Juan Francisco de La Bodega Y Quadra - Death

Death

After suffering from chronic headaches for several years, in April 1793 Bodega y Quadra requested a leave from his duties to restore his health. It was granted and he left San Blas for Guadalajara and Mexico City. He suffered a strong fluxo de sangre (blood loss or haemorrhage) in Guadalajara. He had a seizure in Mexico City and died there on March 26, 1794, at the age of 49. The internist Dr. John Naish has conjectured that Bodega y Quadra's death was the result of either a brain tumor or the severest form of hypertension. Given the lack of details and the imprecision contemporary diagnosis and description, Viceroy Revillagigedo's statement official statement that Bodega died "of natural causes" is indisputable.

When George Vancouver, at Nootka Sound again in September 1794, learned of Bodega's death, he wrote in his journal (grammar and misspellings from the original):

"The death of our highly valuable and much esteemed friend Senr Quadra, who in the month of March had died at St. Blas, universally lamaneted. Having endeavoured, on a former occasion, to point out the degree of admiration and respect with which the conduct of Sen'r Quadra toward our little community had impressed us during his life, I cannot refrain, now that he is no more, from rendering that justice to his memory to which it is so amply intitled, by stating, that the unexpected melancholey event of his decease operated on the minds of us all, in a way more easily to be imagined than described: and whilst it excited our most grateful acknowledgements, it produced the deepest regret for the loss of a character so amiable, and so truly ornamental to civil society."