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COLUMBUS.

I.

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poets1 had declared, that empires beyond the ocean CHAP. would one day be revealed to the daring navigator. But Columbus deserves the undivided glory 1492. of having realized that belief. During his lifetime he met with no adequate recompense. The selflove of the Spanish monarch was offended at receiving from a foreigner in his employ benefits too vast for requital; and the contemporaries of the great navigator persecuted the merit, which they could not adequately reward. Nor had posterity been mindful to gather into a finished picture the memorials of his career, till the genius of Irving, with candor, liberality, and original research, made a record of his eventful life, and in mild but enduring colors sketched his sombre inflexibility of purpose, his deep religious enthusiasm, and the disinterested magnanimity of his character.

Columbus was a native of Genoa. The commerce of the middle ages, conducted chiefly upon the Mediterranean Sea, had enriched the Italian republics, and had been chiefly engrossed by their citizens. The path for enterprize now lay across the ocean.

1 By far the most remarkable passage in an early writer, predicting, with much amplification, the future career of discovery, I have seen quoted only in the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic, of Spain; a history not yet completed, but of which I have been favored by the author with the opportunity of consulting the manuscript. The writer necessarily includes the career of Columbus. I may well omit to dwell upon a topic, which does not directly belong to my sub

ject, and which has been so amply
and so successfully treated. The
reign of Ferdinand and Isabella
is, in part, an American theme,
for it connects the political his-
tory of Europe and the New
World.

2 Tasso, La Gerusalemme Lib-
erata, c. xv. st. 30-32.

Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un nuovo polo
Lontane si le fortunate antenne,
Ch' appena seguirà con gli occhi il volo
La fama, ch' ha mille occhi e mille penne.
Canti ella Alcide e Bacco; e di te solo
Basti ai posteri tuoi, ch' alquanto accenne,
Che quel poco darà lunga memoria
Di poema degnissima e d' istoria.

CHAP. The states which bordered upon the Atlantic, Spain, I. Portugal, and England, became competitors for the 1492. possession of the New World, and the control of the traffic, which its discovery was to call into being; but the nation, which, by long and successful experience, had become deservedly celebrated for its skill in navigation, continued for a season to furnish the most able maritime commanders. Italians had the glory of making the discoveries, from which Italy derived no accessions of wealth or power.

1497. In the new career of western adventure, the Amer24. ican continent was first discovered under the aus

June

pices of the English, and the coast of the United States by a native' of England. In the history of maritime enterprize in the New World, the achievements of John and Sebastian Cabot are, in boldness, success, and results, second only to those of Columbus.2 The wars of the houses of York and Lancaster had ceased; tranquillity and thrifty industry had been restored by the prudent severity of Henry VII.; the spirit of commercial activity began to be successfully fostered; and the marts of England were thronged with Lombard adventurers. The fisheries of the north had long tempted the merchants of Bristol to an intercourse with Iceland ;3 and the nau

1 Sebastian Cabot declares himself a native of Bristol. The decisive authority is a marginal note of Eden, in the History of the Travayles in the East and West Indies, by R. Eden and R. Willes, 1577, fol. 267. "Sebastian Cabot tolde me, that he was borne in Brystow," &c. Compare Memoir of Cabot, p. 67-69.

2 S. Parmenius of Buda in Hakluyt's Collection, v. iii. p. 183, edition of 1810, and in i. Mass. Hist. Coll. v. ix. p. 74.

Magnanimus nostra in regione Cabotus,
Proximus a magno ostendit sua vela Colombo.

3 Selden's Mare Clausum, lib. ii. c. 32. Et præsertim versus insulam de Islande, &c. &c.

FIRST VOYAGE OF THE CABOTS.

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CHAP.
I.

tical skill, necessary to buffet the storms of the Atlantic, had been acquired in this branch of northern commerce. Nor is it impossible, that some uncertain 1496. traditions respecting the remote discoveries, which Icelanders had made in Greenland towards the northwest, "where the lands' did nearest meet," should have excited "firm and pregnant conjectures." The magnificent achievement of Columbus, revealing the wonderful truth, of which the germs may have existed in the imagination of every thoughtful mariner, won the admiration which was due to an enterprize that seemed more divine than human, and kindled in the breasts of the emulous a vehement desire to gain as signal renown in the same career of daring; while the politic king of England desired to share in the large returns, which were promised by maritime adventure. It was, therefore, not difficult for John Cabot, a Venetian merchant, residing at Bristol, to engage Henry VII. in plans for discovery. He obtained from that monarch a patent, empower- 1496. ing himself and his three sons, or either of them, their Mar. heirs, or their deputies, to sail into the eastern, western, or northern sea, with a fleet of five ships, at their own proper expense and charges; to search for islands, countries, provinces, or regions, hitherto unseen by Christian people; to affix the banners of Eng

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passage from Ramusio is also in
Eden's Travayles, ed. 1577, fol.
267.-De Thou. Hist. l. xliv. v. ii.
p. 530, ed. 1626.

3 See the patent in Hakluyt, v. iii.
p. 25, 26; Chalmer's Polit. Annals,
p. 7, 8, and in Hazard's Hist. Coll.
v. i. p. 9.

5.

1496.

CHAP. land on any city, island, or continent, that they might I. find; and, as vassals of the English crown to possess and occupy the territories that might be discovered. It was further stipulated in this "most ancient American state paper of England," that the patentees should be strictly bound in their voyages to land at the port of Bristol, and to pay to the king one fifth part of the emoluments of the navigation; while the exclusive right of frequenting all the countries that might be found, was reserved, unconditionally and without limit of time, to the family of the Cabots and their assigns. Under this patent, containing the worst features of colonial monopoly and commercial restriction, John Cabot and his celebrated son Sebastian, embarked for the west. Of what tempests they encountered, what mutinies they calmed, no record has been preserved. The discovery of the American continent," probably in the latitude of fifty-six degrees, far, therefore, to the north 1497. of the straits of Belle-Isle, among the polar bears, the rude savages, and the dismal cliffs of Labrador, was the fruit of the voyage.

June

24.

It has been attempted to deprive the father of the glory of having accompanied the expedition. The surest documentary evidence confirms his claims. He and his son Sebastian first approached the continent,

1 Chalmers, p. 7.

2 Second patent to John Cabot, of Feb. 3, 1498, first printed in Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, p. 75. The extract from the map of Sebastian Cabot is equally explicit. Hakluyt, v. iii. p. 27.

3 Extract from Cabot's map, in

Hakluyt, v. i. p. 27. Ramusio sopra li viaggi, &c. v. i. fol. 402. The map of Ortelius, in his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, gives the island St. John in latitude fifty-six degrees. The work of Ortelius, in the editions of 1584 and of 1592 is at Cambridge.

DISCOVERY OF THE AMERICAN CONTINENT.

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which no European had dared to visit, or had known CHAP. to exist. The navigators hastened homewards to announce their success. Thus the discovery of our 1497. continent was an exploit of private mercantile adventure; and the possession of the new found "land and isles," was a right, vested by an exclusive patent in the family of a Bristol merchant. Yet the Cabots derived little benefit from the expedition, which their genius had suggested, and of which they alone had defrayed the expense. Posterity hardly remembered, that they had reached the American continent nearly fourteen months before Columbus, on his third voyage, came in sight of the main land; 1498, and almost two years before Americus Vespucci 1499. Aug. sailed west of the Canaries. But England acquired 1. through their energy such a right to North America, as this indisputable priority could confer. Henry VII. and his successors recognized the claims of Spain and Portugal, only so far as they actually occupied the territories, to which they laid pretension; and, at a later day, the English parliament and the English courts derided a title, founded, not upon occupancy, but upon a grant from the Roman Pontiff.1

Confidence and zeal awakened; and Henry grew 1498. circumspect in the concession of rights, which now seemed about to become of immense value. A new patent was issued to John Cabot, less ample in the

1 Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons, 1620 and 1621, v. i. p. 250, 251.

2 See the patent in Memoir of

Seb. Cabot, p. 75. Stow's Chron-
icle, 1498, in Hakluyt, v. iii. p. 30,
31. Memoir of Cabot, p. 80-86.

Feb.

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