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The voyage of Verrazzano

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Title: The voyage of Verrazzano
        a chapter in the early history of maritime discovery in America

Author: Henry Cruse Murphy


        
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #5252]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5252

Credits: This eBook was produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOYAGE OF VERRAZZANO ***




This eBook was produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.



THE VOYAGE OF VERRAZZANO;

A CHAPTER IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF MARITIME DISCOVERY IN AMERICA.

BY HENRY C. MURPHY.




TO THE MEMORY OF

BUCKINGHAM SMITH,

OF ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA.






The following pages, intended to show the claim of discovery in
America by Verrazzano to be without any real foundation, belong to a
work, in hand, upon the earliest explorations of the coast which
have led to the settlement of the United States by Europeans. They
are now printed separately, with some additions and necessary
changes, in consequence of the recent production of the map of
Hieronimo de Verrazano, which professes to represent this discovery,
and is therefore supposed to afford some proof of its authenticity;
in which view it has been the subject of a learned and elaborate
memoir by J. Carson Brevoort Esq.

Certain important documents in relation to Verrazzano, procured from
the archives of Spain and Portugal by the late Buckingham Smith, on
a visit to those countries a year or two before his death, are
appended. They were intended to accompany a second edition of his
Inquiry, a purpose which has been interrupted by his decease. They
were entrusted by him to the care of his friend, George H. Moore
Esq., of New York, who has placed them at our disposal on the
present occasion.

The fragmentary and distorted form in which the letter ascribed to
Verrazzano, appeared in the collection of Ramusio, and was thence
universally admitted into history, rendered it necessary that the
letter should be here given complete, according to its original
meaning. It is, therefore, annexed in the English translation of Dr.
Cogswell, which though not entirely unexceptionable is, for all
purposes, sufficiently accurate. The original Italian text can,
however, be consulted in the Collections of the New York Historical
Society, accompanying his translation, and also in the Archivio
Storico Italiano, in which it is represented by the editor to be
more correctly copied from the manuscript, and amended in its
language where it seemed corrupt; but such corrections are few and
unimportant. In all cases in which the letter is now made the
subject of critical examination, the passages referred to are given,
for obvious reasons, according to the reading of the Florentine
editor.

We are indebted to the American Geographical Society of New York for
the use of its photographs of the Verrazano map, and to Mr. Brevoort
for a copy of the cosmography of Alfonse, from which the chart of
Norumbega has been taken. And our thanks are due to Dr. J. Gilmary
Shea of New York, for valuable assistance; and to Dr. E. B.
Straznicky of the Astor Library, Mons. O. Maunoir of the Societe de
Geographie of Paris, Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull of Hartford, Hon. John
R. Bartlett of Providence, and James Lenox Esq. of New York, for
various favors kindly rendered during the progress of our
researches.

BROOKLYN, SEPT. 1875




CONTENTS.

 Page
    I. The Discovery Attributed to Verrazzano

   II. The Verrazzano Letters not Genuine

  III. The Letter untrue. I. No Voyage of Discovery made
       for the King of France, as it states

   IV. II. Misrepresentations in regard to the Geography
       of the Coast. The Chesapeake. The Island of
       Louise. Massachusetts Bay

    V. III. Cape Breton and the Southerly Coast of Newfoundland,
       here claimed to have been discovered,
       were known previously. Perversion of the Text
       of the Letter by Ramusio

   VI. IV. The Description of the People and Productions
       of the Land not made from the Personal Observations
       of the Writer of the Letter. What distinctly
       belonged to the Natives is unnoticed, and what is
       originally mentioned of them is untrue. Further
       important Alterations of the Text by Ramusio,

  VII. The Extrinsic Evidence in Support of the Claim. I.
       Discourse of the French Sea Captain of Dieppe,

 VIII. II. The Verrazzano Map. It is not an Authoritative
       Exposition of the Verrazzano Discovery. Its Origin
       and Date in its present Form. The Letter of Annibal
       Caro. The Map presented to Henry VIII.
       Voyages of Verrazzano. The Globe of Euphrosynus
       Ulpius

   IX. The Letter to the King founded on the Discoveries of
       Estevan Gomez. The History of Gomez and his
       Voyage. The Publication of his Discoveries in
       Spain and Italy before the Verrazzano claim. The
       Voyage described in the Letter traced to Ribero's
       Map of the Discoveries of Gomez

    X. The Career of Verrazzano. An Adventurous Life and
       Ignominious Death. Conclusion

Appendix

Index

[Proofreaders note: ILLUSTRATIONS and MAPS omitted]






THE VOYAGE OF VERRAZZANO:

A CHAPTER IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF MARITIME DISCOVERY IN AMERICA.




I.

THE DISCOVERY ATTRIBUTED TO VERRAZZANO.


The discovery of the greater portion of the Atlantic coast of North
America, embracing all of the United States north of Cape Roman in
South Carolina, and of the northern British provinces as far at
least as Cape Breton, by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine, in
the service of the king of France, has received until quite recently
the assent of all the geographers and historians who have taken
occasion to treat of the subject. This acknowledgment, for more than
three hundred years, which would seem to preclude all question in
regard to its authenticity at this late day, has, however, been due
more to the peculiar circumstances of its publication than to any
evidence of its truth. The only account of it which exists, is
contained in a letter purporting to have been written by the
discoverer himself, and is not corroborated by the testimony of any
other person, or sustained by any documentary proof. It was not
published to the world until it appeared for the first time in
Italy, the birth place of the navigator, more than thirty years
after the transactions to which it relates are alleged to have taken
place; and it has not, up to the present time, received any
confirmation in the history of France, whose sovereign, it is
asserted, sent forth the expedition, and to whose crown the right of
the discovery accordingly attached. Yet it is not difficult to
comprehend how the story, appealing to the patriotic sympathies of
Ramusio, was inconsiderately adopted by him, and inserted in his
famous collection of voyages, and thus receiving his sanction, was
not unwillingly accepted, upon his authority, by the French nation,
whose glory it advanced, without possibly its having any real
foundation. And as there never was any colonization or attempt at
possession of the country in consequence of the alleged discovery,
or any assertion of title under it, except in a single instance of a
comparatively modern date, and with no important hearing, it is no
less easy to understand, how thus adopted and promulgated by the
only countries interested in the question, the claim was admitted by
other nations without challenge or dispute, and has thus become
incorporated into modern history without investigation.

Although the claim has never been regarded of any practical
importance in the settlement of the country, it has nevertheless
possessed an historical and geographical interest in connection with
the origin and progress of maritime discovery on this continent. Our
own writers assuming its validity, without investigation, have been
content to trace, if possible, the route of Verrazzano and point out
the places he explored, seeking merely to reconcile the account with
the actual condition and situation of the country. Their
explanations, though sometimes plausible, are often contradictory,
and not unfrequently absurd. Led into an examination of its merits
with impressions in its favor, we have nevertheless been compelled
to adopt the conclusion of a late American writer, that it is
utterly fictitious. [Footnote: An Inquiry into the Authenticity of
Documents concerning a Discovery in North America claimed to have
been made by Verrazzano. Read before the New York Historical
Society, Tuesday, October 10, 1864. By Buckingham Smith. New York,
1864. pp. 31, and a map.] The grounds upon which our conviction
rests we propose now to state. Some documents will be introduced,
for the first time here brought to light, which will serve further
to elucidate the question, and show the career and ultimate fate of
Verrazzano.

The letter, in which the pretension is advanced, professes to be
addressed by Verrazzano to the king of France, at that time Francis
I, from Dieppe, in Normandy, the 8th of July (O. S.), 1534, on his
return to that port from a voyage, undertaken by order of the king,
for the purpose of finding new countries; and to give an account of
the discoveries which he had accordingly made. He first reminds his
majesty that, after starting with four ships, originally composing
the expedition, he was compelled by storms, encountered on the
northern coasts, to put into Brittany in distress, with the loss of
two of them; and that after repairing there the others, called the
Normanda and Delfina (Dauphine), be made a cruize with this FLEET OF
WAR, as they are styled, along the coast of Spain. He finally
proceeded on the voyage of discovery with the Dauphine alone,
setting sail from a desolate rock near the island of Madeira, on the
17th of January, 1524, with fifty men, and provisions for eight
months, besides the necessary munitions of war. This voyage,
therefore, is to be regarded, according to the representations here
made, to have been begun with the sailing of the four ships, from
Dieppe, in the preceding year they fell upon a "country never before
seen by any one either in ancient or modern times." [Footnote: Some
writers have regarded this introductory as referring to two voyages
or cruises, one with the four ships before the disaster, and the
other with the Dauphine afterwards. But it seems clear from their
being described as assailed by tempests in the north, which
compelled them to run into Brittany for safety, that they were not
far distant from Dieppe when the storms overtook them; and must have
been either on their way out or on their return to that port. If
they were on their return from a voyage to America, as Charlevoix
infers (Fastes Chronologiques 1523-4), or simply from a cruise, as
Mr. Brevoort supposes, they would, after making their repairs, have
proceeded home, to Dieppe, instead of making a second voyage. They
must, therefore, be regarded as on their way from Dieppe. The idea
of a voyage having been performed before the storms seems to be due
to alteration which Ramusio made in this portion of the letter, by
introducing the word "success," as of the four ships, Charlevoix
expressly refers to Ramusio as his authority and Mr. Brevoort makes
a paraphrase from the Carli and Ramusio versions combined. (Notes on
the Verrazzano Map in Journal of the Am. Geog. Society of New York,
vol. IV, pp. 172-3)] On leaving Madeira they pursued a westerly
course for eight hundred leagues and then, inclining a little to the
north, ran four hundred leagues more, when on the 7th of March
[Footnote: There is some ambiguity in the account, as to the time
when they first saw land. The letter reads as follows: "On the 17th
of last January we set sail from a desolate rock near the island of
Madeira, and sailing westward, in twenty-five days we ran eight
hundred leagues. On the 24th of February, we encountered as violent
a hurricane as any ship ever weathered. Pursuing our voyage toward
the west, a little northwardly, in twenty-four days more, have run
four hundred leagues, we reached a new country," &c. If the twenty-
four days be calculated from the 24th of February, the landfall
would have taken place on the 20th of March; but if reckoned from
the first twenty-five days run, it would have been on the 7th of
that month. Ramusio changes the distance first sailed from 800 to
500 leagues; the day when they encountered the storm from the 24th
to the 20th of February; and the twenty-four days last run to
twenty-five; making the landfall occur on the 17th or 10th of March
according to the mode of calculating the days last run. As it is
stated, afterwards, that they encountered a gale WHILE AT ANCHOR ON
THE COAST, EARLY in March, the 7th of that month must be taken as
the time of the landfall.] It seemed very low and stretched to the
south, in which direction they sailed along it for the purpose of
finding a harbor wherein their ship might ride in safety; but
DISCOVERING NONE in a distance of fifty leagues, they retraced their
course, and ran to the north with no better success. They therefore
drew in with the land and sent a boat ashore, and had their first
communication with the inhabitants, who regarded them with wonder.
These people are described as going naked, except around their
loins, and as being BLACK. The land, rising somewhat from the shore,
was covered with thick forests, which sent forth the sweetest
fragrance to a great distance. They supposed it adjoined the Orient,
and for that reason was not devoid of medicinal and aromatic drugs
and gold; and being IN LATITUDE 34 Degrees N., was possessed of a
pure, salubrious and healthy climate. They sailed thence westerly
for a short distance and then northerly, when at the end of fifty
leagues they arrived before a land of great forests, where they
landed and found luxuriant vines entwining the trees and producing
SWEET AND LUSCIOUS GRAPES OF WHICH THEY ATE, tasting not unlike
their own; and from whence they carried off a boy about eight years
old, for the purpose of taking him to France. Coasting thence
northeasterly for one hundred leagues, SAILING ONLY IN THE DAY TIME
AND NOT MAKING ANY HARBOR in the whole of that distance, they came
to a pleasant situation among steep hills, from whence a large river
ran into the sea. Leaving, in consequence of a rising storm, this
river, into which they had entered for a short distance with their
boat, and where they saw many of the natives in their CANOES, they
sailed directly EAST for eighty leagues, when they discovered an
island of triangular shape, about ten leagues from the main land,
EQUAL IN SIZE TO THE ISLAND OF RHODES. This island they named after
the mother of the king of France. WITHOUT LANDING UPON IT, they
proceeded to a harbor fifteen leagues beyond, at the entrance of a
large bay, TWELVE LEAGUES BROAD, where they came to anchor and
remained for fifteen days. They encountered here a people with whom
they formed a great friendship, different in appearance from the
natives whom they first saw,--these having a WHITE COMPLEXION. The
men were tall and well formed, and the women graceful and possessed
of pleasing manners. There were two kings among them, who were
attended in state by their gentlemen, and a queen who had her
waiting maids. This country was situated in latitude 41 Degrees 40'
N, in the parallel of Rome; and was very fertile and abounded with
game. They left it on the 6th of May, and sailed one hundred and
fifty leagues, CONSTANTLY IN SIGHT OF THE LAND which stretched to
the east. In this long distance THEY MADE NO LANDING, but proceeded
fifty leagues further along the land, which inclined more to the
north, when they went ashore and found a people exceedingly
barbarous and hostile. Leaving them and continuing their course
northeasterly for fifty leagues FURTHER, they discovered within that
distance thirty-two islands. And finally, after having sailed
between east and north one hundred and fifty leagues MORE, they
reached the fiftieth degree of north latitude, where the Portuguese
had commenced their discoveries towards the Arctic circle; when
finding their provisions nearly exhausted, they took in wood and
water and returned to France, having coasted, it is stated, along an
UNKNOWN COUNTRY FOR SEVEN HUNDRED LEAGUES. In conclusion, it is
added, they had found it inhabited by a people without religion, but
easily to be persuaded, and imitating with fervor the acts of
Christian worship performed by the discoverers.

The description of the voyage is followed by what the writer calls a
cosmography, in which is shown the distance they had sailed from the
time they left the desert rocks at Madeira, and the probable size of
the new world as compared with the old, with the relative area of
land and water on the whole globe. There is nothing striking or
important in this supplement, except that it emphasizes and enforces
the statements of the former part of the letter in regard to the
landfall, fixes the exact point of their departure from the coast
for home again at 50 Degrees N. latitude, and gives seven hundred
leagues as the extent of the discovery. The length of a longitudinal
degree along the parallel of thirty-four, in which it is reiterated
they first made land, and between which and the parallel of thirty-
two they had sailed from the Desertas, is calculated and found to be
fifty-two miles, and the whole number of degrees which they had
traversed across the ocean between those parallels, being twelve
hundred leagues, or forty-eight hundred miles, is by simple division
made ninety-two. The object of this calculation is not apparent, and
strikes the reader as if it were a feeble imitation of the manner in
which Amerigo Vespucci illustrates his letters. A statement is made,
that they took the aim's altitude from day to day, and noted the
observations, together with the rise and fall of the tide, in a
little boat, which was "communicated to his majesty, in the hope of
promoting science." It is also mentioned that they had no lunar
eclipses, by means of which they could have ascertained the
longitude during the voyage. This fact is shown by the tables of
Regiomontanus, which had been published long before the alleged
voyage, and were open to the world. The statement of it here,
therefore, does not, as has been supposed, furnish any evidence in
support of the narrative, by redeem of its originality. Such is the
account, in brief; which the letter gives of the origin, nature and
extent of the alleged discovery; and as it assumes to be the
production of the navigator himself, and is the only source of
information on the subject, it suggests all the questions which
arise in this inquiry. These relate both to the genuineness of the
letter, and the truth of its statements; and accordingly bring under
consideration the circumstances under which that instrument was made
known and has received credit; the alleged promotion of the voyage
by the king of France; and the results claimed to have been
accomplished thereby. It will be made to appear upon this
examination, that the letter, according to the evidence upon which
its existence is predicated, could not have been written by
Verrazzano; that the instrumentality of the King of France, in any
such expedition of discovery as therein described, is unsupported by
the history of that country, and is inconsistent with the
acknowledged acts of Francis and his successors, and therefore
incredible; and that its description of the coast and some of the
physical characteristics of the people and of the country are
essentially false, and prove that the writer could not have made
them, from his own personal knowledge and experience, as pretended.
And, in conclusion, it will be shown that its apparent knowledge of
the direction and extent of the coast was derived from the
exploration of Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese pilot in the service of
the king of Spain, and that Verrazzano, at the time of his pretended
discovery, was actually engaged in a corsairial expedition, sailing
under the French flag, in a different part of the ocean.




II.

THE VERRAZZANO LETTER NOT GENUINE


No proof that the letter ascribed to Verrazzano, was written by him,
has ever been produced. The letter itself has never been exhibited,
or referred to in any authentic document, or mentioned by any
contemporary or later historian as being in existence, and although
it falls within the era, of modern history, not a single fact which
it professes to describe relating to the fitting out of the
expedition, the voyage, or the discovery, is corroborated by other
testimony, whereby its genuineness might even be inferred. The only
evidence in regard to it, relates to two copies, as they purport to
be, both in the Italian language, one of them coming to us printed
and the other in manuscript, but neither of them traceable to the
alleged original. They are both of them of uncertain date. The
printed copy appears in the work of Ramusio, first published in
1556; when Verrazzano and Francis I, the parties to it, were both
dead, and a generation of men had almost passed away since the
events which it announced had, according to its authority, taken
place, and probably no one connected with the government of France
at that time could have survived to gainsay, the story, were it
untrue.[Footnote: Verrazzano died in 1527; Louise, the mother of
Francis I in September, 1582, and Francis himself in March, 1547.]
Ramusio does not state when or how he obtained what he published. In
the preface to the volume in which it is printed, dated three years
before, he merely speaks of the narrative incidentally, but in a
discourse preceding it, he obscurely alludes to the place where he
found it, remarking that it was the only letter of Verrazzano that
he had "been able to have, because the others had got astray in the
troubles of the unfortunate city of Florence." The origin of the
manuscript version is equally involved in mystery. It forms part of
a codex which contains also a copy of a letter purporting to have
been written by Fernando Carli, from Lyons to his father in
Florence, on the 4th of August, 1524, giving an account of the
arrival of Verrazzano at Dieppe, and inclosing a copy of his letter
to the King. The epistles of Carli and Verrazzano are thus connected
together in the manuscript in fact, and by reference in that of
Carli, making the copy of the Verrazzano letter a part of Carli's,
and so to relate to the same date. But as the Carli letter in the
manuscript is itself only a copy, there is nothing to show when that
was really written; nor is it stated when the manuscript itself was
made. All that is positively known in regard to the latter is, that
it was mentioned in 1768, as being then in existence in the Strozzi
library in Florence. When it came into that collection does not
appear, but as that library was not founded until 1627, its history
cannot be traced before that year, [Footnote: Der Italicum von D.
Friedrich Blume. Band II, 81. Halle, 1827.] Its chirography,
however, in the opinion of some competent persons who have examined
it, indicates that it was written in the middle of the sixteenth
century. There is, therefore, nothing in the history or character of
the publication in Ramusio or the manuscript, to show that the
letter emanated from Verrazzano. Neither of them is traceable to
him; neither of them was printed at a time when its publication,
without contradiction, might be regarded as an admission or
acknowledgment by the world of a genuine original; and neither of
them is found to have existed early enough to authorize an inference
in favor of such an original by reason of their giving the earliest
account of the coasts and country claimed to have been discovered.
On the contrary, these two documents of themselves, when their
nature and origin are rightly understood, serve to prove that the
Verrazzano letter is not a genuine production. For this purpose it
will be necessary to state more fully their history and character.

The existence of the copy which, in consequence of its connection in
the same manuscript with that of the Carli letter, may be designated
as the Carli version, is first mentioned in an eulogy or life of
Verrazzano in the series of portraits of illustrious Tuscans,
printed in Florence in 1767-8, as existing in the Strozzi library.
[Footnote: Serie di Ritratti d'Uomini Illustri Toscani con gli elogi
istorici dei medesimi. Vol. secondo Firenze, 1768.] The author calls
attention to the fact, that it contains a part of the letter which
is omitted by Ramusio. In another eulogy of the navigator, by a
different hand, G. P. (Pelli), put forth by the same printer in the
following year, the writer, referring to the publication of the
letter of Ramusio, states that an addition to it, describing the
distances to the places where Verrazzano had been, was inserted in
writing in a copy of the work of Ramusio, in the possession at that
time of the Verrazzano family in Florence. These references were
intended to show the existence of the cosmography, which Tiraboschi
afterwards mentions, giving, however, the first named eulogy as his
authority. No portion of the Carli copy appeared in print until
1841, when through the instrumentality of Mr. Greene, the American
consul at Rome, it was printed in the collections of the New York
Historical Society, accompanied by a translation into English by the
late Dr. Cogswell. It was subsequently printed in the Archivio
Storico Italiano at Florence, in 1853, with some immaterial
corrections, and a preliminary discourse on Verrazzano, by M.
Arcangeli. From an inspection of the codex in the library, where it
then existed in Florence, M. Arcangeli supposes the manuscript was
written in the middle of the sixteenth century. This identical copy
was, therefore, probably in existence when Ramusio published his
work. Upon comparing the letter as given by Ramusio with the
manuscript, the former, besides wanting the cosmography, is found to
differ from the latter almost entirely in language, and very
materially in substance, though agreeing with it in its elementary
character and purpose. The two, therefore, cannot be copies of the
same original. Either they are different versions from some other
language, or one of them must be a recomposition of the other in the
language in which they now are found. In regard to their being both
translated from the French, the only other language in which the
letter can be supposed to have been written besides the native
tongue of Verrazzano, although it is indeed most reasonable to
suppose that such a letter, addressed to the king of France, on the
results of an expedition of the crown, by an officer in his service,
would have been written in that language, it is, nevertheless,
highly improbable that any letter could, in this instance, have been
so addressed to the King, and two different translations made from
it into Italian, one by Carli in Lyons in 1524, and the other by
Ramusio in Venice twenty-nine years afterwards, and yet no copy of
it in French, or any memorial of its existence in that language be
known. This explanation must therefore be abandoned. If on the other
hand, one of these copies was so rendered from the French, or from
an original in either form in which it appears in Italian, whether
by Verrazzano or not, the other must have been rewritten from it. It
is evident, however, that the Carli version could not have been
derived from that contained in Ramusio, because it contains an
entire part consisting of several pages, embracing the
cosmographical explanations of the voyage, not found in the latter.
As we are restricted to these two copies as the sole authority for
the letter, and are, therefore, governed in any conclusion on this
subject by what they teach, it must be determined that the letter in
Ramusio is a version of that contained in the Carli manuscript. This
suggestion is not new. It was made by Mr. Greene in his monograph on
Verrazzano, without his following it to the conclusion to which it
inevitably leads. If the version in Ramusio be a recomposition of
the Carli copy, an important step is gained towards determining the
origin of the Verrazzano letter, as in that case the inquiry is
brought down to the consideration of the authenticity of the Carli
letter, of which it forms a part. But before proceeding to that
question, the reasons assigned by Mr. Greene, and some incidental
facts stated by him in connection with them, should be given. He
says:

"The Strozzi Library is no longer in existence; but the manuscripts
of that collection passed into the hands of the Tuscan government,
and were divided between the Magliabechian and Laurentian libraries
of Florence. The historical documents were deposited in the former.
Among them was the cosmographical narration of Verrazzano mentioned
by Tiraboschi, and which Mr. Bancroft expresses a desire to see
copied for the Historical Society of New York. It is contained in a
volume of Miscellanies, marked "Class XIII. Cod. 89. Verraz;" and
forms the concluding portion of the letter to Francis the First,
which is copied at length in the same volume. It is written in the
common running hand of the sixteenth century (carrattere corsivo),
tolerably distinct, but badly pointed. The whole volume, which is
composed of miscellaneous pieces, chiefly relating to contemporary
history, is evidently the WORK OF THE SAME HAND.

"Upon collating this manuscript with that part of the letter which
was published by Ramusio, we were struck with the differences in
language which run through every paragraph of the two texts. In
substance there is no important difference [Footnote: In this
statement Mr. Greene was mistaken, as will be manifested in a
comparison of the two texts hereafter given, in which the difference
of language will also appear.] except in one instance, where by an
evident blunder of the transcriber, bianchissimo is put for
branzino. There is something so peculiar in the style of this
letter, as it reads, in the manuscript of the Magliabechian, that it
is impossible to account for its variations from Ramusio, except by
supposing that this editor worked the whole piece over anew,
correcting the errors of language upon his own authority. [Footnote:
Mr. Greene adds in a note to this passage: "He did so also with the
translation of Marco Polo. See Apostolo Zeno, Annot. alla Bib. Ital.
del Fontanini, tom. II, p. 300; ed. di Parma. 1804." There is
another instance mentioned by Amoretti in the preface to his
translation of Pigafetta's journal of Magellan's voyage, and that
was with Fabre's translation of the copy of the journal given by
Pigafetta to the mother of Francis I. Premier voyage autour du
monde. xxxii. (Jansen, Paris l'an ix.)] These errors indeed are
numerous, and the whole exhibits a strange mixture of Latinisms
[Footnote: An instance of these Latinisms is the signature "Janus
Verrazzanus," affixed to the letter.] and absolute barbarisms with
pure Tuscan words and phrases. The general cast of it, however, is
simple and not unpleasing. The obscurity of many of the sentences
is, in a great measure, owing to false pointing.

"The cosmographical description forms the last three pages of the
letter. It was doubtless intentionally omitted by Ramusio, though it
would be difficult to say why. Some of the readings are apparently
corrupt; nor, ignorant as we are of nautical science, was it in our
power to correct them. There are also some slight mistakes, which
must be attributed to the transcriber.

"A letter which follows that of Verrazzano, gives, as it seems to
us, a sufficient explanation of the origin of this manuscript. It
was written by a young Florentine, named Fernando Carli, and is
addressed from Lyons to his father in Florence. It mentions the
arrival of Verrazzano at Dieppe, and contains several circumstances
about him, which throw a new though still a feeble light upon parts
of his history, hitherto wholly unknown. It is by the discovery of
this letter, that we have been enabled to form a sketch of him,
somewhat more complete than any which has ever yet been given.

"The history of both manuscripts is probably as follows: Carli wrote
to his father, thinking, as he himself tells it, that the news of
Verrazzano's return would give great satisfaction to many of their
friends in Florence. He added at the same time, and this also we
learn from his own words, a copy of Verrazzano's letter to the king.
Both his letter and his copy of Verrazzano's were intended to be
shown to his Florentine acquaintances. Copies, as is usual in such
cases, were taken of them; and to us it seems evident that from some
one of these the copy in the Magliabechian manuscript was derived.
The appearance of this last, which was prepared for some individual
fond of collecting miscellaneous documents, if not by him, is a
sufficient corroboration of our statement." [Footnote: Historical
Studies: by George Washington Greene, New York, 1850; p. 323. Life
and Voyages of Verrazzano (by the same), in the North American
Review for October, 1837. (Vol. 45, p. 306).]

Adopting the Carli copy as the primitive form of the Verrazzano
letter, and the Carli letter as the original means by which it has
been communicated to the world, the inquiry is resolved into the
authenticity of the Carli letter. There are sufficient reasons to
denounce this letter as a pure invention; and in order to present
those reasons more clearly, we here give a translation of it in
full:

Letter of Fernando Carli to his Father. [Footnote: The letter of
Carli was first published in 1844, with the discourse of Mr. Greene
on Verrazzano, in the Saggiatore (I, 257), a Roman journal of
history, the fine arts and philology. (M. Arcangeli, Discorso sopra
Giovanni da Verrazzano, p. 35, in Archivio Storico Italiano.
Appendice tom. IX.) It will be found in our appendix, according to
the reprint in the latter work.]

In the name of God.

4 August, 1524.

Honorable Father:

Considering that when I was in the armada in Barbary at Garbich the
news were advised you daily from the illustrious Sig. Don Hugo de
Moncada, Captain General of the Caesarean Majesty in those barbarous
parts, [of what] happened in contending with the Moors of that
island; by which it appears you caused pleasure to many of our
patrons and friends and congratulated yourselves on the victory
achieved: so there being here news recently of the arrival of
Captain Giovanni da Verrazzano, our Florentine, at the port of
Dieppe, in Normandy, with his ship, the Dauphiny, with which he
sailed from the Canary islands the end of last January, to go in
search of new lands for this most serene crown of France, in which
he displayed very noble and great courage in undertaking such an
unknown voyage with only one ship, which was a caravel of hardly--
tons, with only fifty men, with the intention, if possible, of
discovering Cathay, taking a course through other climates than
those the Portuguese use in reaching it by the way of Calicut, but
going towards the northwest and north, entirely believing that,
although Ptolemy, Aristotle and other cosmographers affirm that no
land is to be found towards such climates, he would find it there
nevertheless. And so God has vouchsafed him as he distinctly
describes in a letter of his to this S. M.; OF WHICH, IN THIS, THERE
IS A COPY. And for want of provisions, after many months spent in
navigating, he asserts he was forced to return from that hemisphere
into this, and having been seven months on the voyage, to show a
very great and rapid passage, and to have achieved a wonderful and
most extraordinary feat according to those who understand the
seamanship of the world. Of which at the commencement of his said
voyage there was an unfavorable opinion formed, and many thought
there would be no more news either of him or of his vessel, but that
he might be lost on that side of Norway, in consequence of the great
ice which is in that northern ocean; but the Great God, as the Moor
said, in order to give us every day proofs of his infinite power and
show us how admirable is this worldly machine, has disclosed to him
a breadth of land, as you will perceive, of such extent that
according to good reasons, and the degrees of latitude and
longitude, he alleges and shows it greater than Europe, Africa and a
part of Asia; ergo mundus novus: and this exclusive of what the
Spaniards have discovered in several years in the west; as it is
hardly a year since Fernando Magellan returned, who discovered a
great country with one ship out of the five sent on the discovery.
From whence be brought spices much more excellent than the usual;
and of his other ships no news has transpired for five years. They
are supposed to be lost. What this our captain has brought he does
not state in this letter, except a very young man taken from those
countries; but it is supposed he has brought a sample of gold which
they do not value in those parts, and of drugs and other aromatic
liquors for the purpose of conferring here with several merchants
after he shall have been in the presence of the Most Serene Majesty.
And at this hour he ought to be there, and from choice to come here
shortly, as he is much desired in order to converse with him; the
more so that he will find here the Majesty, the King, our Lord, who
is expected herein three or four days. And we hope that S. M. will
entrust him again with half a dozen good vessels and that he will
return to the voyage. And if our Francisco Carli be returned from
Cairo, advise him to go, at a venture, on the said voyage with him;
and I believe they were acquainted at Cairo where he has been
several years; and not only in Egypt and Syria, but almost through
all the known world, and thence by reason of his merit is esteemed
another Amerigo Vespucci, another Fernando Magellan and even more;
and we hope that being provided with other good ships and vessels,
well built and properly victualed, he may discover some profitable
traffic and matter; and will, our Lord God granting him life, do
honor to our country, in acquiring immortal fame and memory. And
Alderotto Branelleschi who started with him and by chance turning
back was not willing to accompany him further, will, when he hears
of this, be discontented. Nothing else now occurs to me, as I have
advised you by others of what is necessary. I commend myself
constantly to you, praying you to impart this to our friends, not
forgetting Pierfrancesco Dagaghiano who in consequence of being an
experienced person will take much pleasure in it, and commend me to
him. Likewise to Rustichi, who will not be displeased, if he
delight, as usual, in learning matters of cosmography. God guard you
from all evil. Your son.

FERNANDO CARLI, in Lyons.

This letter bears date only twenty-seven days after that of the
Verrazzano letter, which is declared to be inclosed. To discover its
fraudulent nature and the imposition it seeks to practise, it is
only necessary to bear this fact in mind, with its pretended origin,
in connection with this warlike condition of France and the personal
movements of the king, immediately preceding and during the interval
between the dates of the two letters. It purports to have been
written by Fernando Carli to his father in Florence. Carli is not an
uncommon Italian name and probably existed in Florence at that time,
but who this Fernando was, has never transpired. He gives in this
letter all there is of his biography, which is short. He had
formerly been in the service of the emperor, Charles V, under
Moncada, in the fleet sent against the Moors in Barbary, and was
then in Lyons, where, it might be inferred, from a reference to its
merchants, that he was engaged in some mercantile pursuit; but the
reason of his presence there is really unaccounted for. It is not
pretended that he held any official position under the king of
France. The name of his father, by means of which his lineage might
be traced, is not mentioned, but Francisco Carli is named as of the
same family, but without designating his relationship. Whether a
myth or a reality, Fernando seems to have been an obscure person, at
the best; not known to the political or literary history of the
period, and not professing to occupy any position, by which he might
be supposed to have any facility or advantage for obtaining official
information or the news of the day, over the other inhabitants of
Lyons and of France.

He is made to say that he writes this letter for the particular
purpose of communicating to his father and their friends in
Florence, the news, which had reached Lyons, of the arrival of
Verrazzano from his wonderful and successful voyage of discovery,
and that he had advised his parent of all other matters touching his
own interests, by another conveyance. It might be supposed and
indeed reasonably expected in a letter thus expressly devoted to
Verrazzano, that some circumstance, personal or otherwise, connected
with the navigator or the voyage, or some incident of his discovery,
besides what was contained in the enclosed letter, such as must have
reached Lyons, with the news of the return of the expedition, would
have been mentioned, especially, as it would all have been
interesting to Florentines. But nothing of the kind is related.
Nothing appears in the letter in regard to the expedition that is
not found in the Verrazzano letter. [Footnote: Mr. Greene, in his
life of Verrazzano, remarks that it appears from Carli's letter,
that the Indian boy whom Verrazzano is stated to have carried away,
arrived safely in France; but that is not so. What is said in that
letter is, that Verrazzano does not mention IN HIS LETTER what he
had brought home, except this boy.] What is stated in reference to
the previous life of Verrazzano, must have been as well known to
Carli's father as to himself, if it were true, and is therefore
unnecessarily introduced, and the same may be said of the facts
stated in regard to Brunelleschi's starting on the voyage with
Verrazzano and afterwards turning back. The particular description
of Dagaghiano and Rustichi, both of Florence, the one as a man of
experience and the other as a student of cosmography, was equally
superfluous in speaking of them to his father. These portions of the
letter look like flimsy artifices to give the main story the
appearance of truth. They may or may not have been true, and it is
not inconsistent with an intention to deceive in regard to the
voyage that they should have been either the one or the other. A
single allusion, however, is made to the critical condition of
affairs in France and the stirring scenes which were being enacted
on either side of the city of Lyons at the moment the letter bears
date. It is the mention of the expected arrival of the king at Lyons
within three or four days. It is not stated for what purpose he was
coming, but the fact was that Francis had taken the field in person
to repel the Spanish invasion in the south of France, and was then
on his way to that portion of his kingdom, by way of Lyons, where he
arrived a few days afterwards. The reference to this march of the
king fixes beyond all question the date of the letter, as really
intended for the 4th of August, 1524.

The movements of Francis at this crisis become important in view of
the possibility of the publication in any form of the Verrazzano
letter at Lyons, at the last mentioned date, or of the possession of
a copy of it there as claimed by Carli in his letter. The army of
the emperor, under Pescara and Bourbon, crossed the Alps and entered
Provence early in July, and before the date of the Verrazzano
letter. [Footnote: Letter of Bourbon. Dyer's Europe, 442.] The
intention to do so was known by Francis some time previously. He
wrote on the 28th of June from Amboise, near Tours, to the
Provencaux that he would march immediately to their relief;
[Footnote: Sismondi, xvi. 216, 217.] and on the 2d of July he
announced in a letter to his parliament: "I am going to Lyons to
prevent the enemy from entering the kingdom, and I can assure you
that Charles de Bourbon is not yet in France." [Footnote: Gaillard,
Histoire de Francois Premier, tom. III, 172 (Paris, 1769).] He had
left his residence at Blois and his capital, and was thus actually
engaged in collecting his forces together, on the 8th of July, when
the Verrazzano letter is dated. He did not reach Lyons until after
the 4th of August, as is correctly stated in the Carli letter.
[Footnote: Letter of Moncada in Doc. ined. para la Hist. de Espana.
tom. XXIV, 403, and Letters of Pace to Wolsey in State Papers of the
reign of Henry VIII, vol. IV, Part I, 589, 606.]

The author of the Carli letter, whether the person he pretends to
have been or not, asserts that news of the arrival of Verrazzano at
Dieppe on his return from his voyage of discovery had reached Lyons,
and that the navigator himself was expected soon to be in that city
for the purpose of conferring with its merchants on the subject of
the new countries which he had discovered, and had described in a
letter to the king, a copy of which letter was enclosed. He thus
explicitly declares not only that news of the discovery had reached
Lyons, but that the letter to the king was known to the merchants at
that place, and that a copy of it was then actually in his
possession and sent with his own. The result of the expedition was,
therefore, notorious, and the letter had attained general publicity
at Lyons, without the presence there of either Francis or
Verrazzano.

This statement must be false. Granting that such a letter, as is
ascribed to Verrazzano, had been written, it was impossible that
this obscure young man at Lyons, hundreds of miles from Dieppe,
Paris and Blois, away from the king and court and from Verrazzano,
not only at a great distance from them all, but at the point to
which the king was hastening, and had not reached, on his way to the
scene of war in the southern portion of his kingdom, could have come
into the possession of this document in less than a month after it
purports to have been written for the king in a port far in the
north, on the coast of Normandy. It obviously could not have been
delivered to him personally by Verrazzano, who had not been at
Lyons, nor could it have been transmitted to him by the navigator,
who had not yet presented himself before the king, and could have
had no authority to communicate it to any person. It was an official
report, addressed to the king, and intended for his eye alone, until
the monarch himself chose to make it public. It related to an
enterprise of the crown, and eminently concerned its interests and
prerogatives, in the magnitude and importance of the new countries;
and could not have been sent by Verrazzano, without permission, to a
private person, and especially a foreigner, without subjecting
himself to the charge of disloyalty, if not of treason, which there
is no other evidence to sustain. On the other hand it could not have
been delivered by the king to this Carli. It is not probable, even
if such a letter could have come into the hands of Francis, absent
from his capital in the midst of warlike preparations, engaged in
forming his army and en route for the scene of the invasion, that he
could have given it any consideration. But if he had received it and
considered its import, there was no official or other relation
between him and Carli, or any motive for him to send it forward in
advance of his coming to Lyons, to this young and obscure alien.
There was no possibility, therefore, of Carli obtaining possession
of a private copy of the letter through Verrazzano or the king.

The only way open to him, under the most favorable circumstances,
would have been through some publicity, by proclamation or printing,
by order of the king; in which case, it would have been given for
the benefit of all his subjects. It is impossible that it could have
been seen and copied by this young foreigner alone and in the city
of Lyons, and that no other copies would have been preserved in all
France. The idea of a publication is thus forbidden.

No alternative remains except to pronounce the whole story a
fabrication. The Carli letter is untrue. It did not inclose any
letter of Verrazzano of the character pretended. And as it is the
only authority for the existence of any such letter, that falls with
it.




III.

THE LETTER UNTRUE. I. NO VOYAGE OR DISCOVERY MADE FOR THE KING OF
FRANCE, AS IT STATES.


All the circumstances relating to the existence of the Verrazzano
letter thus prove that it was not the production of Verrazzano at
the time and place it purports to have been written by him. We pass
now to the question of its authenticity, embracing the consideration
of its own statements and the external evidence which exists upon
the subject.

The letter professes to give the origin and results of the voyage;
that is, the agency of the king of France in sending forth the
expedition, and the discoveries actually accomplished by it. In both
respects it is essentially untrue. It commences by declaring that
Verrazzano sailed under the orders and on behalf of the king of
France, for the purpose of finding new countries, and that the
account then presented was a description of the discoveries made in
pursuance of such instructions. That no such voyage of discoveries
were made for that monarch is clearly deducible from the history of
France. Neither the letter, nor any document, chronicle, memoir, or
history of any kind, public or private, printed or in manuscript,
belonging to that period, or the reign of Francis I, who then bore
the crown, mentioning or in any manner referring to it, or to the
voyage and discovery, has ever been found in France; and neither
Francis himself, nor any of his successors, ever acknowledged or in
any manner recognized such discovery, or asserted under it any right
to the possession of the country; but, on the contrary, both he and
they ignored it, in undertaking colonization in that region by
virtue of other discoveries made under their authority, or with
their permission, by their subjects.

I. That no evidence of the Verrazzano discovery ever existed in
France, is not only necessarily presumed from the circumstance that
none has ever been produced, but is inferentially established by the
fact that all the French writers and historians, who have had
occasion to consider the subject, have derived their information in
regard to it from the Italian so-called copies of the letter, and
until recently from that in Ramusio alone. No allusion to the
discovery, by any of them, occurs until several years after the work
of Ramusio was published, when for the first time it is mentioned in
the account written by Ribault, in 1563, of his voyage to Florida
and attempted colonization at Port Royal in South Carolina, in the
previous year. Ribault speaks of it very briefly, in connection with
the discoveries of Sebastian Cabot and others, as having no
practical results, and states that he had derived his information in
regard to it, from what Verrazzano had written, thus clearly
referring to the letter. He adds that Verrazzano made another voyage
to America afterwards, "where at last he died." As Ramusio is the
only authority known for the latter statement, it is evident that
Ribault must have had his work before him, and consequently his
version of the letter, when he prepared this account. [Footnote: The
original narrative of Ribault, in French, has never appeared in
print. It was probably suppressed at the time for political reasons,
as the colony was intended for the benefit of the protestants of
France. It was, however, translated immediately into English and
printed in 1563, under the following title: "The whole and true
discoverye of Terra Florida &c never found out before the last year,
1562. Written in French by Captain Ribault &c and now newly set
forthe in Englishe the XXX of May, 1563. Prynted at London, by
Rowland Hall, for Thomas Hacket." This translation was reprinted by
Hakluyt in his first work, Divers Voyages, in 1582; but was omitted
by him in his larger collections, and the account by Laudoniere, who
accompanied Ribault, of that and the two subsequent expeditions,
substituted in its stead.] In the relation written by Laudoniere in
1566, but not printed until 1586, of all three of the expeditions
sent out from France, for the colonization of the French
protestants, mention is again made of the discoveries of Verrazzano.
Laudoniere gives no authority, but speaks of them in terms which
show that he made his compend from the discourse of the French
captain of Dieppe, published by Ramusio in the same volume, in
connection with the Verrazzano letter. He says that Verrazzano "was
sent by King Francis the First and Madame the Regent, his mother,
into these new countries." In thus associating the queen mother with
the king in the prosecution of the enterprise Laudoniere commits the
same mistake as is made in the discourse in that respect. Louise did
not become regent until after the return of Verrazzano is stated to
have taken place, and after both his letter and that of Carli are
represented to have been written. [Footnote: The edict appointing
Louise regent, was dated at Pignerol, the 17th of October, 1524,
when Francis was en route for Milan. Isambert, Recueil, &c., tom.
XII, part I, p. 230.] In adopting this error it is plain that
Laudoniere must have taken it from the work of Ramusio, as the
discourse of the French captain is found in no other place, and
therefore used that work. He also speaks of the discovered country
being called Francesca, as mentioned in the discourse. [Footnote:
Basanier, L'Histoire notable de la Floride. (Paris, 1586), fol. 1-3.
Hakluyt, III, p. 305. Ramusio, III, fol. 423. (Ed. 1556.)]

The Verrazzano discovery is referred to, for the first time, in any
work printed in France, in 1570, in a small folio volume called the
Universal History of the World, by Francois de Belleforest, a
compiler of no great authority. In describing Canada, he
characterizes the natives as cannibals, and in proof of the charge
repeats the story, which is found in Ramusio only, of Verrazzano
having been killed, roasted and eaten by them, and then proceeds
with a short account of the country and its inhabitants, derived, as
he states, from what Verrazzano had written to King Francis.
[Footnote: L'Histoire Universelle du Monde. Par Francois de
Belleforest. (Paris 1570, fol. 253-4.)] He does not mention where he
obtained this account, but his reference to the manner in which
Verrazzano came to his death, shows that he had consulted the volume
of Ramusio. Five years later the same writer gave to the world an
enlarged edition of his work, with the title of The Universal
Cosmography of the World, in three ponderous folios, in which he
recites, more at length, the contents of the Verrazzano letter, also
without mentioning where he had found it, but disclosing
nevertheless that it was in Ramusio, by his following the variations
of that version, particularly in regard to the complexion of the
natives represented to have been first seen, as they will be
hereafter explained. [Footnote: La Cosmographie Universelle de tout
le Monde, tom. II, part II, 2175-9. (Paris, 1575.)] This publication
of Belleforest is the more important, because it is from the
abstract of the Verrazzano letter contained in it, that Lescarbot,
thirty-four years afterwards, took his account of the voyage and
discovery, word for word, without acknowledgment. [Footnote: Hist.
de la Nouvelle France, p. 27, et seq. (ed. 1609). In a subsequent
portion of his history (p. 244) Lescarbot again refers incidentally
to Verrazzano in connection with Jacques Cartier, to whom he
attributes a preposterous statement, acknowledging the Verrazzano
discovery. He states that in 1533 Cartier made known to Chabot, then
admiral of France, his willingness "to discover countries, as the
Spanish had done, in the West Indies, and as, nine years before,
Jean Verrazzano (had done) under the authority of King Francis I,
which Verrazzano, being prevented by death, had not conducted any
colony into the lands he had discovered, and had only remarked the
coast from about the THIRTIETH degree of the Terre-neuve, which at
the present day they call Florida, as far as the FORTIETH. For the
purpose of continuing his design, he offered his services, if it
were the pleasure of the king, to furnish him with the necessary
means. The lord admiral having approved these words, represented
then to his majesty, &c." Lescarbot gives no authority for this
statement, made by him seventy-five years after the voyage of
Cartier. It is absurd on its face and is contradicted by existing
records of that voyage. No authority has ever confined the
Verrazzano discovery within the limits here mentioned. Cartier is
represented as saying to the admiral that in order to complete
Verrazzano's design of carrying colonials to the country discovered
by him, that is, within those limits, he would go himself, if the
king would accept his services. The documents recently published
from the archives of St. Malo, show that the voyage of Cartier
proposed by Cartier, was for the purpose of passing through the
straits of Belle Isle, in latitude 52 Degrees, far north of the
northern limit of the Verrazzano discovery, according to either
version of the letter, and not with a design of planting a colony,
or going to any part of the Verrazzano explorations, much less to a
point south of the fortieth degree. (Rame, Documents inedits sur
Jacques Cartier et le Canada, p. 3, Tross, Paris, 1865.) Besides,
neither in the commissions to Cartier, nor in any of the accounts of
his voyages, is there the slightest allusion to Verrazzano.] The
latter writer has accordingly been cited by subsequent authors as an
original authority on the subject, among others by Bergeron,
[Footnote: Traiete des Navigations, p. 103, par. 15.] and the
commissioners of the king of France, in the controversy with his
Britannic majesty in relation to the limits of Acadia; [Footnote:
Memoires des Commissaires du Roi, &c., I, 29.] but, as this
plagiarism proves, without reason. Charlevoix, with a proper
discrimination, refers directly to Ramusio as the sole source from
whence the account of the discovery is derived, as do the French
writers who have mentioned it since his time, except M. Margry, who,
in his recent work on the subject of French voyages, quotes from the
Carli version. It is thus seen that no other authority is given by
the French historians than one or other of the Italian versions.
[Footnote: Andre Thevet, who published a work with the title of
Cosmographie Universelle, in two volumes, large folio, in rivalry
apparently with Belleforest, and in the same year, 1575, is referred
to sometimes as an authority on this subject. Speaking of the cruel
disposition of the people of Canada, he mentions in illustration of
it, the fate at their hands of some colonists whom Verrazzano took
to that country. The fact is thus related by him in connection with
this voyage, for which he gives no authority or indication of any.
"Jean Verazze, a Florentine, left Dieppe, the SEVENTEENTH OF MARCH,
one thousand five hundred and twenty-four, by command of King
Francis, and coasted the whole of Florida, as far as the thirty-
fourth degree of latitude, and the three hundredth of longitude, and
explored all this coast, and PLACED HERE A NUMBER OF PEOPLE TO
CULTIVATE IT, who in the end were all killed and massacred by this
barbarous people" (fol. 1002 B.). This statement seems to justify
what the President De Thou, the contemporary of Thevet, says of him,
that he composed his books by putting "the uncertain for the
certain, and the false for the true, with an astonishing assurance."
(Hist. Univ., tom. II, 651, Loud., 1734.) Thevet had published before
this, in 1557, another book, called Les Singularites de la France
Antarctique, autrement nommee Amerique, in which he describes all
the countries of America as far north as Labrador, and says that he
ran up the coast to that region on his way home from Brazil, where
he went in 1555, with Villegagnon. In this earlier work he makes no
mention of Verrazzano; but does say that Jacques Cartier told him
that he (Cartier) had made the voyage to America twice (fol. 148-9).
It is thus evident that Thevet had not heard of Verrazzano in 1557,
or he would necessarily have mentioned him, as he had the subject
distinctly before him; and if he is to be believed in regard to his
intimacy with Cartier, with whom he says he spent five months at his
house in St. Malo (Cos. Univ., fol. 1014, B.), and from whom he
received much information, it is quite as clear that Cartier knew
nothing of the Verrazzano discovery, or he would have mentioned it
to Thevet.] It must, therefore, as regarded as confessed by them,
that no original authority for the discovery has never existed in
France.

If any voyage had taken place, such as this is alleged to have been,
it is morally impossible, in the state of learning and art at that
time in France, and with the interest which must necessarily have
attached to the discovery, that no notice should have been taken of
it in any of the chronicles or histories of the country, and that
the memory of it should not have been preserved in some of the
productions of its press. According to the letter itself, it was one
of the grandest achievements in the annals of discovery, and
promised the most important results to France. It was an enterprise
of her king, which had been successfully accomplished. There had
been discovered a heathen land, nearly three thousand miles in
extent, before unknown to the civilized world, and, therefore, open
to subjugation and settlement; healthy, populous, fertile and
apparently rich in gold and aromatics, and, therefore, an
acquisition as great and valuable as any discovery made by the
Spaniards or Portuguese, except that of Columbus. Silence and
indifference in regard to such an event were impossible. Printing
introduced long previously into the principal cities in France, had
early in this reign reached its highest state of perfection, as the
works issued from the presses of Henri Estienne and others attest.
In 1521 twenty-four persons practiced the art in Paris alone.
[Footnote: Didot in Harrisse Bib. Am. Vet., 189.] The discoveries in
the new world by other nations excited as much attention in France
as they did in the other countries of Europe. The letters of
Columbus and Vespucci, describing their voyages and the countries
they had found, were no sooner published abroad than they were
translated into French and printed in Paris. From 1515 to 1529
several editions of the Italian collection of voyages, known as the
Paesi novamente ritrovati, containing accounts of the discoveries of
Columbus, Cortereal, Cabral and Vespucci in America, and in 1532 the
Decades of Peter Martyr, were translated and published in Paris, in
the French language. Cartier's account of his voyage in 1535-6,
undertaken by order of Francis, in which he discovered Canada, was
printed in the same city in 1545, during the reign of that monarch.
These publications abundantly prove the interest which was taken in
France in the discoveries in the new world, and the disposition and
efforts of the printers in the country at that time to supply the
people with information on the subject; and also, that the policy of
the crown allowed publicity to be given to its own maritime
enterprises. Of the enlightened interest on the part of the crown in
the new discoveries, a memorable instance is recorded, having a
direct and important bearing upon this question. A few months only
after the alleged return of Verrazzano, and at the darkest hour in
the reign of Francis, when he was a captive of the emperor in Spain,
Pigafetta, who had accompanied the expedition of Magellan and kept a
journal of the voyage, presented himself at the court of France.
Louise was then exercising the powers and prerogatives of her son,
and guarding his interests and honor with maternal zeal. Pigafetta
came to offer her a copy of the manuscript which he had prepared,
and which told of the discovery of the newly discovered route to the
Moluccas and Cathay. It was written in Italian; and the queen mother
caused it to be translated into French by Antoine Fabre, and printed
by Simon de Colines, the successor of Estienne. The book bears no
date, but bibliographers assign it that of 1525, the year of the
regency. Certain it is, it was printed in Paris during the life of
Francis, as Colines, whose imprint it bears, died before the king.
Thus by the instrumentality of the crown of France was the account
of the discovery of Magellan, written by one who belonged to the
expedition, first given to the world. It is not probable that the
queen mother, exercising the regal power immediately after the
alleged return of Verrazzano, would have left entirely unnoticed and
unpublished an account of his discovery, so interesting to the
subjects of the king and so glorious to France, and yet have caused
to be put forth within his realm in its stead, the history of a like
enterprise, redounding to the glory of the great rival and enemy of
her son. [Footnote: The little book of Pigafetta, a copy of which,
by the kindness of Mrs. John Carter Brown, of Providence, is now in
our hands, bears the title of Le voyage et navigation faict par les
Espaignols es Isles de Molucques, &c. It is fully described by M.
Harrisse in his Bib. Vet. Am. The concluding paragraph contains the
statement that this manuscript was presented to the queen regent.
Ramusio (vol. I, 346), mentions the fact that it was given by her to
Fabre to be translated. The particulars are detailed by Amoretti
Primo Viaggio, Introd. XXXVII. Premier Voyage, XLIV.]

II. Conclusive as the silence of the history of France is against
the assertion that the Verrazzano voyage and discovery were made by
direction of her king, the life of Francis is a complete denial of
it. He was released from his captivity early in 1526, and lived and
reigned over France for more than twenty years afterwards, active in
promoting the greatness of his kingdom; encouraging science and art
among his people, and winning the title of father of letters; awake
to whatever concerned his royal rights and prerogatives, and
maintaining them with might and vigor abroad as well as at home; and
willing and able to obtain and occupy new countries inhabited by the
heathen. That he was not insensible to the advantages to his crown
and realm of colonies in America, and not without the ability and
disposition to prosecute discoveries there for the purpose of
settlement, is proven by his actually sending out the expeditions of
Jacques Cartier in 1534 and 1535 and Cartier and Roberval in 1541-2,
for the purpose of exploring and developing the region beyond the
gulf of St. Lawrence, through the icy way of the straits of Belle
Isle, in latitude 52 Degrees N.

Yet he never recognized by word or deed the voyage or discovery of
Verrazzano. If any one in France could have known of them, surely it
would have been he who had sent forth the expedition. If Verrazzano
were dead, when Francis returned to his kingdom, and the letter had
miscarried and never come to his hands, the knowledge of the
discovery still would have existed in the bosom of fifty living
witnesses, who composed the crew, according to the story; and
through them the results of the voyage would have been communicated
to the king. But Verrazzano was not dead, at that time, but was
alive, as will appear hereafter, in 1527. There is good reason to
believe that he was well known then to the royal advisers. One of
the first acts of the king after his return from Spain was to create
Phillipe Chabot, Sieur de Brion, the admiral of France, whereby that
nobleman became invested on the 23d of March, 1526, with the charge
of the royal marine. [Footnote: Pere Anselme, IV, 57l.] A document
has recently been brought to light from among the manuscripts in the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, purporting to be an agreement made
by Chabot in his official capacity, with Jean Ango, of Dieppe, and
other persons, including Jehan de Varesam, for a voyage to the
Indies with two vessels belonging to the king, and one to Ango, to
be conducted by Varesam, as master pilot, for the purpose ostensibly
of bringing bask a cargo of spices. [Footnote: M. Margry.
Navigations Francaises, p. 194. See Appendix.] This instrument has
no date, but on its face belongs to Chabot's administration of the
admiralty, and must, therefore, have been drawn up in the year 1526
or that of Verrazzano's death, in 1527. If it be genuine, it proves
not only that Verrazzano was alive in that period, but was known to
the admiral, and, consequently, that any services which he had
previously rendered must have been in the possession of the crown.
In either case, however, whether Verrazzano were dead or alive when
Francis resumed his royal functions, there is no reason why the
discovery, if it had ever taken place, should not have been known by
him.

In sending forth the expeditions of Jacques Cartier and the joint
expeditions of Cartier and Roberval, Francis not only showed his
interest in the discovery of new countries, but he acted in perfect
ignorance of the Verrazzano discovery. If it were known to him, upon
what rational theory would he have attempted new voyages of
discovery in a cold and inhospitable region, on an uncertain search,
instead of developing what had been found for him? What could he
have expected to have accomplished by the new expeditions that had
not been already fully effected by Verrazzano? And, especially after
the way to Canada was found out by Cartier, what was there more
inviting in that unproductive quarter than was promised in the
temperate climate, fertile soil, and mineral lands, which the
Florentine had already discovered in his name, that he should have
sent Cartier and Roberval to settle and conquer the newer land?
[Footnote: The letters issued to Roberval have been recently
published, for the first time, by M. Harrisse, from the archives of
France, in his Notes pour servir a l'histoire de la Nouvelle France,
p. 244, et seq. (Paris, 1872.) They are dated the 16th of February
1540. Cartier's commission for the same service is dated in October,
1540. Charlevoix, misled probably by the letters granted by Henry IV
to the Marquis de la Roche in 1598, in which the letters to Roberval
are partially recited, asserts that Roberval is styled in them lord
of Norumbega. The letters now published show that he was in error;
and that France limited the authority of Roberval to the countries
west of the gulf of St. Lawrence (Canada and Ochelaga), so far as
any are named or described, and made no reference to Norumbega as a
title of Roberval or otherwise. As the year commenced at Easter the
date of Roberval's commission was in fact after that of Cartier.]

With the failure of the expedition of Roberval, Francis abandoned
the attempt to discover new countries, or plant colonies in America;
but his successors, though much later, entered upon the colonization
of New France. They inherited his rights, and while they
acknowledged the discoveries of Cartier they discredited those
ascribed to Verrazzano. Of the latter claim all of them must have
known. The publication of Ramusio took place during the reign of
Henry II, who died in 1559; but he made no endeavor to plant
colonies abroad. In 1577 and 1578, the first commissions looking to
possessions in America north of Florida, were issued by Henry III,
to the Marquis de la Roche, authorizing settlement in the terres
neufves and the adjacent countries NEWLY discovered, in the
occupancy of barbarians, but nothing was done under them. In 1598,
another grant was made to the same person by Henry IV, for the
conquest of Canada, Hochelaga, Newfoundland, Labrador, the country
of the river St. Lawrence, Norumbega, and other countries adjacent.
This is the first document emanating from the crown, containing any
mention of any part of the continent north of latitude 33 degrees
and south of Cape Breton.

Norumbega is the only country of those here enumerated which is
included within those limits, and that did not become known through
Verrazzano. [Footnote: Norumbega embraced the region of country
extending from the land of the Bretons to the Penobscot, of which it
was regarded as the Indian name. It was almost identical with what
was subsequently called Acadia. It had become known at an early
period through the French fishermen and traders in peltries, who
obtained the name from the Indians and carried it home to France. It
is described by Jean Alfonse, the chief pilot of Roberval, from an
exploration which he made along the coast on the occasion of
Roberval's expedition to Canada, in 1542. (Hakluyt, III, 239-240.
MS. cosmography of Alfonse, in Bib. Nat. of Paris, fol. 185.)
Alfonse states that he ran down the coast as far as a bay which he
did not penetrate, in latitude 42, between Norumbega and Florida,
showing that Norumbega was considered as north of that parallel of
latitude. He particularly describes it in the manuscript just cited,
which Hakluyt had before him, as the ruttier of Alfonse which he
publishes is found in that manuscript. It appears to have been
written by Alfonse in 1544-5, which was shortly after his return
from Canada with Roberval. the name of Norumbega is found in the
discourse of the captain of Dieppe, written in 1539, and printed in
third volume of Ramusio. This writer distinctly states that the name
was derived from the natives. The description of the country and its
inhabitants given by Alfonse, is important, as showing its extent,
and alluding to the trade there in peltries thus early. It is found
in the cosmography in connection with the ruttier before mentioned
(fol. 187-8), and is as follows: "I say that the cape of St. Jehan,
called Cape Breton and the cape of the Franciscaine, are northeast
and southwest, and take a quarter of east and west and there is in
the route one hundred and forty leagues. And here makes a cape
called the cape of Noroveregue. This said cape is at forty-five
degrees of the height of the arctic pole. The said coast is all
sandy land, low without any mountain. And along this coast there are
several islands of sand and coast very dangerous, with banks and
rocks. The people of this coast and of Cape Breton are bad people,
powerful, great archers and live on fish and flesh. They speak, as
it were, the same language as those of Canada, and are a great
nation. And those of Cape Breton go and make war upon those of
Newfoundland (Terre neufve), where they fish. On no account would
they save the life of a person when they capture him, if it he not a
child or young girl, and are so cruel that if they find a man
wearing a beard, they cut his limbs off and carry them to their
wives and children, in order to be revenged in that matter. And
there is among them much peltry of all animals. Beyond the cape of
Noroveregue [Cape Sable] descends the river of the said Noroveregue
which is about twenty-five leagues from the cape. The said river is
more than forty leagues broad at its mouth, and extends this width
inward well thirty or forty leagues, and is all full of islands
which enter ten or twelve leagues into the sea, and it is very
dangerous with rocks and reefs. The said river is at forty-two
degrees of the height of the arctic pole. Fifteen leagues within
this river is a city which is called Norombergue, and there are in
it good people and THERE IS MUCH PELTRY OF ALL ANIMALS. The people
of the city are clothed with peltry, wearing mantles of martin. I
suspect the said river enters into the river of Ochelaga, for it is
salt more than forty league inward, according to what is said by the
people of the city. The people use many words, which resemble Latin,
and adore the sun; and are handsome and large men. The land of
Norobregue is tolerably high. On the side on the west of the said
city there are many rocks which run into the sea well fifteen
leagues; and on the side towards the north there is a bay in which
there is a little island which is very subject to tempest and cannot
be inhabited."

Two sketches of the coast by Alfonse accompany this description,
which are here reproduced united in one. The map in Ramusio (III,
fol. 424-5), prepared by Gastaldi, shows the Terra de Nurumbega, of
the same extent as here described, that is, from Cape Breton
westerly to a river running north from the Atlantic and connecting
with the St. Lawrence or river of Hochelaga. Gastaldi, or Gastaldo,
published previously an edition of Ptolemy's Geography (12mo.,
Venice, 1543), in which (map 56), Norumbega is similarly laid down,
without the river running to the St. Lawrence. Norumbega was
therefore a well defined district of country at that time.

The word was undoubtedly derived from the Indians, and is still in
use by those of the Penobscot, to denote certain portions of that
river. The missionary Vetromile, in his History of the Abnakis (New
York, 1866), observes (pp. 48-9): "Nolumbega means A STILL-WATER
BETWEEN FALLS, of which there are several in that river. At
different times, travelling in a canoe along the Penobscot, I have
heard the Indians calling those localities NOLUMBEGA."

That the country did not become known through Verrazzano is evident
from the letter, in which it is stated that he ran along the entire
coast, from the harbor to which they remained fifteen days, one
hundred and fifty leagues easterly, that is from Cape Cod to the
Island of Cape Breton, without landing, and consequently without
having any correspondence with the natives, so as to have acquired
the name.

When in particular Alfonse ran along the Atlantic coast is not
mentioned, though it is to be inferred that it was on the occasion
of Roberval's expedition. There is nothing stated, it is true, to
preclude the possibility of its having taken place on some other
voyage previously. It could not have been afterwards, as the
cosmography describing it was written in 1544-5. Some authors assert
that Roberval dispatched him towards Labrador with a view of finding
a passage to the East Indies, without mentioning his exploration
along Nova Scotia and New England. But Le Clerc, who seems to have
been the author of this statement (Premier Etablissement de la Foy
dans la Nouvelle France, I, 12-13. Paris, 1691), and who is followed
by Charlevoix, also alleges that on the occasion of his exploration
towards Labrador, he discovered the straits between it and
Newfoundland, in latitude 52, now known as the straits of Belle
Isle, which is not correct. Jacques Cartier sailed through that
passage in his first voyage to Canada, in 1534. Le Clerc either drew
false inferences or relied upon false information. He probably
derived his impression of the voyage to Labrador and the discovery
of the straits by Alfonse, from a cursory reading of the cosmography
of Alfonse, who describes these straits, but not as a discovery of
his own.

In the printed work, called Les voyages avantureux du Capitaine Jean
Alphonse, Saintongeois, which was first published in 1559, after the
death of Alfonse, it is expressly stated that the river of
Norumbega, was discovered by the Portuguese and Spaniards.
Describing the great bank, he says that it runs from Labrador, "au
nordest et suroest, une partie a oest-suroest, plus de huit cens
lieues, et passe bien quatre vingts lieues de la terre neufue, et de
la terre des Bretons trente ou quarante lieues. Et d'icy va tout au
long de la coste jusques a la riviere du Norembergue, QUI EST
NOUVELLEMENT DESCOUVERTE PAR LES PORTUGALOIS ET ESPAGNOLS," p. 53.
We quote from an edition of the work not mentioned by the
bibliographers (Brunet-Harrisse), printed at Rouen in 1602. This is
almost a contemporary denial by a French author, whether Alfonse
himself or a compiler, as it would rather appear, from his
cosmography, of the Verrazzano discovery of this country.]

No allusion is made, in these letters of de la Roche, to any
previous exploration, although an enormous recital, already alluded
to, is made to a purpose of Francis I, in his commission to
Roberval, to conquer the countries here indicated. [Footnote:
Lescarbot (ed. 1609), 434. Harrisse, Notes de la Nouvelle France, p.
243.] De la Roche made a miserable attempt to settle the island of
Sable, a sand bank in the ocean, two degrees south of Cape Breton,
with convicts taken from jails of France, but being repelled by
storm and tempest, after leaving that island, from landing on the
main coast, returned to France without any further attempt to
colonize the country, and abandoning the poor malefactors on the
island to a terrible fate. [Footnote: The story is told by Lescarbot
(p. 38, ed. 1609), which he subsequently embellished with some
fabulous additions in relation to a visit to the island of Sable by
Baron de Leri, in 1519 (Ed. 1611, p. 22), even before the date of
the Verrazzano letter.] There is therefore no acknowledgment, in the
history of this enterprise, of the pretended discovery. The next act
of the regal prerogative was a grant to the Sieur de Monts, by the
same monarch in 1603, authorizing him to take possession of the
country, coasts and confines of La Cadie, extending from latitude 40
Degrees N. to 46 Degrees N., that is, Nova Scotia and New England,
the situation of which, it is alleged, De Monts understood from his
previous voyages to the country. [Footnote: Lescarbot (ed. 1609),
452-3. La Cadie, or Acadie, as it was for a long time afterwards
known, appears for the first time on any chart on the map of Terra
Nova, No. 56, in Gastaldi's Ptolemy, and is there called Lacadia.]
This document also is utterly silent as to any particular discovery
of the country; but it distinctly affirms that the foundation of the
claim to this territory was the report of the captains of vessels,
pilots, merchants and others, who had for a long time frequented the
country and trafficked with its inhabitants. Accompanying these
letters patent was a license to De Monts to trade with the natives
of the St. Lawrence, and make settlements on that river. It was
under these authorisations to De Monts exclusively, that all the
permanent settlements of the French in Nova Scotia and Canada were
effected, beyond which countries none were ever attempted by them,
within the limits of the Verrazzano discovery, or any rights
asserted on behalf of the French crown.

It is thus evident that the history of France and of her kings is
utterly void on the subject of this discovery, without any
legitimate cause, if it had ever taken place; and that the policy of
the crown in regard to colonization in America has ever been
entirely in repugnance to it. It is incredible, therefore, that any
such could ever have taken place for Francis, or for France.

An important piece of testimony of an affirmative character,
however, still exists, showing that the crown of France had no
knowledge or appreciation of this claim. It comes from France, and,
as it were, from Francis himself. It is to be found in the work of a
French cartographer, a large and elaborately executed map of the
world, which has been reproduced by M. Jomard, in his Monuments of
Geography, under the title of Mappemonde peinte sur parchemin par
ordre de Henry II, roi de France. [Footnote: Les Monuments de la
Geographie ou Receuil d'anciennes cartes, &c., en facsimile de la
grandeur des originaux. Par M. Jomard. No. XIX.] M. D'Avezac assigns
it the date of 1542, which is five years before the death of Francis
and accession of Henry to the throne. [Footnote: Inventaire et
classement raisonne des "Monuments de la Geographie" publies par M.
Jomard de 1842 a 1863. (Communication de M. D'Avezac.) Extrait du
Bulletin de L'Academie des inscriptions et belles lettres. Seance du
30 Aout 1867, p. 7. L'Annee Geographique. Sixieme annee (1867), pp.
548, 554.] But neither of these dates appears to be exactly correct;
as upon that portion of the map representing Saguenay, the person of
Roberval is depicted and his name inscribed, evidently denoting his
visit to that country, which did not take place until June, 1543.
[Footnote: Hakluyt, III, 242.] No information, could possibly have
arrived in France, to have enabled the maker of the map, to have
indicated this circumstance upon it before the latter part of that
year. On the other hand the arms of both the king and dauphin are
repeatedly drawn in the decorated border of the map, showing that it
was made, if not under the actual direction of Henry, at least while
he was in fact discharging the functions of admiral of France, which
he assumed after the disgrace of Chabot, in 1540, and continued to
exercise until the death of Francis, in 1547. It therefore belongs
to the period of 1543-7; and thus comes to us apparently impressed
with an official character. It is the work of an accomplished French
geographer, DURING THE REIGN OF FRANCIS, and it, no doubt,
represents not only the state of geographical knowledge in France at
that time, but also all the knowledge possessed by Francis of this
coast. Mr. Kohl expresses the opinion that it "is not only one of
the most brilliant, but also one of the most exact and trustworthy
pictures of the world which we have in the first part of the
sixteenth century. It gives accurately all that was known of the
world in 1543, especially of the ocean, and the outlines of the
coasts of different countries." He adds, "the author of the map must
have been a well instructed, intelligent and conscientious man.
Where the coasts of a country are not known to him, he so designates
them. For his representations of countries recently discovered and
already known, he had before him the best models and originals."
[Footnote: Discovery of Maine, 351-4.] Yet notwithstanding the
thorough knowledge of the subject displayed by this cartographer,
his French nationality, and the contemporariness of his labors with
the reign of Francis, "no evidence," as Mr. K. further observes,"
appears that the report or chart of the French commander,
Verrazzano, had been used in constructing this chart." On the
contrary, the line of coast from Cape St. Roman in South Carolina to
Cape Breton is copied from the Spanish map of Ribero, with the
Spanish names translated into French. [Footnote: Thus R. del
principe, R. del espiritu santo, B. de Santa Maria (the Chesapeake)
Playa, C. de S. Juan, R. de St. Iago, C. de Arenas (Cape Henlopen),
B. de S. Christoval (the Delaware), B. de S. Antonio (the Hudson),
R. de buena Madre, S. Juan Baptista, Arcipelago de Estevan Gomez,
Montanas, and R. de la buelta, on the map of Ribero, become on the
French map, R. du Prince, R. du St. Esprit, B. de Sa. Marie, Les
playnes, C. St. Jean, St. Jacques, C. des Sablons, G. de St.
Christofle, R. de St. Anthoine, R. de bonne Mere, Baye de St. Jean
Baptiste, Arcipel de Estienne Gomez, Les Montaignes and R. de
Volte.] Many other names occur within the same distance, which are
found on other Spanish charts since that time, and some which were
probably taken from Spanish charts not now known. [Footnote: Of this
class are the R. de Canoes, R. Seche, Playne, Coste de Dieu, R.
d'Arbres, which, on the map XII, of the Munich Atlas, said to have
been taken from the map of the Spanish cosmographer, Alonzo de Santa
Cruz, are given, R. de Canoas, R. Seco, Terra Ilana, Costa de Diego,
R. d'Arvoredos.] Thus within the limits mentioned, embracing the
exploration of Gomez no designation occurs connecting the coast with
Verrazzano. [Footnote: The name of Avorobagra, on the west side of
the great bay, is found in place of C. de Muchas illas of the Ribero
map. This is supposed to have been intended for Norumbega.] From
Cape Breton easterly and northerly along the coast of Newfoundland
the discoveries of the Normand and Bretons and the Portuguese, and
in the river and gulf of St. Lawrence, those of Jacques Cartier, are
shown by the names. The whole coast claimed by the letter is thus
assigned to other parties than Verrazzano. The logical maxim,
expressio unius est exclusio alterius, must here apply. The
expression of the Spanish discoveries, at least exclude those of
Verrazzano; demonstrating almost to a moral certainty that the
latter could never have been performed for the king of France. The
author of this map, whether executing it under official
responsibility or upon his own account, would not have ascribed, or
dared to ascribe, to a foreign nation, much less to a rival, the
glory which belonged to his own sovereign, then living, whose
protection he enjoyed.




IV.

II. MISREPRESENTATIONS IN REGARD TO THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE COAST. THE
CHESAPEAKE. THE ISLAND OF LOUISE. MASSACHUSETTS BAY.


In pursuing its main object of making known the discovery, the
letter ventures upon certain statements which are utterly
inconsistent with an actual exploration of the country. The general
position and direction of the coast are given with sufficient
correctness to indicate the presence there of a navigator; but its
geographical features are so meagrely and untruthfully represented,
as to prove that he could not have been the writer. The same
apparent inconsistency exists as to the natural history of the
country. Some details are given in regard to the natives, which
correspond with their known characteristics, but others are
flagrantly false. The account is evidently the work of a person who,
with an imperfect outline of the coast, by another hand, before him,
undertook to describe its hydrographical character at a venture, so
far as he deemed it prudent to say anything on the subject; and to
give the natural history of the country, in the same way, founded on
other accounts of parts of the new world. The actual falsity of the
statements alluded to is, at all events, sufficient to justify the
rejection of the whole story. So far as they relate to the littoral,
they are now to be considered.

In general, the geography of the coast is very indefinitely
described. Of its latitudes, with the exception of the landfall and
termination of the exploration, which are fixed also by other means,
and are necessary to the ground work of the story, only a single one
is mentioned. The particular features of the coast are for the most
part unnoticed. Long distances, embracing from two hundred to six
hundred miles each, are passed over with little or no remark.
Islands, rivers, capes, bays, and other land or seamarks, by which
navigators usually describe their progress along an unknown coast,
are almost entirely unmentioned. For a distance of over two thousand
miles, adopting the narrowest limits possible assigned to the
discovery, only one island, one river, and one bay are attempted to
be described, and not a single cape or headland is referred to. No
name is given to any of them, or to any part of the coast, except
the one island which is named after the king's mother. It was the
uniform practice of the Catholic navigators of that early period,
among whom, according to the import of the letter, Verrazzano was
one, to designate the places discovered by them, by the names of the
saints whose feasts were observed on the days they were discovered,
or of the festivals of the church celebrated on those days; so that,
says Oviedo, it is possible to trace the course of any such explorer
along a new coast by means of the church calendar. This custom was
not peculiar to the countrymen of that historian. It was observed by
the Portuguese and also by the French, as the accounts of the
voyages of Jacques Cartier attest. But nothing of the kind appears
here. These omissions of the ordinary and accustomed practices of
voyagers are suspicious, and of themselves sufficient to destroy all
confidence in the narrative. But to proceed to what is actually
stated in regard to the coast.

Taking the landfall to have occurred, as is distinctly claimed, at
latitude 34 Degrees, which is a few leagues north of Cape Fear in
North Carolina, and which is fixed with certainty, for the purposes
of the letter, at that point by the estimate of the distance they
ran northerly along the coast before it took an easterly direction,
the discovery must be regarded as having commenced somewhat south of
Cape Roman in South Carolina, being the point where the fifty
leagues terminated which they ran along the coast, in the first
instance, south of the landfall. It is declared that from thence,
for two hundred leagues, to the Hudson river, as it will appear,
there was not a single harbor in which the Dauphine could ride in
safety. [Footnote: A league, according to the Verrazzano letter,
consisted of four miles; and a degree, of 15,625 leagues or 62 1/3
miles.] The size of this craft is not mentioned, but it is said she
carried only fifty men, though manned as a corsair. Judging from the
size of the vessels used at that time on similar expeditions, she
was small. The two which composed the first expedition of Jacques
Cartier carried sixty men and were each of about sixty tons burden.
The Carli letter, which must be assumed to express the idea of the
writer on the subject, describes her as a caravel; which was a
vessel of light draught adapted to enter shallow rivers and harbors
and to double unknown capes where shoals might have formed, and was
therefore much used by the early navigators of the new world.
[Footnote: Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance. Tome Second. Marine, par
M. A. Jal. fol. V. (Paris 1849.)] Columbus chose two caravels, out
of the three vessels with which he made his first voyage; and the
third one, which was larger than either of the caravels, was less
than one hundred tons. The Dauphine is therefore to be considered,
from all the representations in regard to her, of less than the
latter capacity, and as specially adapted to the kind of service in
which she is alleged to have been engaged. In running north from
their extreme southerly limit, they must have passed the harbor of
Georgetown in South Carolina, and Beaufort in North Carolina, in
either of which the vessel could have entered; and in the latter,
carrying seventeen feet at low water and obtaining perfect shelter
from all winds. [Footnote: Blunt's American Coast Pilot, p. 359
(19th edition.)] But if they really had been unable to find either
of them, it is impossible that they should not have discovered the
Chesapeake, and entered it, under the alleged circumstances of their
search. That it may be seen what exactly is the statement of the
letter in regard to this portion of the coast, it is here given in
its own terms. Having represented the explorers as having reached a
point fifty leagues north of the landfall, which would have carried
them north of Hatteras, but still on the coast of North Carolina,
their movements over the next four hundred miles north are disposed
of in the following summary manner: "After having remained here,"
(that is, at or near Albemarle,) "three days riding at anchor on the
coast, as we could find no harbor, we determined to depart and coast
along the shore to the northeast, keeping sail on the vessel ONLY BY
DAY, and coming to anchor by night. After proceeding one hundred
leagues we found a VERY PLEASANT SITUATION AMONG SOME STEEP HILLS,
THROUGH WHICH A VERY LARGE RIVER, DEEP AT ITS MOUTH, FORCED ITS WAY
TO THE SEA." There can be no mistake in regard to the portion of the
coast here intended. Upon leaving this river they found that the
coast stretched, it is stated, as will presently appear, in an
EASTERLY direction. A stream coming from the hills, its situation at
the bend of the coast, its latitude as fixed by that of the port
which, after leaving it, they found in nearly the same parallel and
which is placed in 41 Degrees 40', all point distinctly to the
embouchure of the Hudson at the highlands of Navesink as the
termination of the hundred leagues. Within this distance the
Chesapeake empties into the sea.

The explorers were not only in search of a harbor for the purpose of
recruiting, but they were seeking, as the great end of the voyage, a
passage to Cathay, rendering, therefore, every opening in the coast
an object of peculiar interest and importance. They were sailing
with extreme caution and observation, in the day-time only, and
constantly in sight of land. The bay of the Chesapeake is the most
accessible and capacious on the coast of the United States. It
presents an opening into the sea of twelve miles from cape to cape,
having a broad and deep channel through which the largest ships of
modern times, twenty times or more the tonnage of the Dauphiny, may
enter and find inside of Cape Henry ample and safe anchorage.
[Footnote: Blunt's American Coast Pilot, p. 340.] That an actual
explorer could not have failed to have discovered this bay and found
a secure harbor at that time, is shown by the account of the
expedition, which the Adelantado, Pedro Menendes, of infamous
memory, despatched under the command of Pedro Menendez Marquez, for
the survey of this coast in 1573; when the means and facilities of
navigators for exploration were not different from what existed at
the date of the Verrazzano voyage. Menendez Marquez was the first to
enter the Chesapeake after Gomez, who gave it the name of the bay of
Santa Maria. [Footnote: This name occurs on the map of Ribero on
this part of the coast, which establishes its application by Gomez;
but its position is evidently misplaced and carried too far south.]
Barcia thus summarizes the result of the expedition, so far as it
relates to this bay.

"Pedro Menendez Marquez, governor of Florida for his uncle the
Adelantado reduced many Indians to obedience and took possession of
the provinces particularly in the name of the king, in the presence
of Rodrigo de Carrion, notary of the government of Santa Elena.
Afterwards, he, being a great seaman, inasmuch as he had formerly
been admiral of the fleet, as Francisco Cano relates, Lib. 3, de la
Histor. de las Ordenes Militares, fol. 184, went, by order of the
Adelantado, to explore the coast, which exploration commenced at the
cape of the Martyrs, and the peninsula Tequesta [point of Florida],
where the coast begins to run north and south, at the outlet of the
Bahama channel, and extended along the coast to beyond the harbor
and bay of Santa Maria, which is three leagues wide and which is
entered towards the northwest; and within it are many rivers and
harbors where, on both sides of it, they can anchor. At the
entrance, near the shore, on the south, there are from nine to
thirteen fathoms of water, and on the north, from five to seven. Two
leagues outside, in the sea, the depth is the same, north and south,
but more sandy than inside. Going through the channel there are from
nine to thirteen fathom; and in the harbor about fifteen, ten and
six fathoms were found in places where the lead was thrown."

"The bay of Santa Maria is in thirty-seven degrees and a half.
[Footnote: Ensayo Chronologico, pp. 146, 8.]"

To ignore the existence of this great bay, the most important
hydrographical feature of our coast, as Verrazzano, according to the
letter, does, and to pretend that no harbor could be found there, in
which the diminutive Dauphiny could lie, is, under the circumstances
under which this exploration is alleged to have been conducted, to
admit that he was never on that part of the coast.

Suddenly leaving the river of the hills, in consequence of an
approaching storm, they continued their course directly east for a
distance of ninety-five leagues, passing in sight of the island and
arriving finally at the bay, which are the only ones described, and
that very briefly, in the whole voyage along the coast.

"Weighing anchor," reads the letter, "we sailed eighty leagues
TOWARDS THE EAST, as the coast stretched in that direction, and
ALWAYS IN SIGHT OF IT. At length we discovered an island of
triangular form, about ten leagues from the main land, in size about
equal to the island of Rhodes, having many hills covered with trees
and well peopled, judging from the great number of fires which we
was all around its shores; we gave it the name of your majesty's
illustrious mother. WE DID NOT LAND THERE, as the weather was
unfavorable, but proceeded to another place, fifteen leagues distant
from the island, where we found a very excellent harbor. * * * This
land is situated in the parallel of Rome, being 41 degrees 41' of
north latitude. It looks towards the south, on which side the harbor
is half a league broad; afterwards, upon entering it between the
east and the north it extends twelve leagues, [Footnote: A slight
correction of the translation of Dr. Cogswell, which is the one we
have adopted, here becomes necessary. It reads: "upon entering it
the extent between the east [misprinted coast], and north, is twelve
leagues." The text is, "entrando in quello infra oriente e
settentrione s'esteude leghe XII."] and then enlarging itself it
forms a very large bay, twenty leagues in circumference, in which
are five small islands of great fertility and beauty, covered with
large and lofty trees. Among these islands any fleet, however large,
might ride safely, without fear of tempests or other dangers.
Turning towards the south, at the entrance of the harbor on both
sides there are very pleasant hills and many streams of clear water
which flow down to the sea. In the midst of the entrance, there is a
rock of freestone, formed by nature and suitable for the
construction of any kind of machine or bulwark for the defence of
the harbor."

This island is a mere fancy; none such exists any where upon this
coast. The distance which they thus ran easterly, of eighty leagues,
would have carried them more than an hundred miles into the ocean
beyond Cape Cod. That distance, however, may be regarded only as
approximate, because they possessed no means of determining
longitude with accuracy, and therefore this, like all statements in
the letter, of distances running east and west, is to be considered
an estimate only, formed from the circumstances attending the
sailing of the vessel, and liable to serious error. But the island
and bay were objects of actual observation, and are therefore to be
regarded as they are described. After leaving Long Island, which
forms the coast in an easterly direction for a little over an
hundred miles from the Hudson, only three islands occur, except some
insignificant ones and the group of the Elizabeth islands all near
the shore, in the entire distance to the easterly shore of Cape Cod,
when the coast turns directly north. They are all three somewhat of
a triangular shape, and in that respect are equally entitled to
consideration in connection with the description of the island of
Louise, but are all incompatible with it in other particulars.
Louise is represented as being a very large island, equal in size to
the famous island of Rhodes, which has an area of four hundred
square miles, and as being situated ten leagues distant from the
main land. The first of the three islands met with, eastward of Long
Island, is Block island. It contains less than twenty square miles
of territory and lies only three leagues from the land; and thus
both by its smallness and position cannot be taken as the island of
Louise. It has, however, been so regarded by some writers, because
on the main land, about five leagues distant, are found Narraganset
bay and the harbor of Newport, which, it is imagined, bear some
resemblance to the bay and harbor which the explorers entered
fifteen leagues beyond the island of Louise, and which cannot be
elsewhere found.

But Narraganset bay does not correspond in any particular with the
bay described in the letter, except as to its southern exposure and
its latitude, and as to them it has no more claim to consideration
than Buzzard's bay, three leagues further east, and in other
respects not so much. Newport harbor, several miles inside of
Narraganset bay, faces the north and west, and not the south. The
whole length of that bay, including the harbor of Newport from the
ocean to Providence river, is less than five leagues, and its
greatest breadth not more than three. But the harbor described in
the letter first as extending twelve leagues and then enlarging
itself, formed a large bay of twenty leagues in circumference. The
two, it is clear, are essentially unlike. The great rock rising out
of the sea at the entrance of the harbor, has no existence in this
bay or harbor. Narraganset bay, therefore, affords no support to the
idea that Block island, or any other, is the island of Louise.
Martha's Vineyard, the second of the three islands before mentioned,
is the largest of them, but it contains only one hundred and twenty
square miles of land, and is within two leagues of the main land.
Nantucket, the last of the three, is less than half the size of
Martha's Vineyard, and is about thirty miles from Cape Cod, the
nearest part of the continent. From neither of them is any harbor to
be reached corresponding with that mentioned in the letter. It is
incontrovertible, therefore, that there is neither island nor bay on
this coast answering the description. It is not difficult to
perceive that the island of Louise was a mere invention and artifice
on the part of the writer to give consistency to the pretension that
the voyage originated with Francis. This island is the only one of
which particular mention is made in the whole exploration. Yet it
was not visited or seen except, in sailing by it, at a distance. Its
pretended hills and trees disclosed nothing of its character; and,
under such circumstances, its alleged dimensions were all that could
have entitled it to such particular notice and made it worthy of so
exalted a designation; and to those no island on this coast has any
claim.

There is little room to doubt from the description itself, and the
fact will be confirmed by other evidence hereafter, that the bay
intended to be described was the great bay of Massachusetts and
Maine terminating in the bay of Fundy. It is represented as making
an offset in the coast of twelve leagues towards the north, and then
swelling into an enclosed bay beyond, of twenty leagues in
circumference, indicating those bays, in their form. The distances,
it is true, do not conform to those belonging to that part of the
coast; but it is to be borne in mind that they may have been taken,
according to the only view which can reconcile the contradictions of
the letter, from an imperfect delineation of the coast by another
hand. The identity of the two is, however, proven, without recourse
to this explanation, by the description of the coast beyond, which
is given as follows:

"Having supplied ourselves with every thing necessary, we departed,
on the sixth [Footnote: According to the Archivio Storico Italiano,
and not the FIFTH, as given in N. Y. Hist. Coll.] of May, from this
port [where they had remained fifteen days] and SAILED ONE HUNDRED
AND FIFTY LEAGUES, KEEPING SO NEAR TO THE COAST AS NEVER TO LOSE IT
FROM OUR SIGHT; the nature of the country appeared much the same as
before, but the MOUNTAINS were a little higher and all in appearance
RICH IN MINERALS. WE DID NOT STOP TO LAND, as the weather was very
favorable for pursuing our voyage, and the country presented no
variety. THE SHORE STRETCHED TO THE EAST, and fifty leagues beyond
more to the north, where we found a more elevated country full of
very thick woods of fir trees, cypresses and the like, indicative of
a cold climate. The people were entirely different from the others
we had seen, whom we had found kind and gentle, but these were so
rude and barbarous that we were unable by any signs we could make to
hold communication with them."

This is all that is mentioned in regard to the entire coast of New
England and Nova Scotia, embracing a distance of eight hundred miles
according to this computation, but in fact much more. It is here
stated, however, distinctly, that from the time of leaving the
harbor, near the island of Louise, they kept close to the land,
which ran in an EASTERLY direction, and CONSTANTLY IN SIGHT OF IT,
for one hundred and fifty leagues. This they could not have done if
that harbor were on any part of the coast, west of Massachusetts
bay. If they sailed from Narraganset bay, or Buzzard's bay, or from
any harbor on that coast, east of Long Island, they would in the
course of twenty leagues at the furthest, in an easterly direction,
have reached the easterly extremity of the peninsula of Cape Cod,
and keeping close to the shore would have been forced for one
hundred and fifty miles, in a northerly and west of north direction,
and thence along the coast of Maine northeasterly a further distance
of one hundred and fifty miles, and been finally locked in the bay
of Fundy. It is only by running from Cape Sable along the shores of
Nova Scotia that this course and distance, in sight of the land, can
be reconciled with the actual direction of the coast; and this makes
the opening between Cape Cod and Cape Sable the large bay intended
in the letter. But this opening of eighty leagues in width, could
never have been seen by the writer of it; and nothing could more
conclusively prove his ignorance of the coast, than his statements
that from the river among the hills, for the distance of ninety-five
leagues easterly to the harbor in 41 Degrees 40' N. and from thence
for a further distance of one hundred and fifty leagues, also
EASTERLY, the land was always in sight.

[Illustration with caption: ] CAPE HENRY AND ENTRANCE INTO THE
CHESAPEAKE. Lighthouse, with lantern 129 feet above the sea, bearing
W. N. W. 1/2 W., three leagues distant.




V.

III. CAPE BRETON AHD THE SOUTHERLY COAST OF NEWFOUNDLAND, HERE
CLAIMED TO HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED, WERE KNOWN PREVIOUSLY. PERVERSION
OF THE TEXT OF THE LETTER BY RAMUSIO.


By the two courses and distances just mentioned, the explorers are
brought first to the island of Cape Breton, and then to the cape of
that name, where the coast first takes a decided turn, from its
easterly direction, to the north, and forms the westerly side of the
strait leading into the gulf of St. Lawrence. This cape, according
to the letter, is distant easterly one hundred and fifty, and fifty,
leagues from the harbor in the great bay, distances which, for
reasons already mentioned, are to be regarded as estimates only, but
which taken exactly would have carried them beyond Cape Race in
Newfoundland. They are to be considered, however, as properly
limited to the turn of the coast before mentioned, as that is a
governing circumstance in the description. Beyond this point, north,
and east, the letter presents the claim to the discovery in another
aspect. Thus far it relates to portions of the coast confessedly
unknown before its date. But from Cape Breton, in latitude 46
Degrees N. to latitude 50 Degrees N. on the east side of
Newfoundland, it pretends to the discovery of parts, which were in
fact already known; and it makes this claim circumstances which
prove it was so known by the writer, if the letter were written as
pretended. Having described their attempts at intercourse with the
natives at Cape Breton, the narrative concludes the description of
the coast with the following paragraph.

"Departing from thence, we kept along the coast, steering northeast,
and found the country more pleasant and open, free from woods, and
distant in the interior, we saw lofty mountains but none which
extended to the shore. Within fifty leagues we discovered thirty-two
islands, all near the main land, small and of pleasant appearance,
but high and so disposed as to afford excellent harbors and
channels, as we see in the Adriatic gulf, near Illyria and Dalmatia.
We had no intercourse with the people, but we judge that they were
similar in nature and usages to those we were last among. After
sailing between east and north one hundred and fifty leagues MORE,
and finding our provisions and naval stores nearly exhausted, we
took in wood and water, and determined to return to France, having
discovered (avendo discoperto) VII, [Footnote: "The MS. has
erroneously and uselessly the repetition VII, that is, 700 leagues."
Note, by M. Arcangeli. It is evident that VII is mistakenly rendered
502 in the transcription used by Dr. Cogswell.] that is, 700 leagues
of unknown lands."

The exact point at which they left the coast, and to which their
discovery is thus stated to have extended, is given in the
cosmography which follows the narrative, in these words:

"In the voyage which we have made by order of your majesty, in
addition to the 92 degrees we ran towards the west from our point of
departure (the Desertas) before we reached land in the latitude of
34, we have to count 300 leagues which we ran northeastwardly, and
400 nearly east along the coast before we reached the 50TH PARALLEL
OF NORTH LATITUDE, the point where we turned our course from the
shore towards home. BEYOND THIS POINT THE PORTUGUESE HAD ALREADY
SAILED AS FAR AS THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, WITHOUT COMING TO THE
TERMINATION OF THE LAND."

That this latitude must be taken as correctly determined follows
from the representation of the letter, that they took daily
observations of the sun and made a record of them, so that no
material error could have occurred and remained unrectified for over
twenty-four hours; and from the presumption that they were as
capable of calculating the latitude as other navigators of that
period, sent on such purposes by royal authority, like Jacques
Cartier, whose observations, as the accounts of his voyage to this
region show, never varied half a degree from the true latitude. The
fiftieth parallel strikes the easterly coast of Newfoundland three
degrees north of Cape Race, and to that point the exploration of
Verrazzano is therefore to be regarded as claimed to have been made.
[Footnote: Damiam de Goes, Chronica do felicissimo rei Dom Emanuel
parte I. C. 66. (Fol., Lisboa, 1566)]

This intention is made positively certain by the remark which
follows the statement of the latitude, that "beyond this point the
Portuguese had already sailed as far north as the Arctic circle
without coming to the termination of the land." The exploration of
the Portuguese here referred to, and as far as which that of
Verrazzano is carried, was made by Gaspar Cortereal in his second
voyage, when according to the letter of Pasqualigo the Venetian
embassador, he sailed from Lisbon on a course between west and
northwest, and struck a coast along which he ran from six to seven
hundred miles, "without finding the end." [Footnote: Paesi novamente
ritrovati. Lib. sexto. cap. CXXXL. Venice, 1521. A translation into
English of Pasqualigo's letter, which is dated the 19th of October,
1501, is given in the memoir of Sebastian Cabot, p. 235-6.] No other
exploration along this coast by the Portuguese, tending to the
Arctic circle is known to have taken place before the publication of
the Verrazzano letter. The first voyage of Cortereal, was, according
to the description of the people given by Damiam de Goes, among the
Esquimaux, whether on the one side or the other of Davis straits it
is unnecessary here to inquire, as the Esquimaux are not found south
of 50 Degrees N. latitude. The land along which he ran in his second
voyage, was, according to the same historian, distinctly named after
him and his brother, who shared his fate in a subsequent voyage. It
is so called on several early printed maps on which it is
represented as identical with Newfoundland. It appears first on a
map of the world in the Ptolemy of 1511 edited by Bernardus Sylvanus
of Eboli, and is there laid down as extending from latitude 50
Degrees N. to 60 Degrees N. with the name of Corte Real or Court
Royal, latinized into Regalis Domus. [Footnote: Claudii Ptholemaei
Alexandrini liber geographiae, cum tabulis et universali figura et
cum additione locorum quae a recentioribus reporta sunt diligenti
cura emendatus et impressus. (Fol., Venetiis, 1511.)] The length of
the coast, corresponds with the description of Pasqualigo, and its
position with the latitude assigned by the Verrazzano letter for
their exploration. Its direction is north and south. There can be no
question therefore as to the pretension of the Verrazzano letter to
the discovery of the coast by him, actually as far north as the
fiftieth parallel.

That it is utterly unfounded, so far as regards that portion of the
coast lying east and north of Cape Breton, that is, from 46 Degrees
N. latitude to 50 Degrees N., embracing a distance of five hundred
miles according to actual measurement, or eight hundred miles
according to the letter, is proven by the fact, that it had all been
known and frequented by Portuguese and French fishermen, for a
period of twenty years preceding the Verrazano voyage. The
Portuguese fisheries in Newfoundland must have commenced shortly
after the voyages of the brothers Cortereaes in 1501-2, as they
appear to have been carried on in 1506, from a decree of the king of
Portugal published at Leiria on the 14th of October in that year,
directing his officers to collect tithes of fish which should be
brought into his kingdom from Terra Nova; [Footnote: Memorias
Economicas da academia Real das Sciencias da Lisboa, tom. III, 393.]
and Portuguese charts belonging to that period, still extant, show
both the Portuguese and French discoveries of this coast. On a map
(No. 1, of the Munich atlas,) of Pedro Reinel, a Portuguese pilot,
who entered the service of the king of Spain at the time of fitting
out Magellan's famous expedition, Terra Nova, and the land of Cape
Breton are correctly laid down, as regards latitude, though not by
name. On Terra Nova the name of C. Raso, (preserved in the modern
Cape Race) is applied to its southeasterly point, and other
Portuguese names, several of which also still remain, designating
different points along the easterly coast of Newfoundland, and a
Portuguese banner, as an emblem of its discovery by that nation, are
found. Another Portuguese chart, belonging to the period when the
country between Florida and Terra Nova was unknown (No. 4 of the
same atlas) delineates the land of Cape Breton, not then yet known
to be an island, in correct relation with the Bacalaos, accompanied
by a legend that it was discovered by the Bretons. [Footnote: Atlas
zur entdeckingsgeschichte Amerikas. Herausgegeben von Friedrick
Kunstmann, Karl von Sprusser, Georg M. Thomas. Zu den Monumenta
Saecularia der K.B. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 28 Maers, 1859.
Munchen.] The French authorities are more explicit. The particular
parts of this coast discovered by the Normands and Bretons with the
time of their discovery, and by the Portuguese, are described in the
discourse of the French captain of Dieppe, which is found in the
collection of Ramusio. This writer states that this land from Cape
Breton to Cape Race was discovered by the Bretons and Normandy in
1504, and from Cape Race to Cape Bonavista, seventy leagues north,
by the Portuguese, and from thence to the straits of Belle Isle by
the Bretons and Normands; and that the country was visited in 1508
by a vessel from Dieppe, commanded by Thomas Aubert, who brought
back to France some of the natives. This statement in regard to the
Indians is confirmed by an account of them, which is given in a
work, printed in Paris at the time, establishing the fact of the
actual presence of the Normands in Newfoundland in that year, by
contemporaneous testimony of undoubted authority. [Footnote: Eusebii
Chronicon, continued by Joannes Multivallis of Louvain, (Paris
1512) fol. 172.

We give here, a translation of the interesting passage referred to
in the text, from this volume, which came from the celebrated press
of Henri Estienne.

"An Salutis, 1509. Seven savages were brought to Rouen with their
garments and weapons from the island they call Terra Nova. They are
of a dark complexion, have thick lips and wear marks on their faces
extending along their jaws from the ear to the middle of the chin
LIKE SMALL LIVID VEINS. Their hair is black and coarse like a
horse's mane. They have no beard, during their lives, or hairs of
puberty. Nor have they hair on any part of their persons, except the
head and eye-brows. They wear a girdle on which is a small skin to
cover their nakedness. They form their speech with their lips. No
religion. THEIR BOAT IS OF BARK and a man may carry it with one hand
on his shoulders. Their weapons are bows drawn with a string made of
the intestines or sinews of animals, and arrows pointed with stone
or fish-bone. Their food consists of roasted flesh, their drink is
water. Bread, wine and the use of money they have none. They go
about naked or dressed in the skins of bears, deer, seals and
similar animals. Their country is in the parallel of the seventh
climate, more under the west than France is above the west." PLUS
SUB OCCIDENTE QUAM GALLICA REGIO SUPRA OCCIDENTEM. By "west" here is
meant the meridional line, from which longitude was calculated at
that time, through the Island of Ferro, the most westerly of the
Canary islands, and the idea here intended to be conveyed is that
the country of these Indians was further on this side than France
was on the other side, of that line.

This description, as well as the name, Terra Nova, indicates the
region of Newfoundland as the place from whence these Indians were
taken. According to the tables of Pierre d'Ailly, the seventh
climate commences at 47 Degrees 15' N. and extends to 50 Degrees 30'
N. beginning where the longest day of the year is 15 hours and 45
minutes long. (IMAGO MUNDI, tables prefixed to the first chapter.)
This embraces the greater part of the southerly and easterly coasts
of Newfoundland. The practice of tattooing their faces in lines
across the jaw, as here described, was common to all the tribes of
this northern coast, the Nasquapecs of Labrador, the red Indians of
Newfoundland and the Micmacs of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia. It was
from the use of red ochre for this purpose that the natives of
Newfoundland obtained their designation of red Indians. The Micmacs
used blue and other colors; hence it would appear from the
circumstance of the marks upon these Indians being livid (LIVIDAE)
or blue, like veins, that they belonged to the tribes of Cape
Breton. (Hind's Labrador II, 97-110. Purchas, III. 1880-1. Denys.
(HIST. NAT. DE L'AMERIQUE SEPT. II, 887.))]

That the French and especially the Normands had soon afterwards
resorted to Newfoundland for the purpose of taking fish, and were
actually so engaged there at the time of the Verrazzano voyage, is
evident from the letter of John Rut, who commanded one of the ships
sent out on a voyage of discovery by Henry VIII of England in 1527.
That voyager states that, driven from the north by the ice, he
arrived at St. Johns in Newfoundland on the third of August in that
year, and found there eleven Normand, one Breton and two Portuguese
vessels, "all a fishing." [Footnote: Purchas, III, 809. Memoir of
Sebastian Cabot, pp. 108, 268, and the authorities there cited.]
This was at a single point on the coast, and in latitude 47 Degrees
30' N.; and so large a number of vessels there denotes a growth of
many years, at that time, of those fisheries.

These facts not only prove that Newfoundland and Cape Breton were
well known in France and Portugal before the Verrazzano voyage and
therefore that he did not discover them, but that he must have known
of them before, and that the letter is intentionally false in that
respect. It might perhaps be insisted with some plausibility under
other circumstances, that he ran along the coast, believing that it
was a new land, and therefore made the representation of having
discovered it in good faith. But admitting that it was even possible
for him to have sailed along those shores without encountering a
single fishing craft which would have assured him that he was not in
unknown waters, it is impossible that he could have sailed from
Dieppe and returned to that port where, of all the places in France
or Europe, the knowledge of these facts most existed, and where they
were as familiar as household words, and where they must have
entered into the thoughts and hopes of many of its inhabitants,
without their being known to him; and that he could have written the
letter from that same port, claiming the discovery of the country
for himself, without intending a fraud. It was the port to which
Aubert belonged and where he landed the Indians he brought from
Newfoundland. It was the principal port of Normandy from which the
fishing vessels made their annual voyages to that country. It was
the port from whence he manned and equipped his own fleet of four
ships, with crews which must have been largely composed of Normand
sailors who were familiar with the navigation and the coast. And
there was not a citizen of Dieppe, probably, who had not an interest
of some nature in one or more of the fishing vessels, and could have
told him what country it was that he had explored.

It bears unequivocal testimony to the fictitious character of this
claim, that Ramusio thought it necessary to interpolate in his
version a passage representing the discovery of Verrazzano as
terminating where the discoveries of the Bretons began, and to omit
the cosmography which states it was at the point where those of the
Portuguese towards the Arctic circle commenced. By this alteration
the letter is made to acknowledge the prior discoveries by the
Bretons, which are entirely excluded in the original version, and to
adopt the latitude of 50 Degrees N. for the Verrazzano limit thus
making the false statement, as to the extent of the discovery, a
mistake as it were of nautical observation. The following parallel
passages in two versions will best explain the character and effect
of the alteration.

VERSION OF CARLI,
 Narrative.

 Navicando infra 'l subsolano ed
 aquilone in spatio di leghe CL et
 de gia avendo consumato tutte le
 nostre substantie navale et vettovaglie,
 avendo discopruto leghe DII
 cive leghe 700, piu do nuova terra
 fornendoci di acque et legne
 deliberammo di tornare in Francia.
 * * * * * * * * * * * *

 Cosmography.

 In questa nostra navigatione
 fatta per ordine du V. S. M.,
 oltre i gradi 92 che dal detto
 meridiano verso lo occidente della
 prima terra trovamo gradi 34
 navigando leghe 300 infra oriente
 e settentrione leghe 400, quasi allo
 oriente continuo el lito della terra
 siamo pervenuti per infino a gradi
 50, lasciando la terra che piu
 tempe fa trovorno li Lusitani,
 quali seguirno piu al septentrione,
 pervenendo sino al circulo
 artico e'l fine lasciendo incognito.


 Translation Narrative.

 After sailing between east and
 north the distance of one hundred
 and fifty leagues more and finding
 our provisions and naval
 stores nearly exhausted, we took
 in wood and water, and determined
 to return to France having
 discovered VII that is 700
 leagues of unknown lands.
 * * * * * * * * * * *

 Cosmography.

 In the voyage which we made
 by order of your Majesty, in
 addition to the 92 degrees we ran
 towards the west from our point
 of departure, before we reached
 land in the latitude of 34, we
 have to count 300 leagues which
 we ran northeastwardly, and 400
 nearly east along the coast before
 WE REACHED THE 50TH PARALLEL OF
 NORTH LATITUDE, THE POINT WHERE WE
 TURNED OUR COURSE FROM THE SHORE
 TOWARDS HOME. BEYOND THIS POINT
 THE PORTUGUESE HAD ALREADY SAILED
 AS FAR NORTH AS THE ARCTIC CIRCLE,
 WITHOUT COMING TO THE TERMINATION
 OF THE LAND.

VERSION OF RAMUSIO,
 Narrative.

 Navigando fra levante &
 tramontana per spatio di leghe
 150, PERVENIMO PROPINQUI ALLA
 TERRA EGE PER IL PASSATO
 TREVORONO I BRETTONI, QUALE
 STA IN GRADI 50 & havendo
 horamai consumati tutti li
 nostri armeggi & vettovaglie,
 havendo scoperto leghe 700,
 & piu di nuova terra, fortnitoci
 di acque &  legue, deliberammo
 tornare in Francia.
 * * * * * * * * * * * *

 Cosmography omitted.


 Translation Narrative.

 Sayling northeast for the space
 of 150 leagues WE APPROACHED TO
 THE LANDE THAT IN TIMES PAST WAS
 DISCOVERED BY THE BRITONS, WHICH IS
 IN FIFTIE DEGREES. Having now
 spent all our provision and
 victuals and having discovered
 about 700 leagues and more of
 newe countries, and being
 furnished with water and wood we
 concluded to returne into Fraunce.
 (Hakluyt, Divers voyages).

(Cogswell, Coll. of N. Y. Hist.
 Society, Second series, I.)

Ramusio in omitting the cosmography and confining his version to the
narrative would have left the letter without any designation of the
northerly limit reached by Verrazzano, had he not transferred to the
narrative, the statement of the latitude attained, namely, the
fiftieth degree, from the cosmographical part; which was therefore
properly done; though as an editor he should have stated the fact.
But he transcended his duty entirely in asserting, in qualification
of the latitude, what does not appear in the letter, that it was
near where the Bretons had formerly made discoveries, and omitting
all reference to the Portuguese. The Bretons are not mentioned or
even alluded to in either portion of the original letter. The effect
of this substitution therefore is to relieve the original from
making a fake claim to the discovery north of Cape Breton, by
admitting the discoveries of the Bretons, and making the alleged
extent of the Verrazzano discovery, as already remarked, a mistake
of nautical observation only. That it was deliberately made, and for
that purpose, is shown by his taking the designation of the latitude
from the same sentence in the cosmography as that in which the
mention of the Portuguese discoveries occurs, in qualification of
the latitude.

The motive which led Ramusio to make this alteration is found in the
discourse of the French captain of Dieppe, in which it is stated
that this part of the coast was discovered by the Normands and
Bretons and the Portuguese, many years before the Verrazzano voyage.
Ramusio, as he informs us himself, translated that paper from the
French into the Italian and published it in the same volume, in
conjunction with the Verrazzano letter, which he remodelled. He thus
had the contents of both documents before him, at the same time, and
saw the contradiction between them. They could not both be true. To
reconcile them, alterations were necessary; and this change was made
in the letter in order to make it conform to the discourse. The fact
of his making it, proves that he regarded the letter as advancing an
indefensible claim.

It is also to be observed that in adopting the fiftieth parallel as
the extent of the discovery in the north, Ramusio obtained the
statement from the cosmography, showing that he had that portion of
the letter before him; and confirming the conclusion, expressed in a
previous section, that his version was composed from the Carli copy
of the letter, in which alone the cosmography occurs. Whether this
limit was so transposed by him for a purpose or not, may be a
question; but the origin of it cannot be disputed.




VI.

IV. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE PEOPLE AND PRODUCTIONS OF THE LAND NOT
MADE FROM THE PERSONAL OBSERVATION OF THE WRITER OF THE LETTER. WHAT
DISTINCTIVELY BELONGED TO THE NATIVES IS UNNOTICED, AND WHAT IS
ORIGINALLY MENTIONED OF THEM IS UNTRUE. FURTHER ALTERATIONS OF THE
TEXT BY RAMUSIO.


We are brought now to the observations in reference to the people
and productions of the country. The communications which the
explorers had with the shore are not represented as having been
numerous, or their visits of long duration, the longest having been
one of three days, while they were riding at anchor off the coast of
North Carolina, and another of fifteen, spent in replenishing the
supplies for their ship, in the harbor in the great bay of
Massachusetts. These opportunities were however, it seems,
sufficient to have enabled them to study the characteristics of the
natives and to determine the nature of the vegetation at those
places; but the description given of both is very general. Not a
single person, sagamore or warrior, or even the boy who was carried
away to France, is designated by name, nor any object peculiar to
the region by its native appellation. Not an Indian word, by which a
locality or a tribe might be traced, occurs in the whole narrative.
Some familiar details are mentioned of Indian manners and customs,
which give the account the appearance of truth, but there is nothing
in them which may not have been deduced from known narratives of
earlier voyages to adjoining parts of America; while much that was
peculiar to the country claimed to have been discovered, and of a
character to compel observation, is omitted; and some particulars
stated which could not have existed.

In its incidents of Indian life it recalls the experiences of
Columbus. When the great discoverer first came to the island of
Hispaniola it is related, "they saw certaine men of the Islande who
perceiving an unknowen native comming toward them, flocked together
and ran into the thicke woodes, as it had bin hares coursed with
greyhoundes. Our men pursuing them took only one woman, whom they
brought, to the ships, where filling her with meate and wine, and
apparrelling her, they let her depart to her companie." Also, "their
boates are made only of one tree made hollow with a certain sharpe
stone, for they have no yron, and are very long and narrow." And
again, "when our men went to prayer, and kneeled on their knees,
after the manner of the Christians, they did the like also. And
after what manner soever they saw them pray to the crosse, they
followed them in all poyntes as well as they could." [Footnote: Peter
Martyr, Dec. LL in Eden.]. The Verrazzano letter tells us, in like
phrase, that when they landed at the end of fifty leagues from the
landfall, "we found that the people had fled to the woods for fear.
By searching around we discovered in the grass a very old woman and
a young girl of about eighteen or twenty, who had concealed
themselves for the same reason. We gave them a part of our
provisions, which they accepted with delight, but the girl would not
touch any." At the same place, it is added, "we saw many of their
boats made of one tree, without the aid of stone or iron or other
kind of metal." And to make the parallel complete, the letter
asserts of the natives, "they are very easy to be persuaded and
imitated us with earnestness and fervor in all which they saw us do
as Christians in our acts of worship." While they were taking in
their supplies and interchanging civilities with the Indians in the
harbor of the great bay, the following scene of royalty is described
as having occurred. "One of the two kings often came with his queen
and many gentlemen (gentili uomini) to see us for his amusement, but
he always stopped at the distance of about two hundred paces, and
sent a boat to inform us of his intended visit, saying they would
come and see our ship. This was done for safety, and as soon as they
had an answer from us, they came off and remained awhile to look
around; but on hearing the annoying cries of the sailors, the king
sent the queen with her maids (demizelle) in a very light boat to
wait near an island, a quarter of a league distant from us while he
remained a long time on board." This hyperbolical description of the
visit of the sachem of Cape Cod accompanied by the gentlemen of his
household and of his squaw queen with her maids of honor, has its
prototype in the visit paid to Bartholomew Columbus, during the
absence of his brother, the admiral, by Bechechio the king or
cacique of Xacagua and his sister, the queen dowager, Anacoana, who
are represented as going to the ship of the Adelantado in two
canoes, "one for himself and certayne of his gentlemen, another for
Anacoana and her waiting women." The astonishment which the natives
manifested at the appearance of the Dauphiny and her crew; their
admiration of the simple toys and little bells which were offered
them by the strangers; their practice of painting their bodies,
adorning themselves with the gay plumage of birds, and habiting
themselves with the skins of animals, seem all analogized, in the
same way, from the accounts given by Peter Martyr of the inhabitant
of the islands discovered by Columbus, and of the northern regions
by Sebastian Cabot. These traits of Indian life and character,
therefore, not having been peculiar to the natives of the country
described in the letter, and having been already mentioned in
earlier accounts of the adjoining parts of America, the description
of them here furnishes no proof of originality or of the truth of
the letter for that reason.

On the other hand objects which historically belong to the
inhabitants of the places declared to have been visited, and
characterize them distinctly from those previously discovered, and
which were of such a marked character as to have commanded
attention, are not mentioned at all. Of this class perhaps the most
prominent is the wampum, a commodity of such value and use among
them that, like gold among the Europeans, it served the double
purpose of money and personal adornment. The region of the harbor
where the voyagers spent, according to the letter, fifteen days in
familiar intercourse with the inhabitants, was its greatest mart,
from which it was spread among the tribes, both north and east.
Wood, describing the Narragansets in 1634, says they "are the most
curious minters of the wampompeage and mowhakes which they forme out
of the inmost wreaths of periwinkle shels. The northerne, easterne,
and westerne Indians fetch all their coyne from these southern mint-
masters. From hence they have most of their curious pendants and
bracelets; hence they have their great stone pipes which will hold a
quarter of an ounce of tobacco." And in regard to their practice of
ornamentation, he remarks again: "although they be poore, yet is
there in them the sparkes of naturall pride which appeares in their
longing desire after many kinde of ornaments, wearing pendants in
their eares, as formes of birds, beasts and fishes, carved out of
bone, shels, and stone, with long bracelets of their curious wrought
wampompeage and mowhackees which they put about their necks and
loynes; which they count a rare kinde of decking." The same writer
adds a description of an Indian king of this country in his attire,
which is somewhat less fanciful than that in the letter. "A sagamore
with a humberd (humming-bird) in his eare for a pendant, a
blackhawke in his occiput for his plume, mowhackees for his gold
chaine, good store of wampompeage begirting his loynes, his bow in
his hand, his quiver at his back, with six naked Indian
spatterlashes at his heeles for his guard, thinkes himselfe little
inferiour to the great Cham. [Footnote: New England Prospect, pp.
61, 65-6.] Roger Williams confirms this account of the importance of
the wampum among these same Indians. "They hang," he states "these
strings of money about their necks and wrists, as also about the
necks and wrists of their wives and children. Machequoce, a girdle,
which they make curiously of one, two, three, four and five inches
thickness and more, of this money, which sometimes to the value of
tenpounds and more, they weare about their middle, and a scarfe
about their shoulders and breasts.

  The Indians prize not English gold,
    Nor English, Indians shell:
   Each in his place will passe for ought,
    What ere men buy or sell."
 [Footnote: Key into the Language of America, pp. 149-50.]

Another important article in universal use among the Indians of the
main land, north and south, was the tobacco pipe. Tobacco was used
by the natives of the West India islands, made up in rolls or
cigars; but by the Indians of the continent it was broken up,
carried in small bags attached to a girdle round the body, and
smoked through clay, stone or copper pipes, sometimes of very
elaborate workmanship. Smoking the pipe was of universal use among
them, both on ordinary and extraordinary occasions. It was a tender
of hospitality to strangers; and a sign of peace and friendship
between the nations. [Footnote: For a full and interesting account
of the importance of the tobacco-pipe among the Indians of North
America, upon cited authorities, we refer the reader to Antiquities
of the Southern Indians. By Charles C. Jones Jr., p. 382. (New York,
1873.)] When Captain Waymouth ran along the coast of the great bay
of Massachusetts, in 1605, he repeatedly encountered this custom. On
one occasion the natives came from the shore in three canoes, and
Rosier remarks of them: "they came directly aboord us and brought us
tobacco, which we tooke with them IN THEIR PIPE which was made of
earth very strong, but blacke and short, containing a great
quantity. When we came at shoare they all most kindely entertained
us, taking us by the hands, as they had observed we did to them
aboord in token of welcome, and brought us to sit downe by their
fire, where sat together thirteene of them. They filled their
tobacco pipe, which was then the short claw of a lobster, which will
hold ten of our pipes full and we dranke of their excellent tobacco,
as much as we would with them." [Footnote: Purchas, IV. 1662.] No
notice is taken of this custom, either of tobacco or the pipe in the
Verrazzano letter.

The most remarkable omission of all is of the bark canoe. This light
and beautiful fabric was peculiar to the Algonkin tribes. It was not
found among the southern Indians, much less in the West India
islands. Its buoyancy and the beauty of its form were such as to
render it an object of particular observation. Though so light as to
be capable of being borne on a man's shoulders, it would sometimes
carry nine men, and ride with safety over the most stormy sea. It
was always from the first a great object of interest with the
discoverers of the northerly parts of the coast, which they
manifested by taking them back to Europe, as curiosities. Aubert
carried one of them to Dieppe in 1508, and Captain Martin Fringe,
who was one of the first to visit the shores of Cape Cod, took one,
in 1603, thence to Bristol, which he thus describes, as if he saw no
other kind.

"Their boats whereof we brought one to Bristoll, were in proportion
like a wherrie of the river of Thames, seventeene foot long and
foure foot broad, made of the barke of a birch tree, farre exceeding
in bignesse those of England: it was sowed together with strong and
tough oziers or twigs, and the seames covered over with rozen or
turpentine little inferiour in sweetnesse to frankincense, as we
made triall by burning a little thereof on the coales at sundry
times after our comming home: it was also open like a wherrie, and
sharpe at both ends, saving that the beake was a little bending
roundly upward. And though it carried nine men standing upright, yet
it weighed not at the most, above sixtie pounds in weight, a thing
almost incredible in regard of the largenesse and capacitie thereof.
Their oares were flat at the end like an oven peele, made of ash or
maple, very light and strong, about two yards long wherewith they
row very swiftly." [Footnote: Purchas, IV. 1655.]

The silence of the letter in regard to this species of the canoe is
the more remarkable, as it is in connection with the natives of the
harbor where they spent fifteen days, that mention is made in it a
second time of the manner of making their boats out of single logs,
as if it were a subject of importance, and worthy of remark. The
inference is most strongly to be drawn therefore, from this
circumstance, that the writer knew nothing about the bark canoe, or
the people who used them.

The absence of all allusion to any of the peculiar attributes,
especially of the essential character just described, of the natives
of the great bay leads to the conclusion that the whole account is a
fabrication. But this end is absolutely reached by the positive
statement of a radical difference in complexion between the tribes,
which they found in the country.

The people whom they saw on their first landing, and who are stated
to have been for the most part naked, are described as being black
in color, and not very different from Ethiopians, (di colore neri
non molto dagli Etiopi disformi) and of medium stature, well formed
of body and acute of mind. The latter observation would imply that
the voyagers had mixed with these natives very considerably in order
to have been able to speak so positively in regard to their mental
faculties, and therefore could not have been mistaken as to their
complexion for want of opportunity to discover it. The precise place
where they first landed and saw these black people is not mentioned
further than that the country where they lived was situated in the
thirty-fourth degree of latitude. From this place they proceeded
further along the coast northwardly, and again coming to anchor
attempted to go ashore in a boat without success, when one of them,
a young sailor, attempted to swim to the land, but was thrown, by
the violence of the waves, insensible on the beach. Upon recovering
he found himself surrounded by natives who were black like the
others. That there is no mistake in the design of the writer to
represent these people as really black, like negroes, is made
evident by his account of the complexion of those he found in the
harbor of the great bay in latitude 41 Degrees 40", who are
described as essentially different and the finest looking tribe they
had seen, being "of a very white complexion, some inclining more to
white, and others to a yellow color" (di colore bianchissimo; alcuni
pendano piu in bianchezza, altri in colore flavo). The difference
between the inhabitants of the two sections of country, in respect
to color, is thus drawn in actual contrast.

This is unfounded in fact. No black aborigines have ever been found
within the entire limits of North America, except in California
where some are said to exist. The Indians of the Atlantic coast were
uniformly of a tawny or yellowish brown color, made more conspicuous
by age and exposure and being almost white in infancy. The first
voyagers and early European settlers universally concur in assigning
them this complexion. Reference need here be to such testimony only
as relates to the two parts of the country where the distinction is
pretended to have existed. The earliest mention of the inhabitants
of the more southerly portion is when the vessels of Ayllon and
Matienzo carried off sixty of the Indians from the neighborhood of
the Santee, called the Jordan, in 1521, and took them to St.
Domingo. One of them went to Spain with Ayllon. They are described
by Peter Martyr, from sight, as semifuscos uti nostri sunt agricolae
sole adusti aestivo, half brown, like our husbandmen, burnt by the
summer sun. [Footnote: Dec. VII, 2.] Barlowe, in his account of the
first expedition of Raleigh, which entered Pamlico sound, within the
region now under consideration, describes the Indians whom he found
there as of a "colour yellowish." [Footnote: Hakluyt, III. 248.]
Captain John Smith, speaking of those of the Chesapeake, remarks,
that they "are of a color brown when they are of age, but they are
born white." [Footnote: Smith, Map of Virginia, 1612, p. 19.] On the
other hand the natives of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in latitude
4l Degrees 40' are described by the first explorers of that region
in substantially the same terms. Brereton, who accompanied Gosnold
in his first voyage to the Elisabeth islands and the main land
opposite, in 1602, mentions the natives there, as being of a
complexion or color "much like a dark olive." [Footnote: Purchas, IV.
1652.] Martin Fringe who visited Martha's Vineyard the next year and
constructed there a barricade where the "people of the country came
sometimes, ten, twentie, fortie or three score, and at one time one
hundred and twentie at once," says, "these people are inclined to a
swart, tawnie or chesnut colour, not by nature but accidentally."
[Footnote: Ibid, IV, 1655.] And Roger Williams, partaking of the
same idea as Pringe, that the swarthy color was accidental,
testifies, almost in the same language as Captain Smith, that the
Narragansets and others within a region of two hundred miles of
them, were "tawnie by the sunne and their annoyntings, yet they were
born white." [Footnote: Roger Williams's Key, 52.] Thus the
authorities flatly contradict the statement of black Indians
existing in North Carolina, and a difference of color between the
people of the two sections claimed to have been visited in this
voyage.

Of an equally absurd and preposterous character is the statement
made in reference to the condition in which the plants and
vegetation were found. The grape particularly is mentioned in a
manner which proves, beyond question, that the writer could not have
been in the country. The dates which are given for the exploration
are positive; and are conclusive in this respect. The Dauphiny is
represented as having left Madeira on the 17th of January, and
arrived on the coast on the 7th of March, that is, the 17th of that
month, new style. [Footnote: See ante, page 4, note.] They left the
harbor of the great bay, where they had remained for fifteen days on
the 6th of May, which makes their arrival there to have been on the
21st of April, or first of May, N. S. They were thus during the
months of March and April, engaged in coasting from the landfall to
the great bay in latitude 41 Degrees 40', during which period the
observations relating to the intermediate country, consequently,
must have been made. They left the coast, finally, in latitude 50
Degrees N., for the purpose of returning to France, in time to reach
there and have the letter written announcing their arrival at Dieppe
on the 8th of July, and therefore it must have been some time in
June, at the latest; so that very little if any portion of the
summer season was passed upon the coast of America.

In describing the country which they reached at the end of the fifty
leagues north of the landfall, that is, near the boundary between
North Carolina and Virginia, where they discovered the old woman and
girl concealed in the GRASS and found the land generally, "abounding
in forests filled with various kinds of trees but not of such
FRAGRANCE" as those where they first landed, the writer gives a
particular description of the condition in which they found the
vines and flowers.

"We saw," he says, "many vines there growing naturally, which run
upon, and entwine about the trees, as they do in Lombardy, and which
if the husbandmen were to have under a perfect system of
cultivation, would without doubt produce the BEST WINES, because
TASTING (beendo, literally, drinking or sucking) THE FRUIT MANY
TIMES, we perceived it was sweet and pleasant, not different from
ours. They are held in estimation by them because wherever they grow
they remove the small trees around them in order that the fruit may
be able to germinate. We found wild roses, violets, lilies and many
species of plants and ODORIFEROUS FLOWERS, different from ours."
[Footnote: "Vedenimo in quella molte vite della natura prodotte,
quali alzando si avvoltano agli alberi come nella Cisalpina Gallia
custumano; le quali se dagli agricultori avessimo el perfetto ordine
di cultura, senza dubbio produrrebbono ottimi vini, perche piu volte
il frutto di quello beendo, veggiendo suave e dolce, non dal nostro
differente sono da loro tenuti in extimatione; impero che per tutto
dove nascono, levano gli arbusculi circustanti ad causa il frutto
possa gierminare. Trovamo rose silvestre et vivuole, gigli et molte
sorte di erbe e fiori odoriferi da nostri differenti."]

The flavor and vinous qualities of the grapes are thus particularly
mentioned as having been proven several times by eating the ripe and
luscious fruit, and in language peculiarly expressive of the fact.
According to the dates before given, this must have occurred early
in the month of April, as the scene is laid upon the coast of North
Carolina. There is no native vine which ever flowers in this
country, north of latitude thirty-four, before the month of May, and
none that ripens its fruit before July, which is the month assigned
by Lawson for the ripening of the summer fox grape in the swamps and
moist lands of North Carolina,--the earliest of all the grapes in
that region. [Footnote: New Voyage to Carolina, p. 602.] North of
latitude 41 Degrees no grape matures until the latter part of
August. As the explorers are made to have left the shores of
Newfoundland for home in June, at farthest, they were at no time on
any part of the coast, in season to have been able to see or taste
the ripe or unripe fruit of the vine. The representation of the
letter in this respect depending both upon the sight and the taste,
must, like that of the contrasted appearance of the natives, be
regarded as deliberately made; and consequently, the two as
establishing the falsity of the description in those particulars,
and thus involving the integrity and truth of the whole.

The liberty which Ramusio took with these passages in his version of
the letter, demands notice, and adds his testimony again to the
absurdity of the account. He doubtless knew, from the numerous
descriptions which had been published, of the uniformity of the
physical characteristics of the American Indians; and he certainly
knew of it as regarded the natives of this coast; as is proven by
his publication of Oviedo's account of the voyage of Gomez, made
there in 1525, in which they are described, in the same volume with
the Verrazzano letter. [FOOTNOTE: Tom. III. fol. 52, (ed. 1556).]
His own experience, as to the climate of Venice, taught him also
that grapes could not have ripened in the latitude and at the time
of year assigned for that purpose. He had therefore abundant reason
to question the correctness of the letter in both particulars. As in
the case of the representation of the extent of the discovery,
before mentioned, he did not hesitate to make them conform more to
the truth. He amended the original in regard to the complexion of
the natives represented as those first seen, by inserting in place
of the words, applied to them, of "black and not much different from
Ethiopians," the phrase, "brownish and not much unlike the Saracens"
(berrettini & non molto dalli Saracini differenti) [FOOTNOTE:
Berrettini is derived from beretta, the Turkish fez, a red cap,
designating also the scarlet cap of the cardinals & the church of
Rome.] by which they are likened to those Arabs whose complexion,
"yellow, bordering on brown," is of a similar cast; [Footnote:
Pritchard, Natural History of Man, p. 127 (2d edition).] and in
regard to the grapes, by substituting instead of, "tasting the fruit
many times we perceived it was sweet and pleasant," the passage,
"having often seen the fruit thereof DRIED, which was sweet and
pleasant," (havedo veduto piu volte il frutto di quelle secco, che
era suave & dolce,) by which he apparently obviates the objection,
but in fact only aggravates it, by asserting what has never yet been
heard of among the Indians of this coast, the preservation of the
grape by drying or otherwise.

It is evident that whatever may have been the motives of Ramusio in
making these repeated alterations of the statements in the letter,
they not only show his own sense of their necessity, but they have
had the effect to keep from the world the real character of this
narrative in essential particulars, until its exposure now, by the
production of the Carli version.




VII.

THE EXTRINSIC EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF THE CLAIM. I. DISCOURSE OF THE
FRENCH SEA-CAPTAIN OF DIEPPE.


The extrinsic evidence which in urged in support of the claim to the
discovery by Verrazzano is not of great amount. It is certain,
however, that if the letter upon which the claim is founded, be
spurious and fictitious, as for the reasons assigned, it is
considered to be, any extraneous evidence, must either partake of
the same character, or have originated in some misconception or
error. What exists upon the subject consists principally of two
pieces, which have only recently been regarded of any importance for
this purpose, and in connection with which the others may be
considered.

One of them is an anonymous paper entitled in full, "Discourse of a
great sea-captain, a Frenchman of the town of Dieppe, as to the
voyages made to the new land of the West Indies, called New France,
from the 40 Degrees to the 47 Degrees under the Arctic pole, and
concerning the land of Brazil, Guinea, the island of St. Lawrence
and that of Sumatra," the other is a map of the world, bearing the
name of Hieronimo de Verrazzano.

The discourse of the French captain does not, any more than the
letter of Verrazzano, exist in the original; nor has any copy of it
ever been produced, except in a printed translation by Ramusio in
the same volume, as that in which his version of that letter
appears, and immediately following it. Ramusio states that it was
written in 1539, as may he inferred from the letter itself in its
present form, and that he had translated it from the French,
grieving much that he did not know the name of the author, because
not giving it he seemed to do wrong to the memory of so valiant and
noble a gentleman. It is evident, however, upon comparing the
description, which it gives, of a voyage made from Dieppe to
Sumatra, with the original journal, first brought to light and
published a few years ago, of such a voyage made by Jean Parmentier
in 1529, that this discourse was written by some one of the persons
engaged in that expedition.[Footnote: Voyages et decouvertes des
navigateurs Normands. Par L. Estancelin, p. 241. (Paris 1832.) M.
Estancelin supposes that Pierre Mauclere the astronomer of one of
the ships composing the expedition of Parmentier, was the author of
this discourse (p. 45, note). But M. D'Avezac attributes it to
Pierre Crignon, who also accompanied Parmentier, and who besides
being the editor of a collection of poems by Parmentier, after his
death, evinced his knowledge of nautical matters by writing a
dissertation on the variation of the needle. Introduction to the
Brief Recit of Jacques Cartier, p. VIL (Tross, Paris, 1868.) Brunet,
sub Parmentier. Margry, Les navigateurs Francaises, p. 199. ] Its
authenticity, in general, may therefore not be questioned. But as
the original has never been produced and it is only known through
this version of Ramusio, experience in regard to his practice as a
compiler, of altering texts according to his judgment of their
defects and errors, proves that we have by no means a reliable copy
for our guidance. In fact, as given by Ramusio, its recognition of
the Verrazzano discovery is only by way of parenthesis, and in such
antagonism to the context, as to render it quite certain that this
portion of it is by another hand.

The writer, after explaining the nature of latitude and longitude,
and taking the meridian of no variation running through the eastern
extremity of the Cape de Verde islands as the basis of his
observations of longitude, proceeds to a description of Terra Nova;
so much of which as is pertinent is here abstracted.

"The Terra Nova, the nearest cape of which is called the Cape de
Ras, is situated west of our diametrical or meridional line whereon
is fixed the first point of longitude according to the true meridian
of the compass; and the said Cape de Ras is in west longitude 40
Degrees and 47 of North latitude. The Terra Nova extends towards the
Arctic pole from 40 Degrees to 60, and from Cape de Ras going
towards the pole, the coast almost always runs from south to north,
and contains in all 350 leagues, and from said Cape de Ras to the
cape of the Brettons, the coast runs east and west, for an hundred
leagues, and the cape of the Brettons is in 47 Degrees west
longitude and 46 north latitude. To go from Dieppe to the Terra
Nova, the course is almost all east and west, and there are from
Dieppe to said Cape de Ras 760 leagues.

"Between Cape de Ras and cape of the Brettons dwell an austere and
cruel people with whom you cannot treat or converse. They are large
of person, clad in skins of seals and other wild animals tied
together, and are marked with certain lines, made with fire, on the
face and as it were striped with color between black and red, (tra
il nero & berrettino) and in many respects as to face and neck, are
like those of our Barbary, the hair long like women, which they
gather up on top of the head as we do with a horse's tail. Their
arrows are bows with which they shoot very dexterously, and their
arrows are pointed with black stones and fish bones. * * *

"This land was discovered 35 years ago, that is, the part that runs
east and west, by the Brettons and Normands, for which reason the
land is called the Cape of the Brettons. The other part that runs
north and south was discovered by the Portuguese from Cape de Ras to
Cape Buona-vista, which contains about 70 leagues, and the rest was
discovered as far as the gulf of the Castles, and further on by said
Brettons and Normands, and it is about 33 years since a ship from
Honfleur of which Jean Denys (Giovanni Dionisio) was captain and
Camart (Camarto) of Rouen, was pilot, first went there, and in the
year 1508, a Dieppe vessel, called the Pensee, which was owned by
Jean Ango, father of Monsignor, the captain and Viscount of Dieppe
went thither, the master or the captain of said ship being Thomas
Aubert, and he was the first who brought hither people of the said
country.

"Following beyond the cape of the Brettons there is a land
contiguous to the said cape, the coast whereof extends west by
southwest as far as the land of Florida and it runs full 500
leagues, (WHICH COAST WAS DISCOVERED FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, BY MESSER
GIOVANNI DA VERRAZZANO, IN THE NAME OF KING FRANCIS, AND MADAME THE
REGENT,) and this land is called by many la Francese, and likewise
by the Portuguese themselves and its end towards Florida is at 78
Degrees west longitude and 30 Degrees north latitude. The
inhabitants of this land are tractable peoples, friendly and
pleasant. The land is most abundant in all fruit. There grow
oranges, almonds, wild grapes and many other kinds of odoriferous
trees. The land is called by its people Nurumbega, and between this
land and that of Brazil is a great gulf which extends westwardly to
92 Degrees west longitude, which is more than a quarter of the
circuit of the globe; and in the gulf are the islands and West
Indies discovered by the Spaniards." [Footnote: Ramusio, III. fol.
423-4 (ed. 1556).]

This account emphatically contradicts the Verrazzano letter which
claims the discovery of the coast from Cape Breton in 46 Degrees N,
as far east and north, as 50 Degrees N. latitude, embracing a
distance of two hundred leagues, both according to the letter and
the discourse. It distinctly affirms this long stretch of coast to
have been discovered long before the Verrazzano voyage by the
Portuguese and the Bretons and Normands, assigning to the Portuguese
and French specific portions of it. This is in perfect harmony with
the truth as established by the authorities to which occasion has
already been had to refer. This account therefore unequivocally
repudiates the Verrazzano claim to the discovery of that part of the
country, and thus derogates from the pretensions of the letter
instead of supporting them.

The letter contains a distinct and specific claim for the discovery
of the coast as far north as 50 Degrees N. The writer of the
discourse, if he had any knowledge on the subject, must have known
of the extent of this claim. In attributing to others the discovery
of that large portion of the coast, east and north of Cape Breton,
he must have considered the claim to that extent as unfounded. It is
difficult therefore to account for his admitting its validity as
regards the country south of Cape Breton as he apparently does; as
it is a manifest inconsistency to reject so important a part as
false, and affirm the rest of it to be true, when the whole depends
upon the same evidence.

Another circumstance to be remarked is, that the description, which
follows, of the country said to have been discovered by Verrazzano,
has not the slightest reference to the account given in the letter,
but is evidently derived from other sources of discovery. Two names
are attributed to it, Francese and Nurumbega, both of which owe
their designation to other voyagers. Francese, or French land,
appears for the first time in any publication, on two maps hereafter
mentioned, printed in 1540, under the Latin form of Francisca. It is
called in the manuscript cosmography and charts of Jean Alfonse,
terre de la Franciscane. An earlier map by Baptista Agnese,
described by Mr. Kohl, indicates that the name owes its origin, as
will hereafter be pointed out, to the voyages of the French
fishermen to the shores of Nova Scotia and New England. [Footnote:
Discovery of Maine, p. 202, chart XIV.] Nurumbega, as the writer
himself states, is an Indian name, which could not have been taken
from the Verrazzano account, as that does not mention a single
Indian word of any kind. The statement of the productions of the
country includes oranges, which do not belong to any portion of the
continent claimed to have been visited by Verrazzano, and plainly
indicates an entirely different authority for that portion of the
coast. It is therefore equally unaccountable why the author of the
discourse should have acknowledged the discovery by Verrazzano and,
at the same time, have passed over altogether the description in the
letter, and sought his information in regard to the country
elsewhere, when he had there such ample details, especially in
connection with the great bay.

The solution of the whole difficulty is to be found in the fact that
the clause relating to Verrazzano was not the work of the author of
the discourse, but of another person. It is not difficult to
understand how and by whom this interpolation came to be made.
Ramusio had both the letter and the discourse in his hands at the
same time, for the purpose of preparing them for publication,
recomposing the one, as has already been shown, and translating the
other from the French into the Italian, as he himself states. In the
execution of the former of these tasks, he took the liberty of
altering the letter, as has been proven, by substituting the phrase
of, THE LAND DISCOVERED BY THE BRETONS, for that of, THE COUNTRY
EXPLORED BY THE PORTUGUESE, as the northern limit of the voyage of
Verrazzano; thereby removing the objection, to which the letter was
obnoxious, of entirely ignoring the discoveries of the Bretons,
which were distinctly asserted in the discourse. In order to conform
to the Verrazzano letter, as it was thus modified, it was necessary
to insert this clause in the discourse, which would else to
contradict the letter entirely. The two alterations, however
necessary they were to preserve some consistency between the two
documents, are, nevertheless, both alike repugnant to the original
letter.

This discourse fails, therefore, as an authority in favor of the
Verrazzano discovery, or even of the existence of a claim in its
behalf; the statement which it contains in relation to Verrazzano,
originating with Ramusio adding nothing to the case. [Footnote: The
writer gives, however, some details in relation to the Indians and
the fisheries along the easterly coast of Newfoundland, illustrative
of certain points which have arisen in the course of this enquiry.
Continuing his remarks, as given in the text, in regard to the
Indians inhabiting the southerly coast between Cape Race and Cape
Breton, he states: "There are many stags and deer, and birds like
geese and margaux. On the coast there is much good fishery of cod,
which fish are taken by the FRENCH AND BRETONS, ONLY BECAUSE THOSE
OF THE COUNTRY DO NOT TAKE THEM. In the coast running north and
south, from Cape de Ras to the entrance of the Castles, [straits of
Belle-Isle] there are great gulfs and rivers, and numerous islands,
many of them large; and this country is thinly inhabited, except the
aforesaid coast, and the people are smaller; and there is great
fishery of cod as on the other coast. There has not been seen there
either village, or town, or castle, except a great enclosure of
wood, which was seen in the gulf of the Castles; and the aforesaid
people dwell in little cabins and huts, covered with the bark of
trees, which they make to live in during the time of the fisheries,
which commences in spring and lasts all the summer. Their fishery is
of seal, and porpoises which, with certain seafowl called margaux,
they take in the islands and dry; and of the grease of said fish
they make oil, and when the time of their fishery is ended, winter
coming on, they depart with their fish, and go away, IN LITTLE BOATS
MADE OF THE BARK OF TREES, called buil, into other countries, which
are perhaps warmer, but we know not where."]



 VIII.

II. THE VERRAZANO MAP. IT IS NOT AN AUTHORITATIVE EXPOSITION OF THE
VERRAZZANO DISCOVERY. ITS ORIGIN AND DATE IN ITS PRESENT FORM. THE
LETTER OF ANNIBAL CARO. THE MAP PRESENTED TO HENRY VIII. VOYAGES OF
VERRAZZANO. THE GLOBE OF EUPHROSYNUS ULPIUS.

The map of Hieronimo de Verrazano, recently brought to particular
notice, [Footnote: Journal of the American Geographical Society of
New York. 1873 Vol. IV. Notes on the Verrazano map. By James Carson
Brevoort.] is a planisphere on a roll of parchment eight feet and a
half long and of corresponding width, formerly belonging to Cardinal
Stefano Borgia, in whose museum, in the college of the Propaganda in
the Vatican, it is now preserved. It has no date, though, from a
legend upon it referring to the Verrazzano discovery, it may be
inferred that the year 1529 is intended to be understood as the time
when it was constructed. No paleographical description of it,
however, has yet been published, from which the period of its
construction might be determined, or the congruity of its parts
verified. It may, however, in order to disencumber the question, be
admitted to be the map mentioned by Annibal Caro in 1537, in a
letter to which occasion will hereafter be had to refer, and that
its author was the brother of the navigator, though of both these
facts satisfactory proof is wanting. [Footnote: This map was either
unknown to Ramusio and Gastaldi or discredited by them. Ramusio in
his preface, after mentioning to Fracastor that he placed the
relation of Verrazzano and Jacques Cartier in that volume, adds,
that inasmuch as Fracastor has exhorted him to make, in imitation of
Ptolemy, four or five maps of as much as was known up to that time
of the part of the world recently discovered, he could not disobey
his commands, and had therefore arranged to have them made by the
Piedmontese cosmographer Giacomo de Gastaldi. They are accordingly
to be found in the same volume with the letter of Verrazzano. One of
them is a map of New France extending somewhat south of Norumbega,
but no features of the Verrazzano map are to be traced upon it: and
no other map of the country is given. Fol. 424-5.]

No entirely legible copy of this map has yet been made public. Two
photographs, both much reduced from the original, have been made for
the American Geographical Society, from the larger of which, so much
as relates to the present purpose, has been carefully reproduced
here on the same scale. It is to be regretted that the names along
the coast, and the legends relating to the Verrazzano exploration,
are not photographed distinctly, though the legends and a few names
have been supplied by means of a pen. But although a knowledge of
all the names is necessary for a thorough understanding of this map,
these photographs, nevertheless, affording a true transcript of it
in other respects, enable us to determine that it is of no authority
as to the alleged discovery itself. [Footnote: This map was first
brought to public notice by M. Thomassey, in a memoir entitled, Les
Papes Geographes et la Cosmographie du Vatican, which was published
in the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages. Nouvelle serie, tome XXXV.
Annee 1853. Tome Troisieme. Paris. We are indebted to this memoir
for the explanation of our copy of the map of the scale of
distances, which is illegible on the photographs. According to this
explanation there should be nine points in the narrower, and
nineteen in the wider spaces. These being two and half leagues
apart, give twenty-five leagues for the smaller and fifty leagues
for the larger spaces, making three hundred and fifty leagues for
the whole scale.]

It will be found, in the first place, to contravene the Verrazzano
letter as to the limits of the discovery, both north and south, and
to indicate merely an attempt to reconcile that discovery generally
with the discoveries of the Spaniards, Bretons and Portuguese, as
shown on the maps of the period to which it relates. The coast of
North America is laid down continuously from the gulf of Mexico to
Davis straits, in latitude 60 Degrees N. Beginning at the point of
Florida, which is placed IN LATITUDE 33 1/2 Degrees N., more than
eight degrees north of its true position, it runs northerly along
the Atlantic, trending slightly to the west, to a bay or river, in
latitude 38 Degrees N. On this part of the country, called Terra
Florida, the arms of Spain are represented, denoting its discovery
by the Spaniards: and the whole of its coast for a distance of
eighty or ninety leagues, is entirely devoid of names.

From 38 Degrees N. that is, from the land of Florida as here shown,
the coast continues in a northerly direction thirty or forty leagues
farther, to a point between 40 Degrees and 41 Degrees N. when,
turning northeasterly, it runs with slight variations, on a general
course of east north east, for six hundred and fifty leagues to Cape
Breton placed in latitude 51 1/2 S., five and a half degrees north
of it true position. Along this part of the coast more than sixty
names of places occur at intervals sufficiently regular to denote
one continuous exploration. They are for the most part
undistinguishable on the photographs, but nine of them, at the
beginning, are made legible by hand, the first two of which
commencing AT LATITUDE 38 Degrees, are Dieppa and Livorno. The
others, proceeding north, are Punta de Calami, Palamsina, Polara
flor, Comana, Santiago, C. d' Olimpe, and Olimpe, indicating a
nomenclature different from that used on any other known map of this
region. At a distance of three hundred leagues from Dieppa, and IN
LATITUDE 46 Degrees N., is a large triangular island, designated by
the name of Luisia. Hence to Cape Breton the names are illegibly
photographed. Along this coast, at three points, namely, in latitude
42 Degrees; opposite the island of Luisia, in latitude 46; and in
latitude 50 Degrees, standards are displayed, the nationality of
which cannot be distinguished, but which no doubt were intended for
those of France, inasmuch as over them occurs the name of Nova
Gallia sive Iucatanet in large, commanding letters, with the
Verrazzano legend, before referred to underneath it, in these words:
'Verrazana seu Gallia nova quale discopri 5 anni fa Giovanni di
Verrazano fiorentino per ordine et comandamete del Chrystianissimo
Re di Francia; that is, Verrazzana or New Gaul which Giovanni di
Verrazzano, a Florentine, discovered five years ago by order and
command of the most Christian king of France. [Footnote: The names
Verrazzana and Verrazzano in this legend are WRITTEN on the
photograph by hand, with a double z, though M. Thomassey uses only
the single z, which is adopted on our copy. It would be a singular
circumstance, leading to some speculation, if they should really be
spelt with the two z's on the original. Hieronimo, if he were the
brother of Giovanni, would hardly have written his own name, as it
is inscribed on the map, with one z, and that of his brother with
two, in the same document.]

Over Cape Breton is a representation of the shield of Brittany,
denoted by its ermines, in token of the discovery of that country by
the Bretons, which is separated by a bay or gulf from Terra Nova
sive Le Molue, the latter term being evidently intended for Bacalao
(codfish, Fr. morue), the received name of Newfoundland. The
southerly coast of Terra Nova for an hundred leagues, and its
easterly coast running to the north, are delineated, with the
Portuguese name of C. Raso and the island of Baccalaos barely
legible. The coast runs north from C. Raso to C. Formoso in latitude
60 Degrees where it meets the straits which separate it from Terra
Laboratoris, the country discovered by Gaspar Cortereal on his first
voyage, but here attributed to the English, and being in fact
Greenland. [Footnote: Mr. Brevoort gives other names as legible on
the easterly coast of Terra Nova, which we have not been able to
distinguish, namely: c. de spera, illa de san luis, monte de trigo,
and illa dos avos. Mr. B. reads IUCATANET, and M. Margry YUCATANET,
where our engraver has IUCATANIA, for the general name of the
country. The word in either form is apochryphal, as Yucatan is
designated in its proper place, though as an island; but which form
is correct cannot be determined from the photograph.]

It is obvious that the discoveries of Verrazzano are thus intended
to embrace the coast from latitude 38 Degrees N. to Cape Breton,
that is, between the points designated by the armorial designations
of Spain and Brittany, and not beyond either, as that would make the
map contradict itself. That they begin at the parallel 38 is shown
by the names of Dieppa and Livorno, (Leghorn), which commemorate the
port to which the expedition of Verrazzano belonged, and the country
in which he himself was born. These names cannot be associated with
any other alleged expedition. They are given on the map which
contains the legend declaring the country generally to have been
discovered by him; and are not found on any other. There can be no
doubt, therefore, that they are meant to indicate the beginning of
his exploration in the south.

That his discoveries are represented as extending in the north to
Cape Breton is proven by the continuation of the names to that
point, showing an exploration by some voyager along that entire
coast, and by the absence of any designation of its discovery by any
other nation than the French; while the distance from Dieppa to Cape
Breton is laid down as seven hundred leagues, the same as claimed
for this exploration.

But in restricting his discoveries to latitude 38 Degrees N. on the
south, this map essentially departs from the claim set up in the
letter ascribed to Verrazzano which carries them to fifty leagues
south of 34 Degrees; and on the other hand, in limiting them, in the
north, to the land discovered by the Bretons, it conforms to its
Portuguese authorities, upon which, as will be seen, it was founded,
but, in so doing, contradicts the letter which extends them to the
point where the Portuguese commenced their explorations to the
Arctic circle, which this map itself shows were on the east side of
Terra Nova. Verrazzano the navigator, therefore, could not have been
the author of the letter and also the authority for the map.

That this map did not proceed from him is also proven by the
representation upon it of a great ocean, called Mare Occidentale,
which is laid down between the parallels within which these
discoveries are confined. It lies on the west side of the continent
but approaches so near the Atlantic, in latitude 41 Degrees N., that
is, in the vicinity of New York, that according to a legend
describing it, the two oceans are there only six miles apart, and
can be seen from each other. This isthmus occurs several hundred
miles north of Dieppa, and therefore at a point absolutely fixed
within the limits of the Verrazzano discoveries, and where the
navigator must have sailed, according to both the letter and the
map, whether the latitudes on the map be correctly described or not.
This western sea is thus made by its position a part of the
discoveries of Verrazzano, and is declared by the legend to have
been actually seen; and as he was the discoverer, it must be
intended to have been seen by him. As, however, there is no such sea
in reality, Verrazzano could never have seen it; and therefore, he
could not have so represented; or if he did, then the whole story
must for that reason alone be discredited. There is no escape from
this dilemma. Verrazzano could not have been deceived and have
mistaken some other sheet of water for this great sea, and so
represented it on any chart, or communicated it in any other way to
the maker of this map; for he makes no mention of the circumstance
in his letter to the king to whom he would have been prompt to
report so important a fact; as it would have proved the
accomplishment of the object of his voyage,--the discovery of a
passage through this region to Cathay, or if not a passage, at least
a way, which could have been made available for reaching the land of
spices and aromatics, by reason of its low grade, evident by one sea
being seen from the other, and its short distance.

The unauthentic character of this map, and the manner in which its
representation of the Verrazzano discoveries was produced,
distinctly appear in its method of construction. Cape Breton and
Terra Nova are represented as they are laid down on the charts of
Pedro Reinel and the anonymous cartographer,--reproduced on the
first and fourth sheets of the Munich atlas and unquestionably
belonging to the period anterior to the discovery of the continuity
of the land from Florida to Cape Breton. They bear the names which
are found on those maps, importing their discovery thus early by the
Bretons and Portuguese. In the south, the designation of Florida as
a Spanish discovery, with its southerly coast running along the
parallel of thirty-three and a half of north latitude, eight degrees
north of its actual position, is precisely the same it as it is
shown on the anonymous Portuguese chart just mentioned. These
representations of the country, in the north and the south, were
thus adopted as the basis of this map. But as there were not seven
hundred leagues of coast between latitude 38 Degrees and Cape
Breton, which is the distance it indicates as having been explored
by Verrazzano, that extent could be obtained only, either by
changing the latitude of Florida or Cape Breton, or prolonging the
coast longitudinally, or both. The latitude of the northerly limit
of Florida having been preserved for the commencement of the
discoveries, Cape Breton had therefore to be changed and was
accordingly carried five degrees and a half further north and placed
in latitude 51-1/2 instead of 46, and by consequence the whole line
of coast was thrown several degrees in that direction, as is proven
by the position of the island of Louise, which thus falls in 46
Degrees N. instead of 41 Degrees, the latitude assigned to it in the
letter. Nothing could more conclusively show the factitious origin
of this delineation and its worthlessness as an exposition of the
Verrazzano discovery.

Some importance, however, attaches to this map in its assisting us
to fix approximately the time of the fabrication of the Verrazzano
letter. If it were constructed in 1529, as some would infer, with
the portions relating to the discovery upon it, then it is the
earliest recognition of the CLAIM to this discovery yet produced,
irrespective of the letter. But it is by no means certain that it
was originally made in that year. Nothing appears on the map itself
giving that date in terms; but it is left to be inferred exclusively
from the language of the legend, which states that the discovery was
made FIVE YEARS AGO, without any indication, either in the legend
itself or elsewhere on the map, to what time that period relates;
and leaving the discovery, therefore, to be ascertained from
extraneous sources. If the discovery be assumed to have been made in
1524, then indeed the map, according to the legend, would have been
constructed in 1529. But no person, unacquainted with the letter,
can determine from this inscription, or any other part of the map,
the date either of the discovery or map; and this precise difficulty
Euphrosynus Ulpius apparently encountered in attempting to fix the
time of the discovery for his globe, as will hereafter be seen. Why
the time of the discovery should have been left in such an ambiguous
state, compatibly with fair intentions, it is difficult to
understand. The year itself could and should, in the absence of any
date on the map, have been stated directly in the legend, without
compelling a resort to other authorities. It is not unusual, it is
true, for valuable maps and charts of this period to be left without
the dates of their construction upon them; but when, as in this
case, a date is called for, there seems to be no reason why it
should not have been given. This circumstance creates the suspicion
that the legend did not belong to the map originally, but was added
afterwards, as it now appears on the copy in the Vatican; or if it
were upon it then, that it was intended to mislead and conceal the
true date of the map. But whatever may be the secret of its origin,
this legend furnishes no positive evidence as to the time when the
map was made, or pretended to have been made; and we are left to
find its date, if possible, by other means.

A fact which indicates that this map could not have existed as late
as 1536, in the form in which it is now presented, if it existed
then at all, is that the western sea is delineated upon a map of the
world, made in that year, by Baptista Agnese, an Italian
cosmographer, without any reference to the Verrazzano discoveries,
under circumstances which would have led him to have recognized them
if he knew of them, and which would have required him to have done
so if this map were his authority. This sea is laid down by Agnese
in the same manner as it is shown on the Verrazzano map, approaching
the Atlantic, from the north, along a narrow isthmus terminating at
latitude 40 Degrees, with the coast turning abruptly to the west;
the ocean being thus represented open thence from the isthmus to
Cathay. A track of French navigation, not a single voyage, expressed
by the words: el viages de France, is designated upon it, leading
from the north of France to this isthmus, referring obviously to the
voyages of the fishermen of Brittany and Normandy, to the coasts of
Nova Scotia and New England. No allusion is made to the voyage of
Verrazzano, or to the discoveries attributed to him by the Verrazano
map. The Atlantic coast on the contrary, is plainly delineated after
the Spanish map of Ribero, as is shown by the form, peculiar to that
map, of the coast, at latitude 40 Degrees, returning to the west. It
is apparent, therefore, that the two maps of Agnese and Verrazano,
both representing the western sea in the same form, must have been
derived from a common source, or else one was taken from the other;
and that the map of Agnese could not, in either case, have been
derived from a map showing the Verrazzano discovery, and must
consequently have been anterior to the Verrazano map in its present
form.

It militates against the authenticity of the Verrazano map and the
early date which it would have inferred for itself, that there is
not a single known map or chart, either published or unpublished,
before the great map of Mercator in 1569, that refers to the
Verrazzano discoveries, or recognizes this map in any respect before
that of Michael Lok, published by Hakluyt, in 1582; or any before
Lok, that applies the name of the sea of Verrazano to the western
sea. The unauthenticated and until recently unnoticed globe of
Euphrosynus Ulpius, purporting to have been constructed in 1542, of
which we will speak presently, is the only evidence yet presented of
the existence of the Verrazano map, as it now appears, beyond the
map itself. The whole theory of the early influence of the
Verrazzano discovery, or of the Verrazano map, upon the cartography
of the period to which they relate, and its consequently proving
their authenticity, as advanced by some learned writers, is
therefore incorrect and is founded in a misconception of fact.

This mistake relates to a map which is found in several editions of
the geography of Ptolemy printed at Basle, supposed to represent the
western sea shortly after the Verrazzano discovery, and consequently
as derived from that source. Mr. Kohl, [Footnote: We are indebted
entirely to Mr. Kohl for our knowledge of the map of Agnese, which
he produces, on a reduced scale, in the Discovery of Maine, (chart
XIV), with an account of the map and its author (p. 292).] in a
chapter specially devoted to the consideration of charts from
Verrazzano, reproduces one (No. XV, a) which he describes as a
sketch of North America, from a map of the new world, in an edition
of Ptolemy printed in Basle, 1530. And he adds: "the map was drawn
and engraved A FEW YEARS AFTER VERRAZANO'S EXPEDITION. The plate
upon which it was engraved, must have been in use for a long time;
for the same map appears both, in EARLIER and much later editions of
Ptolemy. The same also reappears in the cosmography of Sebastian
Munster, published in Basle." Mr. K. finally observes in regard to
it: "this map has this particular interest for us, that it is
probably the first on which the sea of Verrazano was depicted in the
form given to it by Lok, in 1582. I have found no map PRIOR to 1530,
on which this delineation appears." [Footnote: Discovery of Maine,
pp. 296-7.] There is a little confusion of dates in this statement.
Mr. K. states, however, that he had not seen the map of Hieronimo de
Verrazano, and evidently derives his information, in regard to the
sea of Verrazano, from the map of Lok, who alone gives the western
sea the name of Mare de Verrazana, no doubt because he found the sea
laid down on the map presented by Verrazzano to Henry VIII, to which
reference will presently be made. Had Mr. K. seen the Verrazano map
with the absurd legend upon it, in effect declaring the western sea
to have been observed by Verrazzano, he must have arrived at
different conclusions, notwithstanding the map in Ptolemy of the
supposed early date. Mr. Brevoort, in his notes on the Verrazano
map, probably relying on the authority of Mr. Kohl, says, "that the
first published map containing traces of Verrazano's explorations,
is in the Ptolemy of Basle, 1530, which appeared FOUR YEARS BEFORE
THE FRENCH RENEWED THEIR ATTEMPTS AT AMERICAN EXPLORATION. It shows
the western sea without a name, and the land north of it is called
Francisca." [Footnote: Journal of Am. Geog. Soc. of New York, vol.
IV, p. 279.] The inference left to be drawn is that, the presence of
the French in this region, as denoted by the name, Francisca, four
years before the discoveries in that quarter, by Jacques Cartier,
and by the delineation of the western sea upon the Verrazano map,
establish the authenticity both of the voyage of Verrazzano and the
map.

All this is erroneous. There was no edition of Ptolemy published in
1530 at Basle, or elsewhere, known to bibliographers. The map to
which reference is made, and which is reproduced by Mr. Kohl, was
first printed in 1540 at Basle, in an edition of Ptolemy with new
maps, both of the new and old world, and with new descriptions of
the countries embraced in them, printed on the back of each,
accompanied by a geographical description of the modern state of the
countries of the old world by Sebastian Munster. [Footnote:
Geographia Universalis, vetus et nova, complectens Claudii Ptolemai
Alexandrini enarrationis libros VIII. * * * Succedunt tabulos
Ptolemaice, opera Sebastiani Munsteri nto paratos. His adjectos sunt
plurime novae tabulae, moderna orbis faciem literis & pictura
explicantes, inter quas quaedam antehac Ptolemao non fuerunt
additae. Sm. fol. Basiteae apud Henricum Petrum Meuse Martio Anno
MDXI.] In all the editions of Ptolemy, containing maps of the new
world, before the year 1540, North America was represented according
to the mistaken ideas of Waltzemuller on that subject in 1513, and
without regard to the discoveries which took place after his
edition. The maps of Munster constituted a new departure of the
Ptolemies in this respect, and were intended to represent the later
discoveries in the new world. They were reprinted several times at
Basle by the same printer, Henri Pierre (Lelewell II. 176, 208). In
the first edition, which is now lying before us, the map in
question, number 45, bears the title of Novae Insalae XVII. Nova
Tabula. It is an enlarged representation of the portion relating to
the new world of another map, No. 1, in the same volume, called
Typas Universalis, a map of the whole world, which appears here also
as a new map, and represents, for the first time in the Ptolemaic
series, the straits of Magellan in the south, New France in the
north, and the coast running continuously, north and NORTHEAST, from
Florida to Newfoundland.

Upon this map a deep gulf is shown, indenting America from a strait
in the north, which leads from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the
region of Hudson's straits, in latitude 60 Degrees N. This gulf runs
southerly into the continent as far as latitude 40 Degrees N.,
approaching the Atlantic coast, and in that respect, alone, conforms
to the representation of the western sea on the maps of Verrazano
and Lok. It differs materially, however, from that sea, and
indicates an entirely different meaning and origin. It is simply a
gulf, or deep bay, like Hudson's bay, but reaching further south,
being land-locked on all sides, except the north, as high as
latitude 60 Degrees N.; whereas the western sea, on the other maps,
is, as already observed, an open sea, extending westerly from the
isthmus in latitude 40 Degrees, without intervening land,
uninterruptedly to India. The intention of the delineation of this
portion of the map, is not equivocal. For the first time, on any
map, there is found upon it the name of Francisca, which is placed
above the parallel of 50 Degrees N. latitude and above that of C.
Britonum, designated thus by name, in the proper position of Cape
Breton. It is placed between the river St. Lawrence, which also is
represented but not named, and the gulf before mentioned. This name,
Francisca, [Footnote: Called Francese in the discourse of the French
captain of Dieppe.] or the FRENCH LAND, and the position, indicate
the then recent discoveries in that region, which were due to the
French under Jacques Cartier, and which could properly belong to no
other exploration of the French. The gulf, no doubt, relates to the
great lakes or fresh water sea of which Cartier had heard from the
natives, as he himself mentions. (Hakluyt, III. 225.)

With the correction, therefore, of the date of the Munster map, the
argument in favor of the authenticity either of the Verrazzano
discovery or of the Verrazano map, based upon the recognition by the
Munster map, of that discovery immediately after it is alleged to
have taken place, or after the alleged construction of the Verrazano
map, in 1529, and before any other voyages were made by the French
to that region, falls entirely to the ground. And with the actual
representation upon it of the discoveries of Cartier, without any
allusion to the alleged discoveries of Verrazzano or the pretensions
of the Verrazano map, while giving the latest discoveries in
America, it is fairly to be concluded that both were unheard of, or
utterly discredited by the author of the Munster map.

The map of Agnese stands, therefore, as the earliest chart of an
acknowledged date showing the western sea, and that is independently
of the Verrazzano discovery, or the Verrazano map. The hitherto
unpublished maps produced by Mr. Kohl, also for the purpose of
proving the influence of the Verrazzano discovery, fail entirely of
that object. The first of them, in point of date, the sketch (No.
XV. c) from the portolano of 1536, preserved in the Bodleian library
at Oxford, shows a track of navigation from the north of France,
across the Atlantic, RUNNING BETWEEN THE BACALAOS AND THE LAND OF
THE BRETONS, THROUGH THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE, TO THE PACIFIC, AND
THENCE TO CATHAY. There is no representation of the western sea, as
shown on the Verrazano map, but on the contrary, the whole of the
western coast of North America is shown conjecturally in a different
form, by dotted lines. So far as this map affords any indication on
the subject, it refers to the route of Cartier, and delineates the
Atlantic coast according to the Spanish map of Ribero, that is, with
a trending of the coast in a more northerly direction than the
Verrazano map, and with the peculiar return of that coast westerly,
in latitude 40 Degrees N., given on that map. The next chart (No.
XV. d) from a map made by Diego Homem in 1540, shows the western sea
nearly the same as on the map of Agnese, but conjecturally only;
while the representation of the Atlantic coast has the same
characteristics as the Bodleian and Agnese maps, showing its
derivation from Ribero and not the Verrazano map. The remaining
sketch given by Mr. Kohl (No. XV. b) from a map made by G. Ruscelli
in 1544, presenting the same features, as do the two others, in
regard to the Atlantic coast, puts beyond all question that the map
of Ribero is its authority, by adopting from it the name of Montagne
Verde which is applied by Ribero to the hills at the mouth of the
river San Antonio, in latitude 41 Degrees N., thereby certainly
excluding any recognition of the Verrazzano discovery or the
Verrazano map.

The first published map which refers to the Verrazzano discoveries,
that of Mercator in 1569, makes no reference to the Verrazano map,
and does not recognize it in any manner. Mercator was the first to
give the name of Claudia to the island of Louise, evidently
mistaking the name of the wife of Francis for that of his mother,
after whom the island was called, according to the letter, without
stating her name. Mercator gives a legend in which he mentions that
Verrazzano arrived on the coast on the 17th of March 1524, which is
the day according to the version of Ramusio, following our mode of
computation, as before explained. It is evident, therefore, that
Mercator had the Ramusio version before him, and not the Verrazano
map, as his authority on the subject. His delineation of the
Atlantic coast, moreover, is according to the plan of Ribero, and he
gives no indication of the western sea of the Verrazano map, but
mentions in a legend the fresh water inland sea spoken of by
Cartier, of the extent of which the Indians were ignorant.

The existence of the Verrazano map, much less its date, is obviously
not proven by 

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