CHAPTER I.

EARLY VOYAGES. FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

THE enterprise of Columbus, the most memorable maritime enterprise in the history of the world, formed between Europe and America the communication which will never

cease.

Nearly three centuries before the Christian era, Aristotle, following the lessons of the Pythagoreans, had taught that the earth is a sphere, and that the water which bounds Europe on the west washes the eastern shores of Asia. Instructed by him, the Spaniard Seneca believed that a ship, with a fair wind, could sail from Spain to the Indies in a few days. The opinion was revived in the middle ages by Averroes, the Arab commentator of Aristotle. Science and observation assisted to confirm it; and poets of ancient and of more recent times had foretold that empires beyond the ocean would one day be revealed to the daring navigator. The genial country of Dante and Buonarotti gave birth to Christopher Columbus, by whom these lessons were so received and weighed that he gained the glory of fulfilling the prophecy. Accounts of the navigation from the eastern coast of Africa to Arabia had reached the western kingdoms of Europe; and adventurous Venetians, returning from travels beyond the Ganges, had filled the world with dazzling descriptions of the wealth of China as well as marvellous reports of the outlying island empire of Japan. It began to be believed that the continent of Asia stretched over far more than a hemisphere, and that the remaining distance round the globe was comparatively short. Yet from the early part of the fifteenth century the navigators of Portugal had directed their explorations to the coast of

Africa; and, when they had ascertained that the torrid zone is habitable even under the equator, the discovery of the islands of Madeira and the Azores could not divert them from the purpose of turning the southern capes of that continent and steering past them to the land of spices, which promised untold wealth to the merchants of Europe, new dominions to its princes, and heathen nations to the religion of the cross. Before the year 1474, and perhaps as early as 1470, Columbus was attracted to Lisbon, which was then the great centre of maritime adventure. He came to insist with immovable resoluteness that the shortest route to the Indies lay across the Atlantic. By the words of Aristotle, received through Averroes, and by letters from Toscanelli, the venerable cosmographer of Florence, who had drawn a map of the world with eastern Asia rising over against Europe, he was riveted in his faith, and lived only in the idea of laying open the western path to the Indies.

After more than ten years of vain solicitations in Portugal, he left the banks of the Tagus to seek the aid of Ferdinand and Isabella, rich in nautical experience, having watched the stars at sea from the latitude of Iceland to near the equator at Elmina. Though yet longer baffled by the skepticism which knew not how to comprehend the clearness of his conceptions, or the mystic trances which sustained his inflexibility of purpose, or the unfailing greatness of his soul, he lost nothing of his devotedness to the sublime office to which he held himself elected from his infancy by the promises of God. When half resolved to withdraw from Spain, travelling on foot, he knocked at the gate of the monastery of La Rabida, at Palos, to crave the needed charity of food and shelter for himself and his little son whom he led by the hand, the destitute and neglected seaman, in his naked poverty, was still the promiser of kingdoms; holding firmly in his grasp "the keys of the ocean sea," claiming, as it were from Heaven, the Indies as his own, and "dividing them as he pleased." It was then that through the prior of the convent his holy confidence found support in Isabella, the queen of Castile; and in 1492, with three poor vessels, of which the largest only was decked, embarking from Palos for the Indies by way of the west, Columbus gave a

New World to Castile and Leon, "the like of which was never done by any man in ancient or in later times."

Successive popes of Rome had already conceded to the Portuguese the undiscovered world from Cape Bojador in Africa easterly to the Indies. To prevent collision between Christian princes, on the fourth of May, 1493, Alexander VI. published a bull, in which he drew an imaginary line from the north pole to the south a hundred leagues west of the Azores, assigning to Spain all that lies to the west of that boundary, while all to the east of it was confirmed to Portugal.

The commerce of the middle ages, concentrated upon the Mediterranean Sea, had enriched the Italian republics, and had been chiefly engrossed by their citizens. After the fall of the Byzantine empire the Christian states desired to escape the necessity of strengthening the Ottoman power by the payment of tribute on all intercourse with the remoter east. Maritime enterprise, transferring its home to the borders of the Atlantic, set before itself as its great problem the discovery of a pathway by sea to the Indies; and England, which like Spain and Portugal looked out upon the ocean, became a competitor for the unknown world.

The wars of the houses of York and Lancaster had terminated with the intermarriage of the heirs of the two families; the spirit of commercial activity began to be successfully fostered; and the marts of England were frequented by Lombard adventurers. The fisheries of the north had long tempted the merchants of Bristol to an intercourse with Iceland; and had matured the nautical skill that could buffet the worst storms of the Atlantic. Nor is it impossible that some uncertain traditions respecting the remote discoveries which Icelanders had made in Greenland toward the north-west, "where the lands nearest meet," should have excited "firm and pregnant conjectures." The achievement of Columbus, revealing the wonderful truth of which the germ may have existed in the imagination of every thoughtful mariner, won the admiration which belonged to genius that seemed more divine than human; and "there was great talk of it in all the court of Henry VII." A feeling of disappointment remained, that a series of disasters had defeated the wish of the illustrious.

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Genoese to make his voyage of essay under the flag of England. It was, therefore, not difficult for John Cabot, a denizen of Venice, residing at Bristol, to interest that politic king in plans for discovery. On the fifth of March, 1496, he obtained under the great seal a commission empowering himself and his three sons, or either of them, their heirs, or their deputies, to sail into the eastern, western, or northern sea with a fleet of five ships, at their own expense, in search of islands, provinces, or regions hitherto unseen by Christian people; to affix the banners of England on city, island, or continent; and, as vassals of the English crown, to possess and occupy the territories that might be found. It was further stipulated in this "most ancient American state paper of England,” that the patentees should be strictly bound, on every return, to land at the port of Bristol, and to pay to the king one fifth part of their gains; while the exclusive right of frequenting all the countries that might be found was reserved to them and to their assigns, without limit of time.

Under this patent, which, at the first direction of English enterprise toward America, embodied the worst features of monopoly and commercial restriction, John Cabot, taking with him his son Sebastian, embarked in quest of new islands and a passage to Asia by the north-west. After sailing prosperously, as he reported, for seven hundred leagues, on the twenty-fourth day of June, 1497, early in the morning, almost fourteen months before Columbus on his third voyage came in sight of the main, and more than two years before Amerigo Vespucci sailed west of the Canaries, he discovered the western continent, probably in the latitude of about fifty-six degrees, among the dismal cliffs of Labrador. He ran along the coast for many leagues, it is said even for three hundred, and landed on what he considered to be the territory of the Grand Cham. But he encountered no human being, although there were marks that the region was inhabited. He planted on the land a large cross with the flag of England, and, from affection for, the republic of Venice, he added the banner of St. Mark, which had never before been borne so far. On his homeward voyage he saw on his right hand two islands, which for want of provisions he could not stop to explore. After an absence

of three months the great discoverer re-entered Bristol harbor, where due honors awaited him. The king gave him money, and encouraged him to continue his career. The people called him the great admiral; he dressed in silk; and the English, and even Venetians who chanced to be at Bristol, ran after him with such zeal that he could enlist for a new voyage as many as he pleased.

A second time Columbus had brought back tidings from the isles which to the end of his life he steadfastly believed to be the outposts of India. It appeared to be demonstrated that ships might pass by the west into those rich eastern realms where, according to the popular belief, the earth teemed with spices, and imperial palaces glittered with pearls and rubies, with diamonds and gold. On the third day of the month of February next after his return, "John Kaboto, Venician," accordingly obtained a power to take up ships for another voyage, at the rates fixed for those employed in the service of the king, and once more to set sail with as many companions as would go with him of their own will. With this license every trace of John Cabot disappears. He may have died before the summer; but no one knows certainly the time or the place of his end, and it has not even been ascertained in what country this finder of a continent first saw the light.

His second son, Sebastian Cabot, probably a Venetian by birth, a cosmographer by profession, succeeded to the designs. of his father. He reasoned justly, that, as the degrees of longitude decrease toward the north, the shortest route to China and Japan lies in the highest practicable latitude; and with youthful fervor he devoted himself to the experiment. In May, 1498, Columbus, radiant with a glory that shed a lustre over his misfortunes and griefs, calling on the Holy Trinity with vows, and seeing paradise in his dreams, embarked on his third voyage to discover the main land, and to be sent back in chains. In the early part of the same month Sebastian Cabot, then not much more than twenty-one years of age, chiefly at his own cost, led forth two ships and a large company of English volunteers, to find the north-west passage to Cathay and Japan. A few days after the English navigator had left the port of Bristol, Vasco da Gama, of Portugal, as