, Pedro Manuel Cedillo y Rujaque.

In August 1731 he left Havana. While passing through the Bahama Channel they were caught in a strong storm, and the flagship was especially damaged. After this, he managed to reach the port of Guárico, in the north of the island of Hispaniola. He remained there until the repair of the ships was finished, in April 1732. During that time, López Pintado devoted himself to drawing up navigation charts with routes and to measuring the depths of anchorages in order to find the best sites, giving Ulloa his first experience in cartography.

He returned to Cádiz on the San Luis on June 21, 1732.

On November 25, 1733 he submitted all the documentation to enter the midshipmen's academy, including a proof of his hidalguía. The proof of hidalguía consisted of showing that his ancestors had collected the "blanca de la carne" (that is, that by their status as hidalgos they were exempt from a tax on meat in Seville). He obtained an outstanding mark in the entrance examination and entered the academy on November 28 of the same year.

Naples campaign

His training was, first of all, practical. In 1733 José Patiño ordered the formation of a squadron of 20 warships bound for Italy. Six ships from Galicia arrived in Cádiz, where they joined five other vessels. Ulloa was aboard one of the Cádiz ships, the Santa Teresa, under the command of Frigate Captain Pedro Mendieta. One of the ships went to Ceuta to pick up the Navarre Regiment. Afterwards, all the ships went on to Málaga to join six more ships commanded by Justiniani. The squadron continued to Alicante, where more ships joined. They then reached Barcelona, where they were joined by the ship Real Felipe and a convoy of merchant vessels carrying troops and artillery. After setting off for Naples, Ulloa took part in a naval battle against the Austrians, which the Spanish won.

The geodesic expedition

Commemorative plaque of the departure of Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa on the geodesic expedition, installed in 1985 next to the Arco del Pópulo in Cádiz.

Portrait of Antonio de Ulloa painted in the 19th century by José Roldán Martínez. Naval Museum of Madrid.

Astronomical pendulum of Antonio de Ulloa made in London by John Ellicott in the 18th century. Naval Museum of Madrid.

In 1733 the French Academy of Sciences was divided between those who believed, as Isaac Newton said, that the earth was flattened at the poles, and those who believed, as Descartes said, that the earth was flattened at the equator.

The French Secretary of State Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux submitted, through the ambassador in Spain, a request for French expedition members to carry out geodesic measurements in Quito, in the Viceroyalty of Peru. The proposal was approved by the King in April 1734. The matter was then passed to the Council of the Indies, where the cosmographer Carlos de la Reguera considered the project very useful and indicated that the expedition members should be assisted by one or two experts in mathematics and astronomy who would report on their discoveries. The fiscal of the Council of the Indies proposed that they be two Spaniards. José Patiño agreed that Spaniards should take part in the expedition. The Real Cédula of August 14, 1734 authorized the passage of the French together with two Spaniards with knowledge of mathematics and astronomy to report on what was being done. By Real Cédula of August 20, 1734 the French were guaranteed the collaboration of the American governors.

The Spaniards chosen were the midshipmen Jorge Juan and Juan García del Postigo. However, García del Postigo was away at sea on training and Antonio de Ulloa was selected in his place. By Royal Dispatch dated January 3, 1735 at the Palace of El Pardo, Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa were granted the rank of ship lieutenants (tenientes de navío).

Among the French would be three members of the French Academy of Sciences: Louis Godin (director of the expedition), Pierre Bouguer and Charles Marie de La Condamine. The botanist Joseph Jussieu would also go.

On April 22, 1735 the instructions for the Spaniards were approved at El Pardo; these consisted above all of attending the observations and drawing up maps to improve navigation.

The Spaniards sailed from Cádiz on May 26, 1735. Jorge Juan traveled on the ship Conquistador and Antonio de Ulloa on the Incendio. They called at Cartagena de Indias on July 9, where they would bring, on the Conquistador, the 3rd Marquis of Villagarcía so that he could take possession of the office of Viceroy of Peru.

In Cartagena de Indias they met the French scientists, who had left La Rochelle on May 16, 1735 aboard the ship Portefaix and had called at Santo Domingo and at an island located between Hispaniola and Martinique, where they acquired six black slaves.

The Spaniards and the French then boarded a French sloop and reached Portobelo on November 29. On December 22 they set out along the Camino de Cruces. They then reached the city of Panama, where they stayed the whole month of January. They left on February 22, 1736 on the Spanish merchant ship San Cristóbal bound for the port city of Guayaquil. Overland, they traveled along mountain roads, through Guaranda and Chimborazo. They reached the Province of Quito on May 29, 1736.

After everything necessary was arranged, the measurements began in October 1736 on the plains of Yaruquí. In 1737 another campaign of measurements took place, ending in Cuenca.

In a letter of 1737 from Ulloa to the President of the Audiencia of Quito, José de Araujo y Río, the naval officer addressed him as "vuestra merced" and not as "vuestra señoría", which was what protocol required. Araujo then replied in writing to Ulloa that he should "learn manners". This offended Ulloa, who presented himself at Araujo's palace to tell him that he was not his superior, since as a naval officer he could only be judged by another naval officer. In 1739 a Real Cédula ruled in Ulloa's favor.

Between July and August 1739 the expedition members were in Quito for the construction of new measuring instruments, and then returned to Cuenca.

On December 24, 1739 the two Spanish naval officers received orders from the Viceroy of Peru to move to Lima to help in the defense against a possible English attack. Ulloa, owing to a fall, was not fit to make the journey to Lima overland, so they resorted to river navigation and coastal sailing. To allow Ulloa to recover, they had to remain for a time in Piura. They reached Lima in March 1740. After this, Jorge Juan was put in charge of supervising the construction of twelve galliots in the shipyards of Guayaquil and Callao, while Antonio de Ulloa drew up a plan of Callao and was in charge of repairing the cannons whose vents had been blown.

The English attack, led by Vernon, took place at Cartagena de Indias in 1741, and the city was successfully defended by Blas de Lezo. After this, Ulloa and Juan went to Callao to supervise the repair of the walls. As there was no news that the English Admiral Anson had entered the Pacific Ocean, Ulloa and Juan were allowed to return to Quito, where, after a stop at Paita, they arrived on September 5.

About three months later, in the face of the threat from the English Admiral Anson, the Viceroy of Peru entrusted the two Spanish naval officers with patrol duties. Ulloa would embark on the ship Rosa and Juan on the Belén to cover the Juan Fernández archipelago and the coasts of Concepción and Valparaíso. On March 21 Ulloa, who was in Valparaíso, received orders to transport troops to Valdivia on the Rosa. The bad state of the sea caused the ship's deck to flood and 31 crew members fell ill from lack of air. Ulloa decided to return to Valparaíso and then go to Callao. Governor José Antonio Manso de Velasco reproached Ulloa for not having carried out his orders and ordered that he be court-martialed, though the court-martial was never held.

In January 1744, with the relevant permission, Ulloa and Juan returned to Quito to take part in the last geodesic measurements.

By then the French had received news that an expedition of Pierre Louis Maupertuis to Lapland had shown that the earth was flattened at the poles, and the French academicians La Condamine and Bouguer had left. The work was concluded on May 22, 1744. The War of the Asiento had cut Spanish communications between America and Europe, so the expedition members had to remain in America for some time longer, running up debts. To pay off this debt, Godin began working as a professor at the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Lima.

On January 17, 1745 the two Spanish naval officers were able to embark on the French ships Liz and Deliverance and sailed from the port of Callao. The Liz had to stop to be repaired, and the Deliverance, on which Antonio de Ulloa was traveling, was captured by the English at Louisbourg on August 13. On October 19 Ulloa was taken prisoner on the frigate Sunderland to Portsmouth. He arrived on December 22, and the 1st Earl of Harrington, Secretary of State and a member of the Royal Society, ordered Ulloa to appear before him. The Earl of Harrington decided to help Ulloa present himself in Spain with the documents of the expedition. The documents were reviewed in London and returned to Ulloa by the President of the Royal Society, Martin Folkes, who found them of great interest. Ulloa took advantage of his stay in the British capital to attend meetings of the Royal Society. In July 1746 Ulloa reached Madrid. On December 11 of that year, thanks to the Earl of Harrington and to Folkes, Ulloa was made a member of that scientific society, distinguishing himself when he contributed to its publications.

Antonio de Ulloa and Jorge Juan were promoted to frigate captains on July 20, 1746.

In April 1749 the works Observaciones Astronómicas y Phísicas and Relación Histórica del Viage a la América Meridional were published for the first time. Both works were signed by both naval officers, although the first is attributed to Jorge Juan as it concerned his specialty, and the second to Antonio de Ulloa. These two works were sold together and were published in Spanish in Madrid (in 1749, 1773, 1958 and 1978), in German in Leipzig (in 1751 and 1781), in French in Amsterdam (in 1752) and in Paris (in 1776 and 1787), in Dutch in The Hague (in 1772) and in English in London (in 1758, 1760, 1765, 1767, 1777, 1806 and 1867) and in Dublin (in 1758 and 1770).

Also in 1749 Ulloa and Juan published in Madrid the Disertación Histórica y Geográphica sobre el Meridiano de Demarcación entre los Dominios de España y Portugal.

In 1826 a controversial work was published in London under the title Noticias secretas de América, apparently also written by Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, which, among other things, dealt with matters of government, with riches and with the abuses of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities against the natives.

Description of platinum

In 1551 Gerolamo Cardano had written that a metal was "a substance that can be melted and that hardens on cooling".

In 1557 Julius Caesar Scaliger wrote the following:

I know that in Honduras, a district between Mexico and Darién, there are mines containing a substance which until now has not been able to be melted by fire or by any of the Spanish arts. Thus we see that the word melt cannot be applied to all metals.

The Spanish called this substance "platina" or "Juan blanca". In 1726 the treasurer of the Mint of Santafé de Bogotá wrote about the "pernicious metal of platina".

In 1749 Ulloa published in Madrid his book Relación Histórica del Viage a la América Meridional, in which he spoke of this metal, also calling it "platina":

In the district of Chocó, there being many placer mines, such as those just explained, there are also some where, because the gold is disguised and enveloped by other metallic bodies, juices and stones, its working requires the aid of quicksilver; and at times mineral deposits are found where the platina (a stone of such resistance that it is not easy to break it, nor to crumble it with the force of a blow upon the steel anvil) is the cause of their being abandoned; because neither calcination overcomes it, nor is there any means of extracting the metal it contains, except at the expense of much labor and cost.

Ulloa's work achieved wide circulation and was translated into several languages, informing the scientific community about the chemical element we know today as platinum.

Mission through Europe

On October 27, 1748 the Marquis of la Ensenada, minister of Ferdinand VI, gave instructions to Jorge Juan to go to England to learn about shipbuilding, in which that country was a leader.

On June 28, 1749 instructions were issued at Aranjuez for Antonio de Ulloa. First, Ulloa went to Cartagena to assist the engineer Sebastián Feringán in the remodeling of its arsenal. On August 28 he arrived in Barcelona to meet the companions who had been assigned to him to investigate scientific advances in other European countries. These companions were the Sevillian naval officer Salvador de Medina Jorge, the Canarian naval officer Alonso Pacheco Carabeo and the Sevillian marine infantryman Fernando de Ulloa de la Torre. In September he was in Valencia, making observations on ports and navigation.

By November 1749 he was already in France. Ulloa first spent time instructing his young companions in Marseille. He then inspected ports at Toulon, Lorient, Brest and Rochefort. On the way he passed through the Canal du Midi, which he also studied. He was also in Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes and Bayonne, learning about their commercial activity. In January 1750 he was in Paris, where he settled for a year, making some secondary journeys from there.

In Paris he informed himself about how the city functioned and associated with members of the French Academy of Sciences in order to learn about scientific advances and to gain access to maps and plans regarding French naval policy. He also worked to block the publication by La Condamine of a pair of maps drawn by Pedro Vicente Maldonado, in order to prevent information about Quito and Esmeraldas from being disclosed.

Ulloa had to send to Spain materials, books and specialists who would help in the training of Spanish officers and technicians. In June 1750 Jorge Juan arrived in Paris from England and devoted himself to acquiring books on naval subjects to send to Spain. The French then began to grow suspicious of Ulloa and Juan, and Juan was ordered to return to Madrid.

In the first months of 1751 Ulloa went to the Netherlands to learn about hydraulic works. He also went to the cloth factory at Abbeville. After this he was in the German city of Hamburg. He then went to Denmark, where he visited arsenals of the Danish navy and the palaces of Hørsholm, Fredensborg and Jægersborg. In Copenhagen he was received by Frederick V. In Sweden he visited the arsenal of Karlskrona and in Stockholm attended the coronation of Adolf Frederick I. In Berlin he was received by the Queen Mother and in Postdam he had lunch with Frederick II the Great and Pierre Louis Maupertuis, who at the time was president of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

On November 20 he left again for Paris. On December 26 he left Paris bound for Spain, reaching Madrid in January 1752.

Canal de Castilla

Main article: Canal de Castilla

In 1750 Ulloa hired in Paris the engineer Charles Le Maur with the aim of creating a series of canals connecting rivers to allow navigation across Castile and León. Le Maur studied the terrain in northern Castile in secret until Ulloa's arrival in Spain in 1752, when the Marquis of la Ensenada made the project public. In the first months of 1753 Ulloa was in charge of studying Le Maur's reports and visited the terrain. Subsequently, Ulloa drew up the Proyecto General de los Canales de Navegación y Riego para los reinos de Castilla y León, which was approved by the Marquis of la Ensenada between April and May 1753. Antonio de Ulloa decided to begin with the Ramal de Campos, which was finished in 1754. The work was continued by other people, among them his brother Fernando.

On May 17, 1755, after the fall of the Marquis of la Ensenada, Ulloa requested to resign from the post of technical director of the Canal de Castilla in order to continue his military career. The King accepted his resignation.

Royal House of Geography and Cabinet of Natural History

Main article: Royal House of Geography and Cabinet of Natural History

In 1752 Antonio de Ulloa conceived the creation of the Royal House of Geography and Cabinet of Natural History in Madrid, which was approved. The Marquis of la Ensenada's instruction for it provided that it should have collections of minerals, instruments and natural products, as well as maps of all the Spanish dominions, of which the institution would also be the publisher. For this Ulloa would have under him his assistant Eugenio Reigosa and the naval officers José Solano and Salvador Medina. The Cabinet of Natural History would have a chemistry laboratory where William Bowles and Agustín de La Planche would research platinum and other minerals brought from America. In 1771 Charles III would create the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, successor of the cabinet created by Ulloa and forerunner of the present-day National Museum of Natural Sciences.

The center would also cover botany, gathering plants from Europe and Overseas for their study and for the preparation of publications with engravings of them. In 1782 the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid would be founded with a similar purpose.

Other work

On January 7, 1755 a fire broke out in Almadén that lasted until July 27, 1757. This fire left the quicksilver mines there unusable. Quicksilver, or mercury, was necessary to extract American silver, and it became necessary to resort to Slovenian mercury from Idrija. Antonio de Ulloa attended to the matter of the Almadén mines and succeeded in optimizing production.

In 1754 he was a member of the Royal General Board of Trade, which had been founded in 1679.

File:20061001 - Mitad del Mundo (busto de Antonio de Ulloa).jpg

Bust of Antonio de Ulloa at the Ecuadorian tourist site Ciudad Mitad del Mundo.

Posts in the Company of Midshipmen

In 1749 Jorge Juan had been appointed Ensign of the Company of Midshipmen, Lieutenant of the same in 1750 and Captain of the institution in 1751.

In the spring of 1755 Antonio de Ulloa was appointed Ensign of the Company of Midshipmen, once again coinciding with Jorge Juan in the same posting. Ten months later Ulloa was appointed Lieutenant of the Company.

Commander of Ocaña of the Order of Santiago

On June 30, 1757 the Monarch appointed him a knight of the Order of Santiago and granted him the encomienda of Ocaña of that order. On January 27, 1761, after paying for the investigation required for this, he was invested as Commander of Ocaña.

The historian Francisco de Paula Solano Pérez-Lila said that his service record states that Ulloa also held the encomienda of Huerta de Valdecarábanos, of the Order of Calatrava, but the same author says that this is impossible because one cannot belong to two military orders.

Governor and superintendent of mines in Huancavelica

On August 14, 1757 he was appointed Governor of Huancavelica (Viceroyalty of Peru) and superintendent of the region's mercury mines. He was supposed to present himself before the Council of the Indies in Madrid but, to save him the journey to the capital, he was allowed to take possession of the office in Cádiz, which he did on September 22.

Ulloa sailed from Cádiz in February 1758 on the ship San Rafael. He passed through Buenos Aires and reached the Port of Callao on August 22. He arrived in the Villa of Huancavelica in September.

Francisco Espinosa Miranda and Jacobo Paadin, natives of Seville, and Francisco Guerra, a native of Paredes de Nava, traveled on the ship El Prudente to serve Ulloa.

Ulloa, who was a naval officer, met with distrust because he was a governor without legal training and a superintendent of mines who did not belong to the guild. The techniques used in these mines dated from the 16th century, and the quicksilver extracted had begun to lose quality, which harmed the extraction of silver at the Potosí mine.

On November 8, 1578 Ulloa entered the mines. It was a mining complex with a chaotic layout, at risk of collapse and without plans of its interiors. The first thing he did was to secure the mine to prevent collapses. After this, he set up some furnaces to check the quality of the quicksilver before it was sent to Potosí. Work was being done on some veins that did not give optimal results and, in 1759, he found a new vein which he named Fernando VI.

Until then the miners had reported on their work individually, but Ulloa ordered that they should all work in a company that would report to him, which also generated tensions with the guild. He also implemented technical improvements that made the mercury mine the most productive of the 18th century.

The foremen accepted bribes to allow ore to be extracted from prohibited areas and then did not check its quality. On the other hand, the miners' guild delivered smaller quantities than it managed to extract, in order to defraud the Royal Treasury (Caja Real). In 1760 Ulloa arrested two inspectors (veedores) to put a stop to the corruption. There were priests in the town who said that the inspectors acted in this way because of the governor, notably among them the parish priest of the Church of San Sebastián, José de Aguirre. Because of all this, Ulloa's popularity among the miners suffered.

Viceroy Manso de Velasco was on bad terms with Ulloa because in the past he had failed to supply him with relief troops. In 1761 Viceroy Manuel Amat arrived; he took the side of the miners and subjected Ulloa to two inspections, one on technical matters and another on the alleged corruption, both of which ended with favorable reports.

Ulloa perceived in the Viceroyalty of Peru an atmosphere of aggressive individualism, where anything was permitted in order to achieve one's ends. He was also opposed to the foremen's abuses of the indigenous workers.

In 1762 he submitted his resignation, which was accepted on January 4, 1764. He was ordered to go to Havana so that his actions could be reviewed. Viceroy Amat, who did not want Ulloa to leave without rendering accounts in Peru, then demanded certain payments from him and seized his property. Francisco Buenaventura Remírez de Laredo, 1st Count of San Javier y Casa Laredo, a native of Santiago de Chile, became Ulloa's guarantor and allowed him to embark on one of his ships bound for Panama. He then crossed the isthmus to Portobelo, where he embarked for Havana.

In 1764, before leaving the Viceroyalty of Peru, Antonio de Ulloa became engaged to the daughter of the 1st Count of San Javier y Casa Laredo, Francisca Remírez de Laredo. At the time, Francisca was 14 and Antonio 47. Ulloa gave Francisca some jewels he had acquired in Paris in 1750.

In Cuba

Antonio de Ulloa arrived in Havana in February 1765. In this city he fell ill with melancholy, but his friendship with the brothers Antonio María, Martín and Pascual de Bucareli, military men who had arrived to strengthen the Cuban defenses, contributed to his recovery.

In 1764 a monthly maritime mail service had been created from La Coruña to Havana, for the subsequent distribution of correspondence throughout the American continent. Ulloa took advantage of his stay in Cuba to write his Modo de facilitar los Correos de España con el Reyno del Perú, written in 1765, in which he not only showed the unviability of the existing route but also offered a possible alternative. This work describes perfectly the difficulties that the distribution of mail in South America was going through. In 1767 another postal route was added, which was to leave every month from La Coruña for Montevideo, after which the correspondence was taken to Buenos Aires and then distributed through the interior of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, Chile and Peru.

Governor of Louisiana

After the Seven Years' War, and as compensation for the losses suffered through its commitments under the Family Compact in the fight against England, Spain received from France the territory of Louisiana. In July 1765 Ulloa received the news that he had been appointed Governor of Louisiana. He left for this territory, fully restored to health, in February 1766.

Louisiana, recently incorporated and with very particular socioeconomic circumstances, depended directly on the Secretariat of State and not on the Council of the Indies.

The first thing Ulloa did was to ask Antonio María de Bucareli to send him Cuban workers to carry out sanitation works and to provide the territory with funds to pay those workers.

As a recently incorporated territory with particular socioeconomic characteristics, it depended on a Superior Council and not on the Council of the Indies. Products from Louisiana were allowed to be taken to European ports in France and Great Britain, but only Spanish ships could call at port. This measure displeased the local merchants, intermediaries and shipowners. The inhabitants complained to the Superior Council, and Ulloa's response was to request the dissolution of the Council.

France had left Louisiana with an enormous debt and the inhabitants wanted Spain to pay it. In February 1767 the Marquis of Grimaldi told Ulloa that Spain would ask France to provide the money to pay off the debt, but this did not happen. In 1768 Ulloa had to borrow money from local merchants, which was to be repaid with the money from a tax called the situado. However, the situado of that year was insufficient, increasing discontent against the governor.

As regards defense, Antonio de Ulloa had few troops and little money to pay them.

Ulloa had married Francisca Remírez de Laredo by proxy on March 11, 1766, and his wife arrived in Louisiana in June 1767. The couple settled in New Orleans. Francisca did not like the city, being accustomed to the great metropolis that Lima was. She also could not speak French and mainly associated with her maids, who spoke Spanish. As she belonged to high society, she dressed more elegantly and with more jewels than the other ladies. All this turned the inhabitants against the governor's wife.

Among the population, which wished to become French again, the argument had spread that a King could not cede a territory without the consent of those who inhabited it and that Louis XV's cession of the territory to Spain was null.

In 1768 a decree of Charles III established that nine Spanish ports (Cádiz, Seville, Málaga, Alicante, Barcelona, Cartagena, Santander, La Coruña and Gijón) could trade with that of New Orleans, but the trade had to be carried on in Spanish ships and directly, that is, without passing through the ports of the Antilles or of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

From October 28, 1768 the inhabitants of New Orleans rebelled against Spanish rule with a series of violent actions. Ulloa had to take refuge with his family at the military post of La Balize, at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The Superior Council ordered Ulloa to leave Louisiana within three days. On November 1 Ulloa left with his family for Havana. He was succeeded by Field marshal Alejandro O'Reilly, who arrived on July 19, 1769. As he arrived with new troops, the uprising ceased. Charles III pardoned that people, with the exception of the ringleaders, six of whom were shot on October 25 and another six sentenced to prison.

Back in Cádiz and Seville

In 1769 Ulloa settled with his wife and his two daughters at number 62 Calle de las Descalzas in Cádiz. On June 19, 1769 he was promoted to squadron commander (jefe de escuadra).

Between 1755 and 1773 he wrote La Marina. Fuerzas navales de la Europa y costas de Berbería, but did not receive authorization to publish it (it was found in the Archive of Simancas and published in 1995). In 1772 he published his work Noticias Americanas. Entretenimientos Phisico-históricos sobre la América Meridional y la Septentrional Oriental.

In March 1773 Ulloa took over the direction of the works on a defensive wall in Seville against the floods of the Guadalquivir River.

With the Fleet of New Spain

In March 1776 he was appointed Commander of the Fleet of New Spain. At the time Ulloa was supervising, at the Isla de León, the condition of the ships Dragón and España of the same fleet.

The Fleet of New Spain left Cádiz in May 1776. After this voyage the fleet system was replaced by that of "navíos sueltos" (individual ships). It reached the port of Veracruz on July 25, 1776.

In 1751 the matrícula de mar had been introduced in peninsular Spain, consisting of levies among sailors to man the warships. In 1775 it had been implemented in Cartagena de Indias and in 1776 in Havana. Ulloa advised Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa by letter on the introduction of the matrícula de mar in New Spain. This project was successful, and in February 1777 it was introduced in the departments of Veracruz and San Blas.

On May 25, 1777 he was authorized to go to Mexico City, where he advised Viceroy Bucareli on the creation of a shipyard in Veracruz. Ulloa proposed that the shipyard be located specifically in Tlacotalpan, as opposed to the other option under consideration, which was Coatzacoalcos. However, this shipbuilding center was never founded.

Ulloa used the knowledge acquired on this voyage to write Descripción geográfico-física de una parte de la Nueva España, a work that remained unpublished until 1979.

Spain was preparing to enter the conflict between England and its Thirteen Colonies of North America, so it was decided to make the return voyage without merchant ships that could slow down the two warships that would carry the treasure. The two warships sailed from Veracruz, passed through Havana and stopped for a month in the Canary Islands. In Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Ulloa carried out an archaeological expedition in a cave, where he obtained the mummified body of a Guanche. On June 24, 1778 Ulloa, who was sailing between Tenerife and Cádiz, witnessed a total solar eclipse, about which he published a pamphlet in Madrid in 1779. They reached Cádiz on June 29, where Ulloa commissioned a novena to the Virgin of Guadalupe in gratitude for her protection during the voyage.

He was at the Royal Site of San Ildefonso between August 9 and September 2, 1778. During this time he was received by King Charles III and dealt frequently with the Minister of the Indies, José de Gálvez.

Shortly afterwards Charles III, satisfied with his services, appointed him Lieutenant General.

On August 5, 1779 Ulloa sent a paper on the total solar eclipse to the astronomer Pierre Charles Le Monnier, of the Academy of Sciences of Paris. In 1781 this work of Ulloa's was published in the French capital, with additions from the correspondence between him and Le Monnier on the matter.

Statue of Antonio de Ulloa at the Palacio de Fomento in Madrid, sculpted by José Alcoverro in 1899.

War against Great Britain

Luis de Córdova y Córdova was put in command of a squadron that sailed from Cádiz bound for the Sisargas Islands to join a French squadron and invade England. On October 2, 1778 Ulloa was appointed second-in-command of this Spanish squadron. When they were near Finisterre, Córdova ordered Ulloa to detach himself with four ships of the line and two frigates to go west of the Azores to protect Spanish ships and attack English ships.

A week after separating, they came upon some British ships and attacked. As the British were inferior in number, they decided to flee and, although the Spanish pursued them, departing from their route, they did not manage to catch them.

On August 15, 1779 there was a storm, and the frigate Santa Mónica and the ship Fénix became separated from the group. Ulloa managed to find the Fénix, but the Santa Mónica headed for the Azores on her own and was captured by a British frigate. Shortly afterwards Ulloa came upon a Spanish hulk (urca), the Santa Inés, and, instead of incorporating it into his group, he let it go, and it was captured by British privateers.

Then there was another storm that caused the frigate Santa Magdalena to become separated; she decided to return to Cádiz.

Ulloa was supposed to remain with the ships near the Azores until the end of September 1779, but he decided to leave on September 20 because of the shortage of food and because the ship Gallardo had numerous leaks. He reached Cádiz on October 1.

He was later chosen to command a squadron of eight ships of the line, six frigates and eight smaller vessels to blockade Gibraltar by sea while an attempt was made to take the stronghold by land. They left in mid-October, but Ulloa considered that the fleet was poorly equipped and that there could be winter storms that would separate the ships, so he decided to resign and asked that someone else be put in command.

Called into question

For his conduct in the 1779 mission to the Azores, Ulloa was subjected to three departmental boards and, by Royal Decree of December 1780, to a court-martial.

The Court-Martial began in March 1781, and Ulloa personally undertook his defense against the 26 charges brought against him. These can be summarized as not having attacked the British, having been slow to reach the assigned position, the loss of the Santa Mónica and having allowed the capture of the Santa Inés. On July 10 of the same year he was acquitted of all blame. In August it was decided that the case should be reviewed by the Supreme Council of War, which also declared him innocent in February 1782.

On this matter Ulloa wrote Campaña de las Terceras: Justa vindicación de mi honor y noticia circunstanciada para la inteligencia de mi posteridad, explicando con los documentos originales la que observé en la campaña de las Yslas Terceras en el año de 1779 to clear his name. The document was kept in the library of the Convent of San Acacio in Seville and is now held at the University of Seville.

Final years

Ulloa devoted himself to administrative work in the Maritime Department. This had been located on the Isla de León since 1769, and that place was the obligatory residence of the generals of the Navy from 1789. In periods of less activity he lived with his family in Cádiz.

In 1785 he began to write a memoir to guide the lives of his children.

For three months in 1788 Ulloa was Captain General of the Navy.

On February 1, 1794 Francisco Javier Everardo-Tilly was appointed Captain General of the Navy, although owing to an indisposition Antonio de Ulloa replaced him in this post.

In 1795 he published a work of conversations with his children on naval subjects.

Ulloa died of pneumonia on July 5, 1795.

He had ordered that he be buried in the military church of the place where he died. This leads to the belief that he was buried on July 6, 1795 in the Church of San Francisco on the Isla de León. In 1995 Ship Captain Manuel Baturone Santiago inspected the church and found only a gravestone on which "Ulloa" seemed to be legible, with no human remains behind it. It was then decided simply to place a commemorative plaque in the Pantheon of Illustrious Sailors in San Fernando.

Marriage and descendants

In 1766 he married Francisca Remírez de Laredo y Encalada, daughter of the 1st Count of San Javier y Casa Laredo. They had their first daughter, Josefa María, in New Orleans and the second, María de las Mercedes, in Havana. In 1769 the couple moved to Cádiz. Their children were:

• Josefa María
• María de las Mercedes
• Bernardo
• Buenaventura
• Antonio
• Francisco Javier, who also followed a military career, took part in the Battle of Trafalgar and became Minister of the Navy, Director General of the Navy and Captain General.
• Martín José
• José María
• María del Carmen Concepción

His personal library

Many books that belonged to Ulloa remained in the possession of his descendants until they were sold around 1945. However, part of his library was probably deposited in the Convent of San Acacio in Seville and from there passed to where it is today: in the hands of the University of Seville.

Among the books from Ulloa's library preserved at the University of Seville are: Memorable Deeds and Sayings (Valerius Maximus, 1621), Memoirs to Serve for the History of Insects (René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, 1734), Experiments and Observations Tending to Illustrate the Nature and Properties of Electricity (William Watson, 1745), Reflections on the General Cause of Winds (Jean le Rond d'Alembert, 1747), Discussions on the Cause of the Inclination of the Orbits of the Planets (Pierre Bouguer, 1748), Natural History, General and Particular (Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, 1750), Memoirs for the History of the Sciences and Fine Arts (Michel Le Tellier and Jacques-Philippe Lallemant, 1701-1767), Astronomical Observations Made in Toulouse (Antoine Darquier, 1777-1782), Itinerario: Account of the Voyage of the Navigator Jan Huyghen van Linschoten to the Portuguese East Indies (Jan Huygen van Linschoten, 1596), First Book of the History of the Navigation to the East Indies (Willem Lodewijk, 1598), Sea Level (Jacobs Theubniz Lootsman, 1670), Essay on a New Theory of the Maneuvering of Ships (Johann Bernoulli, 1714), Relación del viage, que por orden de su Magestad, y acuerdo de el Real Consejo de Indias, hicieron los capitanes Bartholome Garcia de Nodal, y Gonzalo de Nodal, hermanos, naturales de Pontevedra al descubrimiento del Estrecho nuevo de San Vicente, que hoy es nombrado de Maire, y Reconocimiento del de Magallanes (Bartolomé García de Nodal, 1766), Lessons in Navigation (Vincent François Jean-Noël Dulague, 1784), Reflexiones sobre las máquinas y maniobras del uso a bordo (Francisco Ciscar, 1791), History of a Voyage to the Malvinas Islands Made in 1763 and 1764 (Antoine-Joseph Pernety, 1770), Almagest (Claudius Ptolemy, 1515), Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri, 1502), On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (Nicolaus Copernicus, 1543), Astronomia nova (Johannes Kepler, 1609), Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (Isaac Newton, 1726), Newton's Genesis Curves Through the Shadows (Patrick Murdoch, 1746), Universal Arithmetic (Isaac Newton, 1722), Method of Fluxions (Isaac Newton, 1737), The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (Isaac Newton, 1728), The Figure of the Earth Determined by Observations Made by Order of the French King (Pierre de Maupertuis, 1738), Examen marítimo teórico-práctico o tratado de mecánica aplicado a la construcción, conocimiento y manejo y demás embarcaciones (Jorge Juan, 1771), The Figure of the Earth (Pierre Bouguer, 1749), Abridged Account of a Voyage Made to the Interior of South America (Charles Marie de La Condamine, 1745), Tables of Eclipses (Georg von Peuerbach, 1514), Regimiento de navegación (Andrés García de Céspedes, 1606), Selenography (Johannes Howelcke, 1647), Astronomical Charts (Alfonso X of Castile, 1545), Book of Cosmography (Pedro Apiano, 1548), Tratado de cosas de astronomía y cosmografía y filosofía natural (Juan Pérez de Moya, 1573), Imagen del mundo sobre la esfera. Cosmografía y geografía. Teórica de planetas y arte de navegar (Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, 1626), The Art of Throwing Bombs (François Blondel, 1683), The Art of Naval Fleets (Paul Hoste, 1697) and Subterranean World (Athanasius Kircher, 1678).

Works

His writings and publications are the following:

• Discurso y reflexiones políticas sobre el estado presente de los reinos del Perú, su gobierno, régimen particular de aquellos habitadores y abusos que se han introducido en uno y otro. 1747
• Dictamen sobre la cuadratura del círculo que pretende haber hallado Mr. Faure. 1747
• Relación histórica del viaje a la América Meridional hecho de orden de S. M. para medir algunos grados del meridiano terrestre. Printed in Madrid, 1748. Signed by Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, although attributed to Antonio de Ulloa
• Historia de las Pirámides de Quito, 1748. Held at the National Library of Spain in Madrid
• Observaciones astronómicas y físicas hechas de orden de S. Mag. en los Reinos del Perú, de las cuales se deduce la figura y magnitud de la Tierra y se aplica a la navegación. Printed in Madrid, 1748. Signed by Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, although attributed to Jorge Juan
• Disertación histórica y geográfica sobre el meridiano de demarcación entre los dominios de España y Portugal, y los parajes por donde pasa en la América Meridional. Printed in Madrid, 1749
• General aviso y noticia de la obra de “Observaciones” y de la “Historia del viaje a los reinos del Perú”, que se imprimió el pasado año de 1748. Printed in Madrid, 1749.
• Informe acerca del temperamento de la ciudad de San Fernando, 1749. Held at the Royal Academy of History in Madrid
• Extracto del Informe que dio acerca del temperamento de la ciudad de San Fernando de Henares. Año 1749. Held at the Royal Academy of History in Madrid
• Limpieza de París. Método que se observa para ello; y el que parece más proporcionado que pudiera aplicarse en Madrid. 1750. Held at the General Archive of the Navy in Viso del Marqués
• Modo de hacer el aceite en Provenza. París, 6-IV-1750. Held at the Fundación Universitaria Española in Madrid
• Proyecto para la limpieza de las calles de Madrid, 1751. Held at the General Archive of the Navy in Viso del Marqués
• Noticias de la costa del Grao de Valencia y reflexiones sobre la laguna de Albufera, 1751. Held at the Naval Museum of Madrid.
• Reflexiones sobre la playa de Vinaroz, 1751. Held at the Naval Museum of Madrid
• Tratado físico e historia de la aurora boreal, 1752
• Descripción de la situación de los puertos, ensenadas, caletas y sondas de Cartagena, Portobelo, Panamá, Guayaquil, Paita, Callao... situados en la América Meridional. Year unknown. Held at the Naval Museum of Madrid
• Viaje a varias Cortes europeas y otras ciudades, con varios encargos del Real Servicio, 1753. General Archive of the Navy in Viso del Marqués
• La Marina. Fuerzas navales de la Europa y costas de Berbería con noticia de los puertos en donde están los Departamentos y Arsenales, 1755-1773. A work censored by the government at the time; the original manuscript is in the General Archive of Simancas. It was published by the University of Cádiz in 1995
• Proyectos sobre formación del principal puerto y arsenal de Cartagena, 1756. Held at the General Archive of Simancas
• Relación circunstanciada del Gobierno y Superintendencia de la Real Mina de Azogues de la villa de Huancavelica, desde el 4 de noviembre de 1758 hasta el 11 de mayo de 1763. Held at the General Archive of the Indies in Seville
• Relación de Gobierno en la villa de Huancavelica y de la provincia de los Angaraes 1758-1765. Held at the Library of the Royal Palace of Madrid
• Informe a S. M. Carlos III sobre las inteligencias que se hacen con el azogue en perjuicio de las labores de las minas de plata del Perú, 1763. Held at the Library of the Royal Palace of Madrid
• Modo de facilitar los correos de España con el reyno del Perú. 1765, published in Seville in 2001
• Representación a S. M. sobre impuestos, alcabalas y minas de plata en Perú. Isla de León, 14-9-1771. Held at the National Library of Spain in Madrid
• Noticias americanas: Entretenimientos fisico-históricos sobre la América Meridional y la Septentrional. Comparación general de los territorios, climas y producciones de las tres especies, vegetales, animales y minerales. Con relación particular de las petrificaciones de cuerpos marinos. De los indios naturales de aquellos países, sus costumbres y usos. De las antigüedades. Discurso sobre la lengua y sobre el modo en que pasaron los primeros pobladores. Printed in Madrid, 1772.
• Observaciones astronómicas y físicas hechas de orden de S. M. en los reinos del Perú. Printed in Madrid, 1773.
• Señales, órdenes e instrucciones para el gobierno de la presente flota. Printed in Cádiz, 1776.
• Cuestionario para la formación del completo conocimiento de la geografía física, antigüedades, mineralogía y metalurgia de este reino de Nueva España e instrucción sobre el modo de formarlas. Veracruz, 22 de enero de 1777. Printed in Mexico City, 1777.
• Descripción geográfico-física de una parte de la Nueva España, 1778. Published by the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1979
• El eclipse de Sol con el Anillo Refractario de sus Rayos, la luz de este astro, vista del través del Cuerpo de la Luna, o Antorcha Solar en su disco, observado en el Océano en el Navío El España, Capitana de la Flota de Nueva España. Printed in Madrid, 1779
• Cargos y descargos sobre ocurrencias durante su mando de una escuadra de cuatro buques en la guerra contra Inglaterra. 1780. Held at the Naval Museum of Madrid
• Copia que mandó sacar, autorizada con su firma, de los documentos que se presentaron en la causa seguida de averiguación de su conducta durante la campaña de las Terceras, 1782. Held at the Library of the University of Seville
• Justa vindicación de mi honor y notación circunstanciada de mi conducta para inteligencia de mi posteridad, explicando con los documentos originales la que observé en la campaña que hice a las Islas Terceras, en el año de 1779. 1782. Held at the Library of the University of Seville
• Táctica naval, 1786. Held at the Naval Museum of Madrid
• Juicio sobre el metal platino, y el modo más económico de explotarlo en el Virreinato de Santa Fe, 1788. Held at the Library of the Royal Palace of Madrid
• Registro hidrográfico de ambas Américas, septentrional y meridional, por las costas de los mares norte y sur. 1780s.
• Neptuno instructivo o ciencia práctica en la mar, 1791. Held at the National Historical Archive in Madrid and the General Archive of the Navy in Viso del Marqués
• Conversaciones de Ulloa con sus tres hijos, en servicio de la Marina, instructivas y curiosas, sobre las navegaciones y modo de hacerlas, el pilotage y la maniobra. Noticia de vientos, mares, corrientes, pájaros, pescados y anfibios; y de los fenómenos que se observan en los mares en la redondez del Globo. Printed in Madrid, 1795

Tributes

In 2013 the University of Seville inaugurated the Antonio de Ulloa Learning and Research Resource Center (CRAI), with classrooms, other rooms and some 60,000 monographs on physics, chemistry and biology.

In 2016 Spain's Correos issued a stamp in tribute to Antonio de Ulloa.

In fiction

• Antonio de Ulloa appears in the video game Assassin's Creed III: Liberation.

See also

• French Geodesic Mission

Bibliography

• Cid-Rodríguez, R. (2018). Antonio de Ulloa: un científico ilustrado en el tercer centenario de su nacimiento. Andalucía en la historia, no. 53, pp. 44–47.
• Guillén Tato, Julio F. (1973). Los tenientes de navío Jorge Juan y Santacilia y Antonio de Ulloa y de la Torre-Guiral y la medición del Meridiano. Madrid: Caja de Ahorros de Novelda.
• Losada, M. and Varela, C. (eds.). (1995) Actas del II Centenario de Don Antonio de Ulloa. Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, CSIC: Archivo General de Indias. ISBN 84-00-07523-4.
• Peña Blanco, Joaquín Guillermo (2020). La Real armada contra la Royal Navy. Editorial EAS. 292 pp.
• López Vázquez, Ascensión (2021). Antonio de Ulloa: un marino-científico entre España y América. Tesis doctoral dirigida por Manuel Bustos Rodríguez (PDF) (in español). Universidad de Cádiz.
• Gil Bautista, Rafael (2012). Almadén y sus Reales Minas de Azogue en el siglo XVIII. Tesis doctoral dirigida por Armando Arberola Romá y Miguel Fernando Gómez Vozmediano (in español). Universidad de Alicante.
• Torres Ramírez, Bibiano (1969). Alejandro O'Reilly en las Indias (in español). Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos.
• Orte Lledó, Alberto (2006). El jefe de escuadra Antonio de Ulloa y la flota de Nueva España. 1776-1778 (in español). Fundación Alvargonzález. ISBN 84-611-1340-3.

External links

• La mina de mercurio de Huancavelica: entre los intentos de reforma de Antonio de Ulloa y el continuismo de Carlos de Beranger (in Spanish)
• Portrait of Antonio de Ulloa with an epitome of his life included in the book Retratos de Españoles ilustres, published in 1791.
• Works of Antonio de Ulloa at the Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library
• Antonio de Ulloa in the Virtual Library of Polygraphs of the Ignacio Larramendi Foundation
• Antonio de Ulloa, el marino que leía a Newton (in Spanish)
• Antonio de Ulloa: aventuras de un hombre ilustrado Commemorative video for the 10th anniversary of the Antonio de Ulloa CRAI in Seville.