UC-NRLF m LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class Verrazano the Navigator OR NOTES ON GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO AND ON A PLANISPHERE OF 1529 ILLUSTRATING HIS AMERICAN VOYAGE IN 1524 WITH A REDUCED COPY OF THE MAP A Paper Read before the American Geographical Society of New Tork November 28fh 1871 J C BREVOORT A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY NEW YORK 1874 Extracted from the Report of the American Geographical Society of New York for 1873. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES PRINTED. THE ARGUS COMPANY, PRINTERS, STEREOTYPERS AND BINDERS, ALBANY, N. Y. PREFACE. AT the request of the President of this Society we undertook, with some hesitation, to prepare the follow ing notes, embodying all that can be gathered together concerning the career of the Florentine Navigator who appears to have been the first explorer of a portion of our coast. Besides a report addressed to the French King on his return from the voyage, there are several ccetaneous notices of the expedition, which are suffi cient to authenticate it. The fact that a Planisphere, drawn by a kinsman of the explorer, about the year 1529, was in the Museo Borgiana, had been published in 1800, but it remained unnoticed, until Thomassy in 1852 described it de visu. This remarkable document, confirming the report of 1524, and dispelling all reason able doubt as to its genuineness, remained for some years longer unpublished. Efforts to procure a copy of it by various persons had failed, until our President at last succeeded in obtaining photographs from it. These, though imperfect, are distinct enough to furnish suf ficient evidence that the voyage was made at the time above indicated, and very nearly as described in the explorer s report to the King. To the paper, as prepared for the Society, we have added some notes that further illustrate it, though not 224081 always having a direct bearing upon the subject. The map has been very carefully copied in outline from the photographs, which it was found impossible to reproduce in any other way, and we have added a copy, on a larger scale, of that portion of our coast which the navigator claims to have been the first to explore. The publication in 1825, edited by Navarrete, of Spanish documents relating to the discovery and explo ration of America, followed by the interesting life of Columbus by Washington Irving, and the Examen Critique by Yon Humboldt, opened a field for studies in American comparative geography that is becoming fruitful of results. The last named work is a guide which all must consult. With a master hand the author combines and collates all attainable materials, and draws light from sources which he first brings to bear on his exhaustive investigations. The interest thus newly awakened by the appearance of these works, lent fresh activity to such researches, bringing out numerous hitherto neglected or unknown documents. Among these we may name the Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos in forty-one volumes, of which a portion relate to the Spanish- American possessions, and a last series devoted exclusively to America y Oceania, begun in 1864, and of which we have seen eleven volumes, ending in 1869. The Academy s edition of Oviedo s full work, in five folio volumes, is another contribution of a most valuable nature to early Ameri can history. Unluckily all these Spanish works are not accompanied by proper indexes, so that it becomes an arduous task to consult them. PREFACE. 5 We have also many inedited maps appearing since the Examen Critique was completed. Among these we may name as of especial interest to Americans, the Monumens de la Geographic du Moyen Age, which includes the curious Planisphere drawn by Juan de la Cosa in 1500, and that of Sebastian Cabot of 1544. Not less interesting is the Kunstmann collection of eleven old maps, all relating to America, Kohl s fac-similes of the American portion of two valuable Spanish Plani spheres of 1527 and 1529, both of the works last named being accompanied with explanatory text. A host of most interesting papers on the same subjects could be named, but such a list is not called for here, though we must thank the author of the Biblioteca Americana Vetustissima for a work which lightens the labors of such as have to investigate early American history. We must entreat scholars not to deal harshly with us if they find many foreign names misprinted or words not properly accented, for we did our best to avoid this blemish, one which Mons. Davesac truly says is peculiar to Anglo-Saxon compositors. NOTE. Since completing this paper we have come to the conclusion that the narrow Isthmus and the nameless Western Sea, laid down on the map, just North of Florida, are the result of an attempt on the part of the mapmaker to locate the Isthmus of Panama and Mar del Sur. His draught of the true Isthmus is incomplete, and from a misunderstanding of it as described in Owedo s Somario of 1526, which he may have seen or heard of, he has placed it thus, and has puzzled geographers who copied him. Giovanni himself could not have originated this error. NOTES ON GIOVANNI DA YERRAZANO AND ON A PLANISPHERE OF 1529, ILLUSTRATING HIS AMERICAN VOYAGE IN 1524, WITH A REDUCED COPY OF THE MAP. By JAMES CARSON BREVOORT. BEAD NOVEMBER 28TH, 1871. INTRODUCTORY. The discoveries made in the great ocean by Columbus at the close of the fifteenth century, gave to the Spaniards a supposed claim not only to coasts and islands which they had seen, but also to all the unknown lands and seas beyond and to the west of a certain meridian of longitude. This demarcation line, however, was not based on any better right than the partition of the heathen and undiscovered countries of the globe between Spain and Portugal, confirmed by the Pope, Alexander YI, in May and September, 1493,* and further, but not definitely settled between these two nations in June, 1494. As time passed on, the hopes entertained by the Spanish sovereigns were dispelled by the assurance that the western waters did not anywhere, as supposed by Strabp,f afford a clear seaway to the eastern shores of Asia, ftjr a * See Huraboldt, Examen Critique and Cosmos ; also Oscar Pesch&I, Die Theilung der Erde, etc., 1871. f While the mathematicians teach that the circle passes behind it (the earth) and returns into itself, so that did the magnitude of the Atlantic not prevent, we might navigate on the same parallel from Spain to India. [Lib. I.] 8 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. new continent interposed itself, which up to 1524, had been found continuous from Florida to the distant southern strait discovered by Magellan. In 1513, Balboaf discovered the South Sea, thus reveal ing a probable Division of the New World into a southern and a northern continent, which last was, however, sup posed to be a part of Asia until 1540. The South Sea was thus named, because it was supposed to lie to the south of this eastern extremity of Asia, and on many maps of. the time, it was thus represented. The proba bility, however, of the existence of a narrow strait or water /communication between the South Sea and the Atlantic, just north of Mexico, was a favorite theory among geographers, long believed in, leading to many voyages for its detection, and which, as a search for a north-west passage, survived to this day, when having been found, it turns out to be impracticable. It was the hope of making such a discovery that impelled the navigator, whose voyage we are about to examine, toward that part of the New World which still remained unexplored, and we shall briefly review the geographical discoveries which, up to the year 1524, had been made from the north and from the south, along the coast of the present United States of America. In 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon discovered the mainland of Florida, and afterwards sent out exploring expeditions along its Atlantic coast, which do not appear to have got beyond the mouth of the Rio de Chicora, or Savannah River, in latitude 32. He died in 1521 from a wound received on his last voyage while fighting with the natives. The Licentiate, Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, in 1520 and 1521, explored the coast north of the Savannah, and appears to have reached Cabo Santa Helena, or Cape Fear, in latitude 34, and somewhat beyond it. It is claimed by some that his vessels had reached to the Bahia Santa Maria^ or Chesapeake Bay, before 1 526, the date of his last expedition. The coast-line of the Gulf of Mexico OCEANIC EXPLORATIONS. 1) was slowly explored from 1498 to 1518, when the hope of an opening into the Mar del Sur was abandoned.* The coasts of Newfoundland, or Baccalaos,f and of Nova Scotia, or Terra de Bretones, had been explored by the French and others on fishing voyages, at least as far south as Cape Sable, or to the Penobscot (Rio de Norum- bega), in latitude 43 20 , before 1524. These explorations from the north and from the south left a gap between lati tudes 34 and 43 north, which the geographers of the Congress of Bajadoz, in 1524, seemed unable to fill, having discovered that no official examination of the coast between Florida and Terra Nova had ever been made. The hearsay report of Sebastian Cabot, who was said to have followed the coast from Newfoundland to Florida without finding an opening to the west, does not appear to have had any influence on the question. He was him self one of the members of this Congress, and could have cleared up this point if he had really coasted these shores in 1497 or 1498, as told by Peter Martyr. $ Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese, in Spanish employ, who had accompanied Magellan as far as the strait, a member of the Congress, and who had proposed a search along this unexplored coast, was therefore officially com missioned to look for a passage westward between these parallels. He sailed in February, 1525, and was absent about ten months, coasting from north to south, having distinctly ascertained that a continental shore filled the void, thus completing the line of an impenetrable barrier across a westward route to the Spice Islands, extending from latitude 53 north, to the Straits of Magellan, in 54 south. The return of the Vittoria in 1522, under Sebastian Del Cano, the only ship left of the five which had sailed * See note, Gulf of Mexico. f See note, Baccalaos. \ See note, Cabot. A full account of the voyages of this navigator has been prepared, and will soon be published, by the Hon. Henry C. Murphy. 2 10 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. in 1519 with Magellan, led to much speculation concern ing a nearer way to the Moluccas than the one thus opened by the Spaniards. Many minds were excited, both by this great feat, and by the reports of the rich empire which Cortes was then conquering, to new geo graphical enquiry. Cortes himself oifered, in 1524, to search both oceans for the supposed northern strait lead ing to the west, though it appears that he confined him self to exploring the South Sea only.* Meanwhile the attention of Francis the First was turned in the same direction, whether from the report that such a blank was to be filled in the maps, or that the French king had learned as much from his own cosmographers. That he hoped to find a short passage to the Moluccas, we know from the letter of Giovanni de Verrazano of 1524, who had been directed to search for it. Perhaps among the crews of the vessels captured by this naviga tor on previous corsairial expeditions, there were men who had revealed to him the state of Spanish geographi cal knowledge, and the probability of a western passage, to be found between the parallels above mentioned. It was also no doubt the desire of the king to discover a rich empire like Mexico, which the Spaniards were then plundering, and which might open to him also a supply of the precious metals. Verrazano seems to have failed in a first effort to sail, with four vessels, as he says, north wardly, but with one vessel only he started again, and after an exploration of some months, between the paral lels of 34 and 50 N. according to his own estimate, he returned with information that no passage could be found. The explorations of Verrazano and of G-omez on the eastern shores of North America, and those directed by Cortes on the west, closed all hopes of a short sea-way to the Indies. But the entire disconnection of Asia with America was not positively proved until Behring dis covered in 1728, the strait to which his name was given. * See notes, Cortes and Ztiazo. THE PLANISPHERE OF 1529. \ 1 DISCOVERY OF THE VERRAZANO PLANISPHERE OF 1529. The interesting discovery by Mons. R. Thomassy, an experienced archivist, author of interesting geographical papers and of the geology of Louisiana, among the maps of the College de Propaganda Fide in Rome, of a Mapa- mundi, made by a certain Hieronimus de Verrazano, dating from about the year 1529, was first made known in a paper entitled Les Papes Geographies, published in the Annalesdes Voyages, Paris, 1852. * Mons. Thomassy could hardly have been aware of the keen interest that such a discovery would awaken among those interested in early American explorations, or he would have given a less meagre account of this precious map. He deserves our sincere thanks, however, for drawing attention to this and other valuable geographical monuments pre served in Rome, and which seem to have escaped the active research of Humboldt and Jomard. A study of this map by the author of the Examen Critique de la GeograpJiie dn JVouveau Continent, would have been fruit I ul of results, and we can hardly venture to tread a path which he first opened, without great diffidence, and the hope that the investigation which we may only sketch out, will by others be prosecuted to definite results. Our remarks are based upon a study of two photo graphic copies of the original map, which, after long and repeated attempts, have kt last, through the kind offices of Mr. Thos. E. Davis, been procured from Rome by the President of this Society. f These photographs are now before you, but are unfor tunately not distinct enough to enable us to read the names inscribed along our coast, between the points which limit the explorations of our navigator. This is most unlucky, and another copy must be procured before the critical examination of the subject can be properly * See f See page 80 of the Report of this Society for 1871. 12 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. undertaken. We have deciphered a few of the names, and have prepared a careful copy of that part of the Mapamundi which more specially interests us as Ameri cans. The original map is on three large skins pasted together forming a sheet, according to Mons. Thomassy, the first describer of the map, 260 centimetres long and 130 high; say 102.36 inches by 51.18 inches, or with a width twice as great as the height. It is a general map of the world, as known to the designer of it, Hieronimus de Verrazano," but it bears no date. From the remark written under the name Nova Gallia, that this land was discovered five years before, we infer (supposing the date of Giovanni de Ver- razano s voyage, as given himself, to be 1524), that the map was made in 1529. There is good reason to believe that Hieronimus (Jerome) was a brother of John, and that he put down the coast here alluded to from authentic data furnished by his brother. There are certain coast features drawn on the map, which are not alluded to in the letter, seeming to prove that Jerome had his brother s charts before him. The plain indication of Long Island Sound, and of Cape Cod, is of itself sufficient proof that it was compiled from original drafts or notes. The latitudes, however, differ entirely from those given in the letter. The truth, per haps, cannot be developed until this chart, which is open to examination, has received a closer study. New copies of it are needed, which may more faithfully render the coast names and minor details. Further remarks on the map will be found in the notes to this paper. * The great interest that attaches to it, in our eyes, is the fact of its being the earliest known tracing of our coast, as made from actual exploration. The only account of Verrazano s voyage left to us is in the form of a letter, written from Dieppe, July 8, 1524, to * See note, Verrazano Planisphere. LIFE AND VOYAGES OF VERRAZANO. 13 the French king, in which he gives a short and sketchy report of his explorations, without naming any points, and in such general terms that many have doubted the genuineness of the letter. It was not published in France, but first appeared in Italian, in Venice, 1556, in the third volume of the Collection of Voyages, edited by Ramusius, which was prepared in 1553, but no document positively confirming the letter has since been found. No serious doubt, however, had ever been raised impugning the truth of this letter until the late Bucking ham Smith attempted, in two critical articles, published in 1864 and 1869, to disprove its genuineness. LIFE AND VOYAGES OF VERRAZANO. Geographers, as well as historians, meet with many historical riddles. Even concerning Columbus, much remains to be explained, and of the early voyages of Sebastian Cabot just enough is known, in the lack of fur ther documentary evidence, to render the search for truth almost hopeless. The voyages of Americus Vespucius present a wide subject for controversy, and the few facts concerning Verrazano, whose voyages more closely than any other early navigator relate to our own coast, invite the most searching criticism of geographers. We have, in this case, to deal with an individual who was known under two characters, as a privateer and as an explorer. On this account we must treat of him in each character separately, in order not to confuse the narrative of his career. In later times, a Hawkins or a Drake, a Cavendish or an Anson, united these opposite occupations and were famed in both, but Verrazano s exploits as a corsair have been hitherto only alluded to in scattered notices, and uncertainty rests on the time and manner of his death. He was the first to show how the growing power of Spain could be crippled, and Spain, in return, has not honored his memory. We have collected many detached notices of his cors- 14 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. airial employments, and have endeavored to partly clear up the mystery of his death. FAMILY OF VERRAZANO. The Verrazano family belonged to Florence, and our navigator, according to Gfiuseppi Pelli,* was the son of Pietro Andrea and Fiametta Capelli. From the letter of Annibale Caro, quoted by Tiraboschi,f we learn that he had a brother, probably Hieronimus or Jerome, who com posed the map before us. According to Prof. Geo. W. Greene, the Cavaliere Andrea, the last one of the family died at Florence in 1819. Pelli supposes that Giovanni de Verrazano was born after 1480. This date, together with the fact that lie had resided several years in Cairo and Syria, $ form the sub stance of all that can be ascertained about him in Italy. Engaged in the trade of spices, silks and the precious commodities of the east, which were slowly brought, after numerous barters, to the ports of the eastern Mediterra nean, where vessels from the trading cities of Italy awaited them, our navigator learned what a gain it would be, if these necessary commodities could be procured by a direct sea voyage to the Moluccas. At what time he became a seafarer and on what seas he sailed previous to the year 1521, we have no informa tion, unless we accept the vague indications contained in Carli s letter. The late Buckingham Smith ascertained, from Portuguese authorities, that he was in the East Indies in 1517, probably making the voyage in a Portu guese vessel. Possibly, after an experience of some years in the Mediterranean, the cradle of European nau tical enterprise, he may have entered the service of Spain, who at that time was drawing soldiers and sailors from every part of Europe, and in her service must have *See note, Petti, Elogio de Verrazano. f See note, Caro. \ See note, CarlVs letter. VERRAZANO AS A COKSAIR. 15 learned the track followed by her vessels for trade or con quest to the West Indies."* Nay, he may himself have sailed to the West Indies, as it seems he did with the Portuguese to the Moluccas. The route to the latter by the Cape of Good Hope, was discovered in his time, and the quite recent oceanic discoveries of the Spaniards, seeking the far east by the west, must have further excited his ambition, and increased his desire to open a still shorter water communication with Cathay and the lands of the great Khan. In 1521, Verrazano appears as a French corsair oft* the southern shores of the Iberian peninsula, and thence forward Spanish historians make frequent mention of him under the name of Juan Florin or Florentin, never, how ever, adding the surname Verrazano. VERRAZANO AS A CORSAIR. As a corsair, his exploits have hitherto been known only from a few passages in Barciaf and Herrera, while, curiously enough, the letters and decades of Peter Mar tyr J and the history by Bernal Diaz, which contain dates and interesting details relating to these incidents, seem to have been overlooked. The late Buckingham Smith, who wrote several notices of him, and was engaged upon another at the time of his death, was about to explore this field. A distinct reference to his predatory cruises against the Spaniards is made by Juan himself, in the heading of his letter to Francis the First, which identifies him with the feared Juan Florentin, the corsair. | We might otherwise hesitate to accept the fact, which * See note, Routes to tlie, Indies. f Emayo Cronoloyico para la Hist. gen. de la Florida. Madrid, 1723. \0pus Epistolarum, Compluti (Alcala), 1530, and Paris, 1670; Decades de Orbe Now, Alcala, 1530. Paris, 1587. Historia Verdadera, etc. Madrid, 1632. | See Appendix, Identification of Florin as Verrazano. 16 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. is stated by Barcia alone. Other Spanish authors, such as Hen-era, speak of the explorer Verrazano, as if he were a distinct character. Soon after the gold producing islands of the sea had been discovered and made productive by the Spaniards, corsairs of various nationalities began actively to dispute the rich spoil of these new Indies with their grasping conquerors. These corsairs watched the south-western coasts of the peninsula, and no doubt many a rich capture was made by them before Juan succeeded in his daring project of lying in wait to seize the treasure- ships of Cortes. The first gold from Mexico, together with curious speci mens of the handicraft of the natives, collected by Juan de Grijalva in 1518, was sent to Diego Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, in charge of Pedro de Alvarado ; and the king s share was received in Spain early in 1519. The first treasure collected by Hernando Cortes, who landed in Mexico in 1519, was despatched direct to Spain,* the vessel sailing from Villa Rica de Vera Cruz, July 26, 1519, in charge of Alonzo Hernandez de Puertocarrero and Francisco de Montejo, and arriving at San Lucar in October, f after a short stoppage in Cuba. The king, however, was at that time in Flanders, and the treasure was not presented to him until March, 1520, at Tordesillas. $ No doubt, the news of this rich arrival was at once noised abroad, and led to the fitting out of corsairs by France, in order to share in the golden harvests of the Spaniards. *The vessel was carried by Alaminos, her pilot, through the Florida chan nel (reconnoitered by him in 1513, while accompanying Ponce de Leon), in order to avoid passing near Cuba. It was the first voyage to Spain made by this route. fSee Peter Martyr s letter of December 2d, 1519. J A more correct account, by an unknown hand, given in the Documentos Ineditos vol. i, 1842, p. 421, says that the first things gent by Cortes were presented to the emperor, in Yalladolid, during holy week (April 1-$), 1520. VERRAZANO AS A COKSAIR. ] 7 Another consignment of gold from Hispaniola, accord ing to Peter Martyr,* fell into the hands of Juan Florentin in 1521, being his first recorded capture of treasure. Peter Martyr estimates the value of this prize at 80,000 ducats, besides a large quantity of pearls and sugar, f As Cortes despatched his vessels directly home, with out permitting them to stop at any of the West India islands, and as this vessel was from Hispaniola, it seems certain that it was not sent by the conqueror of Mexico. Barcia gives the same date, but the ship he speaks of was taken in 15234 Bernal Diaz does not speak of this vessel s capture, as it was not one sent by Cortes. Herrera || gives, perhaps, the most reliable account of the doings of the French corsairs in this- year. He says that these corsairs were cruising on the coasts of Anda lusia and the Algarves, watching for vessels from the Indies. Four or five vessels were therefore ordered to be fitted out at the cost of the foreign merchants, and the command of them was entrusted to Don Pedro Manrique, brother of the Conde de Osorno. Two of them were com manded by Estevan Gomez and Alvaro de la Mesquita. The first of these was a pilot under Magellan, and had abandoned his commander October 8, 1520, when partly through the strait, imprisoning Mesquita, his nephew, captain of the San Antonio. They had reached Seville, May 6th, 1521, and while awaiting the issue of their dis pute were thus ordered into service. Just as they were about to sail, news was brought that the French corsairs had taken two out of three caravel a coming from the Indies. The third, with the smaller part of the treasure, was said to have escaped. It was * See his letter of November 19, 1522, and decade v, chap. 8. f See notes, Martyr, Dec. v, chap. 8. His letter of March 6, 1521, men tions the arrival of a despatch, and speaks only of treasure expected. \ Emayo, 1723, page 8, see note, Barcia. || Dec. Ill, Lib. I, Cap. XIV, 1521. 18 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. added tliat the corsairs were watching to make the cap ture of five expected Portuguese vessels. A light vessel was therefore sent to the Azores to warn these of the danger they were in, and the convoy then started in pursuit of the corsairs. It found, on the 24th of June, seven French vessels anchored under Cape St. Vincent, which came out to meet it and gave battle. The French retired at last, and were chased all night, but in the morning turned on their pursuers. Manrique got the wind of them, when they again fled, and were chased forty leagues. He recaptured a prize loaded with wheat, and another with artillery and arms, and took all the small boats of the French. Manrique returned to San Lucar to repair damages, hastening matters by a forced levy on the merchants, as he wished to join a Portuguese fleet, going to the islands to convoy the vessels from Calcutta. Having waited at the islands until August, it became certain that the five ships would not arrive this year from the east, so Manricjue left the Portuguese fleet there, with supplies for the expected vessels, and cruised on the Spanish coast, having learned from a vessel plundered near Gralicia, that twenty -six corsairs had been seen in one place and twenty in another. It appears, therefore, that the French corsairs were very active in this year, but Hen-era does not mention Florin as a commander of any of them. Martyr alone names him, and we depend upon his authority only. No captures of treasure-vessels are reported as having been made after the month of May. No doubt the treasure taken early in the year was at once sent home, probably to La Rochelle, which appears to have been the place where Juan had been fitted for the cruise. The coast of Andalusia, between Gibraltar and Cadiz is high and indented by wild and sterile valleys, then almost uninhabited, and the pirates would lie there, watching from the heights for approaching vessels, which VERRAZANO AS A CORSAIR. 19 habitually sighted Cape Trafalgar on their return from either of the Indies. On this account homeward-bound vessels, about 1524, were ordered to make for the port of Corunna.* During the rest of 1521, or in 1522, Verrazano may have attempted the first voyage of discovery alluded to in his letter to King Francis, but of this we shall speak further on. On this first cruise he says he had four vessels, and the expression in the preamble to the letter, that which had been accomplisJied by the four ships," alludes, no doubt, to the rich spoil he had taken from the Spaniards in 1521, as well as to the attempt to sail to the north-west. This supposition finds confirmation in the same heading of the letter, where, in allusion to another cruise, the words "what we did with this fleet of war" seem to refer to his great capture of 1523. He was not making open war on the Spaniards, and had, no doubt, been instructed to conceal all mention of any aggressive acts toward them. In 1522, he seems to have made an unsuccessful cruise, at least if we can believe Viera, the historian of the Canaries, f who, writing in 1772, seems to have neglected the authors we have quoted, but derives his information on the subject of Verrazano from the MS. history of Don Pedro Augustin del Castillo, preserved in Teneriffe. In this year, as he says, the governor of these islands, Pedro Suares de Castilla, ordered a squadron of five small ves sels to seek for the corsair. It met him off the Punta de Gando, with seven captured emigrant vessels, which he had taken while on their way from Cadiz to the islands. He was chased and forced to release his prizes, which seem to have been of little value. Viera adds that he betook himself to the Azores, and there captured two treasure-ships of Cortes, but this occurred, as we shall see, in 1523. It is uncertain whether he returned in 1522 * See notes, Martyr, Dec. 8. f See notes, Viera. 20 NOTES ON THE VEKKAZANO MAP. to France, or remained in Spanish waters. Martyr,* in 1522, records a rumor that the French pirates had fifteen ships, and that many of them were cast away on the coast of Africa. This report may have been a garbled version of the story told by Yiera. On the 15th of May, 1522, Cortes despatched his third letter to the king, dating it from Cuyoacan, near Mexico, after the capture of the capital. The consignment accom panying this letter comprised in treasure, jewels, rarities and live animals, the most valuable collection hitherto sent from the Western Indies to Spain. It included the emperor s fifth, a present from Cortes and his^nen to the monarch, and consignments to individuals. Two of the three vessels bearing this precious freight were in charge of Antonio de Quifiones and Alonzo de Avila, Diego de Ordaz and Alonzo de Mendoza, while Juan de Ribera, the secretary of Cortes, was made the chief envoy, and entrusted with the despatches and the presentation of the imperial share of the treasure, borne on the third vessel, f A glowing description of the treasure and curiosities can be found in some detail in Martyr, Oviedo, Gromara. Herrera and other Spanish historians. According to Bernal Diaz, these vessels left Vera Cruz on the 20th of December, 1522. This date is erroneous, and although we do not know the exact day of their departure, it was made, probably, in June, 1522. They passed into the Atlantic through the channel of the Bahamas, piloted, as before, by Antonio de Alaminos, the discoverer of this passage.:]; One notable event of the voyage was the escape from its cage of a tiger, which killed and wounded several sailors. The little fleet put in at the Azores, where two of the vessels, fearing corsairs, concluded to remain, and actually stayed, over the winter, *Dec. 5th, chap. 8, f According to Martyr. Herrera, Dec. III. Lib. Ill, Cap. I, is confused on the subject, t See notes, Gulf of Mexico. VERRAZANO AS A CORSAIR. 21 but the third, bearing Juan de Ribera and a small part of the treasure, continued the voyage and reached Spain in safety. The treasure had been long expected, and Peter Martyr says, in a letter of July 14th, 1522, that the vessels had been sighted off the coast, but this proved a false report. In his letter of November 19th, * he speaks of Juan de Ribera s quite recent arrival. Tired of wait ing at the Azores, Diego de Ordaz and some others also reached home safely, in a Portuguese vessel. In 1523, f the Council of the Indies, either of its own accord or acting on a decree of the emperor, had instructed Capt. Domingo Alonzo to convoy a fleet of East Indian bound vessels as far as the Canaries, :f and then repair to the Azores, with his three caravels, and convoy the Mexi can vessels home. The rich convoy sailed from Santa Maria, of the Azores, about the middle or end of May, 1523. It consisted of the three vessels of war, the two treasure-ships of Cortes, and of another treasure-ship from Espauola. When the fleet were just about to sight Cape St. Vincent, and were thirty-five geographical miles (ten Spanish leagues) from it, a fleet of six vessels was descried coming to meet them. Probably they were mis taken for Spanish vessels, and were allowed to come close aboard ; at any rate, the strange fleet attacked them, proving to be armed French corsairs, fitted out from La Roche lie, and under the command of the dreaded Juan Florin himself. One of the Spanish caravels took to flight ; the others fought bravely, but were overcome and forced to surren der with their convoy, Antonio de Quinones being killed during the action. The date of the capture is not given, * See notes, Martyr, Contarini. f See notes, Martyr, Dec. VII, Cap. IV; and also Cortes de Valladolid, 1523. \ These were the first Spanish trading-vessels bound there, the Vittoria, under Sebastian del Cano, having returned a few months before, viz., Sep tember Oth, 1522. See note, Herrera, 1523. 22 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. but Martyr s letter concerning it was written June llth, 1523, and Contarini s on the 7th, probably within a week of its occurrence.* Curiously enough, there is no distinct mention of it in the decades of Peter Martyr, though he speaks of it in 1525 as an event that happened three years before. The two treasure-ships were taken, and Herrera and Gomara include the ship from Espanola, also. With this great prize, perhaps the largest made up to that time, and with Davila a prisoner, Florin got safely home to La Rochelle. Davila was kept a prisoner there for three years. A portion of the treasure was laid at the feet of Francis the First. > Charles felt the loss deeply, and soon afterward issued a second order, f of wider application than the first one of 1523, and the Council ot the Indies thereupon ordered that all homeward-bound vessels should rendezvous at Hispaniola, in order to be convoyed safely home. Conta rini says, that he ordered pursuit to be made from several ports, offering the pursuers one-half of the treasure if it could be recaptured.^ The disappointment of Hernan Cortes, when he learned of this loss, may be imagined, but drawing a lesson from experience, he took measures also, in order to avoid such mishaps in the future. The Spaniards complained bitterly of these depreda tions, committed by vessels countenanced and perhaps sent out by a friendly sovereign, but the neutrality obli gations of those days were almost as lax as those of some modern maritime powers. The Greeks, Moors and Nor mans had been leading piratical nations, and the Norse taste for predatory expeditions developed the race of buccaneers, which inflicted so much loss and damage on the Spaniards in the seventeenth century. The jealous *See note, Martyr, Contarini; see Oviedo, for an estimate of the value of the capture. f See Cortes de Toledo, 1525, and Herrera, Dec. Ill, Lib. VII, Cap. IV. ^ See note, Contarini. VERRAZANO AS A CORSAIR. 23 colonial policy of Spain encouraged in other nations a desire to partake in the rich harvest, and in the end, impoverished her. Had the colonies been thrown open to foreign settlement and to a trade at least partially free, instead of being treated as they were, as part of the royal patrimony, a widely different result would have ensued. Verrazano, who probably reaped a large share of the treasure and spoils derived from this capture, was again fitted out with a stronger fleet than before, and, accord ing to Barcia, who is not always reliable in his accounts, made innumerable prizes in Spanish waters. He may have made another piratical trip in 1523, but if so, there is no particular mention of him in connection with it. Herrera says, that Pedro de Manrique was sent out, probably after the decree of 1523 had been issued, with a strong fleet of five vessels to convoy, from the Azores, five vessels from Puerto de la Angra, in the island of Ter- ceira, known as the Armada de Averias,* and carrying an immense treasure of gold, pea,rls, sugar, etc. This was brought safely to Seville, and half the treasure was borrowed by the emperor to pay for the outfit of his army against Francis the First, f Perhaps Verrazano had watched the armament of Manrique, and finding it too strong to be attacked, resolved to make a second attempt at exploration, refitting in Madeira, and starting with the Dauphine alone early in 1524. After his return from this last voyage, under date of July 8th, 1524, he writes to the French king, reporting what he had accomplished, and seems to have repaired to court J in August, the king being at Lyons. We incline, however, to the opinion that he made other arid successful piratical expeditions to his previous field of * One fitted out by the custom-house authorities. f Herrera, Dec. Ill, Lib. IV, Cap. XXL t He was expected there, according to Fernando Carlis letter, first pub lished in 1853; see notes. 24 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. adventure. The story that he was taken and hung in this year has been told by two Spanish chroniclers, but it cannot easily be maintained in the face of recorded facts to the contrary, which we shall presently bring for ward. We learn by a letter of Peter Martyr, dated August 4, 1524,"* that Florinus had captured, but a short time before this date, a richly laden Portuguese ship, bringing from the Indies a freight valued at 180,000 ducats. If this prize was taken at this date by Verrazano, he must have fitted out for the cruise in great haste, if we are to accept the date of his letter of July 8th from Dieppe as a true one. Martyr was, no doubt, using Florin s name in this case without proper authority. The Council of the Indies, acting on the royal decree of 1523, fitted out some well-armed Biscayan vessels, which encountered and captured, in 1524, a piratical French fleet, and the pirates were taken to Seville to be tried. That pirates were taken is probable, but that Florinus was taken with them, as stated by Bernal Diaz and De Barcia, f seems unlikely. Viera does not speak of such a capture, but as he writes only of the Canaries, he may have omitted any reference to it, as not being within his subject-matter. Herrera, the most reliable authorit}^, is also silent about the matter, which in an author otherwise so minute and careful, is significant. Peter Martyr, too, so very communicative on all such matters, says nothing about the capture and hanging of French pirates. The only authors who mention such a capture, and who name Florinus as the captain of the pirates, are the ones above mentioned. The first of these, Bernal Diaz, says that the pirates were taken to Seville, and that Florinus, with other pirate captains, was forwarded to Madrid, but that the king sent an order to hang them on the spot, and Diaz adds that * See note, Martyr. f See notes, Bernal Diaz and De Barcia. o^\ VERRAZANO AS A Cons A in. 25 the hanging took place in the Puerto del Pico. This port is on one of the Azores of the same name, and opposite Fayal, where criminals had from a very old date been hung, and until quite recently was still the scene of such executions. Bernal Diaz did not, perhaps, know that Pico was a small mountain village on the road to Madrid, and naturally made the above mistake. He, however, was in Mexico at the time, and his authority, in regard to the identification of Florinus with the person hung as leader of the pirates, is not of great weight. The only other authority for the same facts is Gonzales de Barcia, who, writing in 1723 in his Ensayo de Florida^ under the year 1524, says that four Biscayan vessels took Florinus and carried him to Seville, with his companions. He adds that they were sent, or were about to be sent, to Madrid, but that to satisfy an influential and angry clamor he was hung in the Puerto del Pico, together with the other pirate captains. Barcia, who seems to have copied Bernal Diaz and made his confusion still worse, seems to have made another mistake, for it is improbable that the corsair chiefs, once in Seville, should have been sent to the Azores for execution. The late Buckingham Smith assured us that he had been to the village of Pico, and that he had seen and copied the order for the execution. Unluckily, as he stated, the order, signed by the king, was given at Lerma, where the court then was, but bore no date. These docu ments of Mr. Smith, which are soon to be published, and to which, on that account, access has been denied us, would prove that some pirates were executed at Pico, while the king was at Lerma ; but the name Florinus, even if it appears in the judge s order, would not prove that the career of the corsair ended here. Notwithstanding such evidence, we hazard the conjec ture that the indignant Spaniards did not get hold of the right man, but that either they assumed they had him (for it seems that the commander in question had never been 4 26 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. seen by the Spaniards), or that the chief so mentioned was a delegate or lieutenant, perhaps a relative, of our hero, commanding his vessels while he was on his explor ing voyage or attending the king. This is not an improb able explanation of what appear to be contradictory statements, for we have very strong and positive testi mony that our navigator was alive after the year 1524. Upon comparing the accounts left us by these two authors, it is almost certain that the last copied the first in most of the particulars relating to Juan Florin; and if so, the reported death of the corsair at the hands of the Spaniards must be taken as founded on hearsay only. We learn from Peter Martyr that the French corsairs were actively and successfully cruising for Spanish prizes in 1525,* but he does not again name Florinus as one of their commanders. A French document of 1526-7, to be spoken of presently, would seem to show that Verrazano was still disposed to pick up a prize, if possible, and perhaps he did so, but this is merely conjecture. Let us however proceed to that part of his career which more nearly concerns us, namely his voyage to the American coast in 1524. VERRAZANO s VOYAGE TO AMERICA. We shall now speak of our navigator in his character of explorer, though he is only known as such by a letter addressed to Francis the First, just after his return from a voyage across the western sea. That other papers con cerning this voyage were written, we know from the state ment of Verrazano himself, and from Ramusius, but these papers are not now to be found. The letter to King Francis, dated at Dieppe, July 8th, 1524, proposes to give an outline only of his doings as an explorer. By a singular chance, this letter or a copy of it, found its way to Florence, the home of its author, and the diligent * See notes, Martyr, Dec. VIII, Cap. IX. VERRAZANO S VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 27 Ramusio, or as lie Latinized his name, Ramusius or Rhamnusius, secured it for the third volume of his col lection of voyages and travels (published in 1556), and prefaced it with a eulogy of the navigator. Without omitting anything of importance, Ramusius, as it will be seen, has amended the style of the original letter. Were it not for this narrative, thus saved from oblivion by the Italian geographer, the name of Verrazano would have been an enigma to after ages ; for the meagre notices of him elsewhere found, would have afforded little to gratify curiosity. For three hundred years this letter was the only document attesting the fact of his voyage, and it seemed hopeless to expect that any chart, authen ticating it, though such an one had been seen by the English geographer, Hakluyt, in 1582, should have been preserved to our times. The letter of the Florentine, as it first appeared in 1556, unaccompanied by any confirmatory document, might well appear to be of doubtful authenticity. Such a letter might easily have been composed, either from oral or written information, by a clever writer familiar with the general results of the voyage of Estevan Gromez, in 1525, and it would of course be antedated, in order to establish a French claim to the hitherto unknown coast, from lat. 30 to 45 N, one thousand geographical miles in extent ; from Florida to Bacalaos. No doubts of this kind, how ever, appear to have been raised, perhaps because Verra zano and his voyage were too well known at the time, to permit such doubts to be entertained. The exploration is confidently spoken of by Pierre Crignon, in 1539, * as having been made fifteen years before this date. Ramu sius publishes Crignon s Memoir in 1556, f in the same volume which contains the Florentine s letter and no doubt was ever raised against the voyage until recently. A map similar to the one described below, seems to have * See notes, Estancdin. f See notes, Ramusius. 28 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. been generally known to geographers about 1530, for the great western sea, which is depicted on the map found in Rome, appears on charts after that date, and the name New France was given to our coasts, by all except Span ish geographers,* even before Cartier s voyage of 1534, and before the third volume of Rarnusins was published. Verrazano was probably familiar with all previous explorations of the New World, including the recent return of Magellan s last vessel, and had learned also that the only unexplored gap in the line of the new con tinent was comprised within certain limits, say from lati tude 34 to 45 North. The avowed object of his voyage was, therefore, the discovery of a strait or passage within these parallels, to Cathay and the Spice Islands, shorter than the one discovered by Magellan in the far south. Finding the New World as a great barrier to the approach of the rich East, and realising after the dis covery in 1513 by Vasco Nunez de Balboa of the South Sea, near Panama, and the long voyage across it by Magellan in 1521, that Asia was not connected with America, within tlie tropics, the Spaniards had almost abandoned the search for a nearer passage by sea to the Moluccas, Cipango and Cathay. Just at this time, Yerra- zano made his adventurous voyage, unsuccessful as to its primary object, but most interesting to Americans, as the first account of our coast by a European. A close and critical analysis of this letter has not yet been made. The late Buckingham Smith doubted its authenticity, and sought to prove, from the letter itself, as also by contemporaneous evidence recently brought to light, that it was fictitious, and was probably composed by some Italian, anxious to heap laurels on the brows of his countrymen. Mr. Smith s "Inquiry" of 1864, is ingenious but not exhaustive, f Shortly after its appear- * See Miinster s Ptolemy of 1530, and other maps given by Kohl; Maine Hist. Soc., PL XI1I-XV. Also notes, Maps-after Verrazano. f See notes, B. Smith VOYAGE TO AMI-:I;K A. 29 ance, he learned that a map by Jerome Verrazano was preserved in Koine. In 1866, he published some remarks on M. Thomassy s account of it, still doubting whether it would serve to prove the genuineness of the letter. His idea of the original map seems to have been that it was on a very small scale, for he translates the modern label " carta pecora" (parchment map) as "small map." He endeavored, but in vain, to procure a copy of it, though, had he been successful, his opinions would have been materially altered. Dr. J. Gf. Kohl, the most able comparative geographer of our day, has also examined the letter,* and finds no reason to reject it. He examines the narrative closely, presenting his views concerning the exploration, which are entitled to great consideration, although he had also been unable to procure a copy of the chart now before us to compare with the letter. If the letter of 1524 had been fictitious, and had been written with the intention of supporting a prior claim by the French monarch, it would have been heralded forth and great efforts would have been made to circulate it as widely as the despatches of Cortes, which appeared about that time. Documents giving the instructions or patent to the explorer would have accompanied this manifesta tion, and a map would have been given or spoken of as a proof of the actual exploration. It may be urged that the disasters which overtook France, and the capture of the king, prevented this publication, but these being past, no attempt was made to wrest from the Spaniards the claim acquired by the voyage of Gomez. The main object of the voyage, besides the discovery of a strait or passage to the Indies, was, no doubt, the further hope of finding another Mexico to conquer and plunder. Disappointed at the poor results of the voyage, the French gave it no further thought, and similar indiffer- * Op. cit., p. 248-70 and p. 290, note; also in notes. 30 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. ence attended the Spanish voyage of Gomez. These explorers brought home no gold, and reported but little that was inviting to Europeans. The notion that the pre cious metals were only to be sought for under the tropics was deeply rooted in the minds of men of that day, and the failure of the Cabots and Cortereals to discover rich countries in the north caused these early explorations to be neglected. The learned and painstaking Italian editor, in his pre fatory remarks to the letter, * expresses most distinctly his belief in the person and exploit of Verrazano, saying that he had received from many persons who knew him, the views entertained by the explorer respecting further voyages to be made to these coasts for settlement and discovery. Ramusius also had seen or heard of other letters, which he says were then lost, apparently stating it as a fact known to others besides himself. Pierre Crig- non, writing in 1539, speaks of the voyage as having been made fifteen years before, without having, apparently, any knowledge of the letter to the king, first printed in 1556. Hakluyt is another witness to the truth of the voyage, though of a much later date ; but his statement is very explicit, and confirms the fact that Verrazano had pre pared a map, which he had seen. In another memoir of Hakluyt, which is about to be published by the Maine Historical Society, this map is again spoken of.f The existence of Verrazano, and of a map prepared by himself or by his direction, is thus put beyond doubt, and it will hardly be necessary to refute the arguments of the late Buckingham Smith in greater detail. $ Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who was a diligent collector of charts in support of his views respecting a north- west passage, makes, however, no mention of Verrazano s map * See notes, Ramuzius. f See notes, Hakluyt. \ See notes, B. Smith. VERRAZANO S VOYAGE TO AMKHK A. 31 either in his discourse or map of 1566, although he speaks of the voyage as an accomplished fact. This map, prepared, most probably, by Juan himself, (for his brother or relative Jerome is nowhere named by Hakluyt), was, no doubt, a duplicate of the one which he must have sent to the French monarch. It is nowhere stated that Juan was in England, and the story told by Hakluyt of his having made offers of discovering new lands to Henry the Eighth, has, so far, not a document to support it, though such an one may yet be found. Who this Hieronimus di Verrazano, designer of the map now before us, could be, is uncertain. He is not mentioned anywhere, unless the allusion to Giovanni s brother, in Caro s letter, may have reference to him. Researches made in the proper quarter may explain his connection with the navigator. Possibly, he had accom panied his relative on the exploring voyage. He must have been an experienced cartographer, for his work is quite equal to anything of the kind at that date, and duplicates of it may yet be found. We shall not attempt to criticise this newly revealed Mapamundi in detail. Any study of its general construc tion, and of its merits, would carry us too far away from the main point of interest to us, namely, its representation of our coasts as explored by Juan, in 1524, being the earliest authentic representation of them hitherto found. The letter in question is given in the Collections of the New York Historical Society, Vol. I, New Series, 1841, with a translation of it, prepared by the late J. G. Cogs well. This translation was made from a manuscript copy which had been procured by Mr. G. W. Greene, in 1837, in Florence. Tiraboschi, in his History of Italian Litera ture, Vol. VII, page 261, had mentioned this text, and also a cosmographical treatise by Verrazano, as preserved in the Strozzi library in Florence. The Hon. George Bancroft drew attention to this notice in his History of the United States, Vol. I, page 20. 32 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Mr. Greene, then U. S. Consul in Tuscany, found the MS. in the Magliabecchian library, which shared with the Laurentian, the old Strozzi collection, the former library receiving all the historical documents. The MS. is contained in a volume of miscellanies, marked class XIII, Cod. 89, Verraz. The letter and the appendix, Mi- Greene says, are " written in the common running hand of the sixteenth century, tolerably distinct, but badly pointed," and the rest of the volume, containing miscel laneous pieces, chiefly relating to contemporary history, is evidently the work of the same hand. The text, however, although the same in substance, was found in point of style to be quite different from that given by Ramusius, who appears to have "worked the whole piece over anew," correcting and improving the sailor s rough language. The manuscript was full of Latinisms and barbarous forms intermixed with pure Tus can. The appendix, not given by Ramusius, " does not appear to be free from errors, some of which may be ascribed to the copyist." It is not known whether the letter was first written in French or Italian. The subscription is a Latinized name, but it could hardly have been written in Latin. Nor is the original mentioned anywhere by any immediate cotemporary but the one to whom its preservation is due. This letter is followed, in the Strozzi volume, by the let ter of a young Florentine, Fernando Carli, addressed from Lyons to his father in Florence, portions of which we give in the appendix. Carli was in Lyons when the letter reached the King, and it seems to have been circulated and talked about. Carli, who appears to have had a taste for the sea, and who had before given accounts of the doings of a fleet fitted out to pursue Moorish pirates, saw the letter, and writes August 4th, 1524, to his father, about Verrazano s voyage, which ho knew would interest the Florentines as compatriots of the explorer. He says that he has added VERRAZANO S VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 3.3 a copy of Verrazano s letter to his own, and Mr. Greene thinks that these were circulated and copied in Flor ence ; the Strozzi manuscript being probably one of these copies. Carli s letter, however, was not published until 1853, when it appeared in the Archtvo Storico Italiano, etc., Tome IX, Firenze. Mr. Buckingham Smith had it trans lated for his paper, read before the New York Historical Society, October 4, 1864, in the printed copy of which both texts of it are given. Mr. Smith treats this letter as a fiction, simply because it does not allude to any other event besides this voyage, which fact we consider to be the best proof of its genuineness. In fact Carli says that he has written about other news before. As a confirmation of Verrazano s letter, we give Mr. Smith s version of Carli s letter, slightly corrected, in the appendix. It will be noticed that a distinct allusion is made to the cosmographical portion of Verrazano s letter. The mention of a disastrous beginning of the voyage, is owing to his confounding the first attempt with the second one. Near the close, he gives a clue to the fate of one of the two vessels, which from Verra zano s letter, might be supposed to have been lost. Ramusius found them in Florence, and copied the Verra- zano letter only, omitting the cosmographical appendix and Carli s letter. Mr. Greene, in his article on Verrazano, which appeared in the October number of the North American Review, and in his Historical Studies, which we have freely used in this memoir, mentions the researches made by himself elsewhere in Florence, in order to glean some facts con cerning Verrazano, but that none were found. An examination of the family library, left by the last of the race, then recently deceased, had been made by an Italian bibliographer, who stated that he had found nothing about Giovanni, except "a manuscript bound up in the family copy of Ramusius, and a few loose papers. These 5 34 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. last added nothing to what was already known. The former was purchased by Capt. Napier, R. N., and is now in England." Mr. Greene presumes that the MS. in in the bound volume, was the cosmographical appendix, or perhaps a copy of the same text as the one in the Magliabecchian library. He expresses a wish that Capt. Napier would publish it, if it should prove to contain anything not hitherto printed. As this has not been done, it is to be supposed that the surmise of Mr. Greene was correct. Let us first take up the heading of the letter, which we translate, giving also the original texts of it, both from Ramusius, and as published by Mr. Greene, in a note to his paper above quoted.* The text as given in the New York Historical Society Collections, varies slightly from it. Paraphrasing it afterwards, according to our sense of its meaning, is, perhaps, the readiest way of criticis ing it. " The Capt. Giovanni da Verrazano, Florentine from Nor mandy to the most serene crown of France, says: " After the luck met with on the Northern coasts, most serene Lord, I did not write to your most serene and most Christian Majesty, about that which had been accomplished by the four ships, which it had ordered on the ocean to discover new lands, thinking that it would have been kept informed of all, how by the impetuous force of the winds we were constrained, with only the ships Normanda and Daliina damaged, to run back to Brit tany, where refitted, your sacred Majesty must have received the report of what we did with this fleet of war along the coasts of Spain, afterwards the new plan to pursue the first navigation with the Dalfina only, from which being returned, I will give an account to your sacred Majesty of what we have found." Yerrazano was not a ready penman and had neglected making any direct report to the King before this one, an * See note, Heading of Letter. VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 35 omission, or neglect which he seeks to excuse or palliate in the above awkward manner. We now offer a para phrase of this heading, as explained by what we have gathered together in the earlier part of this paper. We made a first attempt at discovery (no date given, but probably 1522) with four ships, but were driven back by storms. The two ships Normande and Dauphine, ran v back to Brittany (probably to Brest) damaged, where we refitted. (He does not speak of the fate of the two others, but as Carli states that a certain Brunelleschi turned back at the first untoward obstacle they encoun tered, it is probable that both carne back safely.) I did * not write about the ill-success of this voyage, knowing that you had been otherwise informed about it. After ^ refitting and gathering a fleet of armed vessels, we cruised in Spanish waters and made prizes, as you well know. (He refers no doubt to his capture in May, 1523, of one v of the treasure-ships of Cortes.) I then determined to sail from the Desiertas direct, with the Dauphine alone, (this was in the spring of 1524), and have now just > returned from this voyage, &c. Verrazano, as we have seen, was generally in the Spanish waters from May to November in the three con secutive years 1521, 1522 and 1523. As we have shown in the first part of this paper, he captured a vessel with a large amount of gold early in the year 1521. In 1522 he cruised near the Canaries, according to Viera, and was driven thence toward the Azores, and brought home no prizes. Perhaps, after taking some months to refit, he sailed on his first exploring voyage late in one of these years, which would account for his ill-success and return in distress early in 1523. We know that in May or June, 1523, he captured the best of the three treasure-vessels sent out by Cortes in that year. He then may have sent his prize, with other vessels home, and sailed January 17th, 1524, on his voyage to our coasts, the account of which is contained in the letter. It is hardly possible, as 36 NOTES ON THE VEKRAZAXO MAT. suggested by Dr. Kohl, that he could have made the fh-st voyage in the autumn of 1523 5 and made another just after it, in 1524. We now give translated extracts of the most important passages of the letter, omitting the long accounts of the natives and selecting those which bear directly on the exploration of the coast. In doing this we have found it necessary to make a new translation, which is more literal than the one given in 1841, and which we believe to be a more strictly accurate rendering of the original. VERRAZANO S EXPLORATION OF THE AMERICAN COAST. 1. From the Desiertas rocks, near the Island of Madeira of his serene Majesty the King of Portugal, with the said Dauphine, on the 17th of the last month of January, with fifty men, furnished with victuals, arms and other warlike instruments, and naval ammunition, for eight months, we started, sailing westward with an easterly wind, blow ing with gentle and moderate lightness. 1. 1524 was Bissextile. The true date was January 27th, new style. The Desiertas are in latitude 32 deg. 30 min., long. 10 dcg. 30 min., thirteen miles E. S. E. from Madeira. Appears to have sailed for over three weeks with the north trade-winds. 2. In twenty-five [ 27 ? ] days we ran 800 leagues, and on the 14th of February we encountered a tempest as severe as any one that sails ever experienced, from which, with divine aid and goodness, and to the praise of the glorious name (of the ship ? ), which, fortunately, was able to stand the violent billows of the sea, we were delivered, and resumed our navigation, continuing towards the west, inclining somewhat to the north, and in twenty-five [21 ?] days more we ran 400 leagues, when there appeared a new land never seen by ancient or modern. Exi I.OltATION OF THE AMERICAN COAST. 37 2. He changed his course to W. N. W. in about long. 55 deg. W., and must liave passed well north of the Bermudas,* which .appear to have been unknown to him, although they were known to the Spaniards long before, for the^ appear on the map in Peter Martyr s works in 1511. lie well knew the extent of the Spanish and French explorations, and is confirmed in his statement by Herrera, who says that no Spanish vessel had been along this coast before the voyage of Gome/, in 1525. 3. It showed itself somewhat low at first, but on approaching it, within a quarter of a league, we knew by the great fires which they were making on the coast that it was inhabited. We examined it, running to the south, seeking to find some port in it where we could anchor the ship to investigate its nature. 3. Drifted northwardly by the Gulf Stream, of which he seems also to have been ignorant, his course must have been almost N. W. after the storm, and he could not possibly, as he claims, have made land in latitude 34 deg., but must have struck it about 39 deg. 30 min., off Little Eggharbor beach. He sighted land about March 6th, O. S. The fires were made by the Indians, who then flocked to the shore in the spring, to feast on shell-fish and manufacture shell money. His most south erly point after this vas in 39 deg. 5 min., for if he had made his landfall in a lower latitude he would have seen and placed on his chart the great gulfs, known as Delaware and Chesapeake bays. Of these there is no trace on the map. His most southerly point must have been, therefore, in 39 deg. 05 min., a few miles north of Cape May. He says nothing about the great inland or western sea depicted on his map, separated by a narrow isthmus from the Atlantic, and near which is the inscription given elsewhere. He may have learned from the Indians that there was a great sea to the west (the Delaware), or his sailors may have sighted what they took to be such from the mastheads. 4. For the space of fifty leagues we could not find a suitable port of any kind where we could safely stay, and * See note, Examination of tlie Voyage. 38 NOTES ON THE VEREAZANO MAP. seeing that the land continued ascending (scendeva) towards the south, we determined to turn and examine it towards the north, where we found the same [difficulty] in landing on the coast. Ordering a boat to land, we saw a number of people, who came to the shore of the sea, and who fled as we approached, sometimes stopping and turning around, gazing with much admiration ; but reas suring them with various signs, some of them came near, showing great pleasure on looking at the wonders of our dress and figure and white complexions, making divers signals (to show) where the boat could most easily land, and offering us their food. We could not learn many details concerning their customs on account of the short stay which we made on shore, and the distance (of the ship) from the shore. We found, not far from these, other people whose mode of life we thought to be the same, and the shore was covered with fine sand fifteen feet high, extending in the shape of small hills some fifty paces broad. 4. The description of the coast applies very exactly to the shores of New Jersey. Hudson, in 1609, describes it in almost the same terms, and saw so many fires, even in September, that he called one of the inlets JBarnende gat, now Barnegat. His vivid and flattering description of the country and of its forests is exaggerated, in order to heighten the value of his dis covery. But few trees in leaf could have been observed as early as March. The earliest flowering tree is the dogwood or Cornus florida, which opens about May 10th. 5. Then ascending we found some arms of the sea which entered through some inlets washing the shore on one and the other side, as the coasts run. (Pol ascendendo si trovana alcuni bracci di mare die entrano per alcune foci rigando il lita doll una all allra parte come corre il lito de quello. [This should, perhaps, read "channelling the beach from side to side as the coast runs. " ] When near by, the land shows itself broad, and so high that it rises above the sandy coast, with fine landscapes and a EXPLORATION OF THE AMERICAN COAST. 39 country full of very great forests, partly open and partly dense, dressed in various colored trees of as great a size and agreeable appearance as it is possible to express. 5. This is the only description in the letter that we believe can be applied to the harbor of New York. lie probably anchored outside of Sandy Hook or in the outer harbor, and saw Shrews bury river, the Kills, and the Narrows, observed the bar and rapid tides, thus satisfying himself, without penetrating to the inner bay, that there was no strait here leading to the South sea. The expression " washing the shores on both sides as the coasts run" would apply to several parts of these coasts, but taken in connection with the "several arms of the sea" it applies especially to the two long sandy spits known as Sandy Hook and Coney Island, which form the entrance of New York harbor. His mention of land rising inland makes it almost certain that he was in New York harbor. No such feature is seen south of it. He would have in view from his anchorage, Long Island, rising to about 100 feet, Staten Island to 307, and the Navesink Highlands 232 feet, these last being close to the shore. 6. It [tlie land] lias many lakes and ponds of living water, with numerous kinds of birds adapted to all the pleasures of the chase. This land is in 84, the air wholesome, pure, and tempered as to cold and heat. The winds do not blow fiercely in these regions, and those which prevail most are north-west and west. During the summer season in which we were there, the sky is clear, with little rain ; and when sometimes the southern winds bring in suddenly some fog or mists, they do not last, and are dispersed, it becoming pure and clear. The sea is gentle and not boisterous, its waves being gentle. Although all the coast is low and devoid of ports, it is not dangerous to navigators, being all clear and with out any rock. The depth, as near as four or five paces from the shore, at high or low water, is twenty feet, increasing with such uniform proportion to the depths of the sea, with such good holding ground, that any ship, however tossed by a tempest in those parts, cannot perish, 40 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. provided the cable does not break, and this we have proved by experience. This we positively tested, for in the beginning of March, the winds blowing with great force, as in other regions, we were riding with the ship on the open sea, and found that the anchor must break before it would drag or make any movement. 6. This paragraph in the letter, including a part not here given, forms arm^me of all that he had observed up to this time, with general remarks that apply to the whole of our coast. Notices the prevalent north-west winds, a peculiar feature in our climate. Also the absence of fogs, the absence of all out lying rocks, and the good anchorage along the coast, with the shelving bottom. He exaggerates, however, the boldness of the coast, as forty or fifty paces would be the nearest distance for such a depth as he notes. This may be due to an error of the copyist. He could hardly have invented the combination of all these features, so different from any part of the European shores. Comparing the narrative with the chart, it will be seen that there is an indentation of the coast which is, no doubt, meant to indicate New York harbor, for the trend of the coast here changes, as represented on the map and described in the letter. 7. We started from this place, continuing to run along the coast, which we found turning to the west [east], observing along the whole of it great fires from the num ber of its inhabitants. Approaching the shore to get water, there being no port, we ordered the boat on shore with twenty-five men [ a large boat ? ]. On account of the very heavy surf beating on the shore, which was quite exposed, it was not possible, without peril of losing the boat, for any one to put foot on shore. We saw many people coming to the shore making various friendly signs, pointing out where we might land. 7. Leaving New York harbor, he finds the coast running west (evidently a mistake for east), and runs down the south shore of Long Island. There are but three or four practicable inlets along this coast, and they are not readily discovered when a few miles at sea. EXPLORATION OF THE AMERICAN COAST. 41 Long Island, and particularly Rockaway bay, was a great resort for the purpose of manufacturing wampum or seawan, the money currency of the natives. Numerous shell beds line the shores of the bay where the manufacture was carried on. The incident related here probably happened on Rock- away beach, where the land meets the narrow and barren outer sand-bar, which for over seventy miles separates the ocean from the bay or lagoons behind it. It must have happened at some point where there is no outer beach. 8. Leaving here, and always following the shore, which turned towards the north (meaning somewhat to the north), we came, in the space of fifty leagues, to another land which seemed very beautiful, and full of the largest for ests. Landing on it, twenty men went about two leagues into the land, and found that the people, from fear, had fled into the woods. We saw many of their boats, made from a single log twenty feet long and four feet wide, which are manufactured without [the help of] iron or stone, or any kind of metal, for in the space of the whole 200 leagues which we had coasted of this land, no stone of any kind was seen by us. By the aid of the fourth element they take out enough wood to serve for the hollow of the boat, and do the same for the bow and stern, so that in navigating it may cut the water. The land, as to site, richness and beauty is like the other, full of forests of various kinds of woods, but not so odoriferous, from being more northerly and colder. 8. The south coast of Long Island has a general trend to the E. N. E., and there is but one conspicuous inlet (Fire Island inlet) along its whole extent of 115 geographical miles. The first third of the island lies nearly east and west, the rest turning to about E. N. E. by N. Thus his course, first east and then north, may be understood as applying to Long Island. By the expression " stretched to the north," he means that the land was to the north of him. He appears to have landed again near Quogue or Bridge- hampton. His remark that this is another land, distinguishes Long Island from New Jersey distinctly. 42 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. 9. After remaining in this land three days, riding on the coast, from the paucity of harbors, we resolved to depart, running always along the coast, between north and east, and only sailing [by day] and dropping anchor at night. 9. The navigator certainly repeats himself here, that is, writing carelessly or hurriedly, and having made digressions, he means that after leaving either New York harbor or the Rockaway shore he sailed rather more to the N. E. 10. At the end of a hundred leagues, we found a very pleasant site placed among some small rising hills, in the midst of which there ran towards the sea a very large river, which was deep at its mouth, and from the sea to the hills there, on the flood tide, which we found eight feet [rise], there might have passed ships of any burthen. Being, however, anchored on the coast in a good berth, we did not wish to venture in without a knowlege of the entrance. We proceeded with a boat to enter the river and land, which we found very populous, and the people much like the others, dressed with birds feathers of divers colors. They came towards us joyfully, emitting very great shouts of admiration, showing us where, with the boat, it was safest to land. We ascended the said river into the land about half a league, where we saw a fine lake about three leagues in circuit, through which there were passing from shore to shore about thirty of their boats, with numbers of people who were crossing over to see us. In a moment, as often happens in navigating, a violent contrary wind from the sea blowing up, we were forced to return to the ship, leaving the said land with much regret, considering that from its convenience and pleasant aspect it could not but have some valuable quality, as all the hills there showed minerals. 10. Passing around Montauk point, the easterly extremity of Long Island, he would find a great contrast awaiting him, for whereas he had hitherto sailed along a sandy coast without rocks, EXPLORATION OF THE AMERICAN COAST. 43 and, excepting New York, with only low hills in the distance, he now would find in front of him the rocky coast of Connecticut, and the outlying rocky islets known as Gull or Fisher s islands, while in the distance, on the right, lie saw Block island, the only really detached island along our coast, from the Bahamas, near Florida, in latitude 26 deg. 30 min., to this island, in hit. 41. deg. 10 min. Some have considered that either Nantucket or Martha s Vineyard were here described, but there can be no doubt that these islands were not noticed by him as insular. The " pleasant situation among steep hills, etc.," is probably the mouth of the Thames, which he reached, passing through the race between Fisher s and Gull islands. The tidal current through the race was observed by him and is alluded to here. The vessel was anchored in the roadstead behind Fisher s island, fearing to enter, and a strong southerly gale might well have induced his boat to return to the ship. The distinct indication on the map of a large inlet, resembling Long Island sound, was put down while here. He may have explored it sufficiently to be satisfied that it was not a strait such as he was searching to discover. 11. Weighing anchor, we sailed eastward, as the la.nd turned that way, running eighty leagues. [ Ramusius says fifty.] We saw, always in sight of it* (sempre a vista di quella discoprimmo\ an island of triangular form, distant ten leagues from the continent, in size like to the island of Rhodes, full of hills, covered with trees and thickly inhabited, [judging] from the series of fires which we saw them making all along the shore. We baptized it with the name of your illustrious mother [Louisa]. 11. The fifty or eighty leagues is an overestimate, and the island he saw, and which was certainly Block island, must have been noticed before. It has no harbor, and the shores are gravel and sand cliffs, the interior being hilly, and at that time covered with trees, which may have made it appear higher. * The punctuation may alter the sense here so as to read, " running eighty leagues, always in sight of it," i.e., the laud; the island being discovered after wards. 44 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. 12. Not coming to anchor there on account of the con trary weather, we came to another land, distant fifteen leagues from the island. We found a very fine port, into the mouth of which we entered. We saw about twenty boats with people, who came with various cries and wonder around the ship, not approaching nearer than fifty paces, stopping to consider our build, our looks, and dress. Then they altogether sent up a loud shout, signifying pleasure. Reassuring them somewhat, and imitating their gestures, they came so near that we threw to them some bells and mirrors and many trinkets, which they took laughing, and carefully looking around the ship. * * * We struck up a great friendship with them, and the day after, we entered the port with the ship, we having been anchored a league out at sea on account of a contrary wind. * * * They came with a number of their boats to the ship, their faces painted and daubed with various colors, showing real signs of pleasure, bringing us some of their provisions, making signs where we should anchor in the port for the safety of the ship, keeping with us until we had dropped anchor, in which we stayed fifteen days, refreshing ourselves in many ways. * * * They would rest on an island a quarter of a league from us. * * * We, several times, went inland five or six leagues, finding it as pleasant as is possible to be described ; all kinds of cultivation going on, corn, wine, and oil. There are spaces of twenty- five or thirty leagues of bare, open country, and devoid of any impediment of trees, of such fertility that any kind of seed in it would yield its utmost. 12. He entered Narragansett bay only fourteen miles from Block island, and at first he seems to have anchored at its mouth, but afterwards between Goat island and the present town of Newport. Throughout the letter we have refrained from criti cising the notices of the natives, confining our remarks to geog raphical points only, but it would be impossible to describe the EXPLORATION OF THE AMERICAN COAST. 45 inhabitants of these shores with such accidental precision, were the letter a mere fiction. Dr. Miller, in the New York Hist. Coll., Vol. I, applied this description of Narragansett bay to the harbor of New York. Dr. Cogswell, in the New Series, Vol. I, of the same, corrected him, but we think erred in making the description of the Thames adapt itself to New York. Our opinion, however, of the letter, in a geographical point of view, is that the navigator penned it in haste, and was more anxious to please the king, by a favorable report of the coasts explored, than to describe them correctly. The letter must not be strictly accepted as detailing all the courses sailed, and as describing all the harbors visited. As he was here in April, he could not have found ripe fruit on the trees, but the Indians, as we know, laid in stores of dried fruit and nuts for the winter. The boats made from sino-le loirs, O c5 " called dug-outs, are still made and used by the white people. The Indians used fire to hollow out their boats, applying the fire to a tree left standing, from which the bark had been removed a year beforehand. The fire could be easier managed on the upright log, so as to control the process, and make a neat finish. The broad-bladed paddle used by the two arms, without a rest, describes the Indian mode of rowing exactly. The round Indian lodges, thatched with marsh flags, were not peculiar to these tribes. The pulse was the maize or Indian corn, of which they had several varieties, and as stated, the planting and the harvesting were preceded by various ceremonial observ ances. The most remarkable omission in the description of the natives is that of the habit of smoking tobacco, which prevailed among them as far north as Maine. 13. This land is situated on the parallel of Rome, in 41f , but somewhat colder by accident and not by nature, as I will relate to your Majesty elsewhere. Describing now the site of the said place [posto, query porto^ it looks towards the south, half a league wide, then enter ing, it extends to the east and north twelve leagues, where, widening, it forms a most ample basin, with a circuit of 46 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. twenty leagues, in which are live islets of much fertility, and pleasant, full of high and spreading trees, among which islands any number of fleets might rernaiu without fear of storms or of any other chance obstacles. Turning towards the south, at the entrance of the port, there are, on both sides, gentle hills, with many channels that pour clear water from the hills into the sea. In the midst of the mouth [of the harbor], there is a reef (scolio) of free stone, of a kind fitted to build any kind of machine or fort for its production. 13. The latitude given here is nearly correct, the entrance of this bay being in latitude 41 deg. 27 niiu., which coupled with the notice that the harbor looks south, leaves hardly a doubt as to the identification of this position. He was able, here, to observe the latitude at leisure, and repeat edly. With the instruments then used, the altitudes taken at sea were not trustworthy, being liable to an error of several degrees; but with a large wooden quadrant of some four feet radius, fitted with a plumb line, and on which the degrees were an inch long, it would be possible to read altitudes to within ten minutes. The rock is evidently meant for Goat island, which is admirably adapted to defend Newport harbor. This, it will be observed, was the only sheltered port into which he took his ship during the cruise. He was here from May first to sixteenth, new style. 14. Having refreshed ourselves at our leisure, we left the said port on the sixth day of May, following the shore, never losing sight of the land. We sailed 150 leagues, finding it of the same nature, and a little higher, with some mountains, which all showed minerals. We did not stop there for fear that the favorable weather might not last (per la prosperita del tempo ne serviva). Looking at the coast, we thought it was like the last. 1 4. Leaving Newport, his course was first east-south-east, and then northerly. The one hundred and fifty leagues include the fifty mentioned just after; in fact, the last paragraph is a general sketch of the land north of Cape Cod, which he was about to explore. OF THE AMERICAN COAST. 47 15. The shore ran to the east ; in the space of fifty leagues, holding more to the north, we found a highland full of dense woods, the trees in which were pines, cypresses, and such like, which grow in cold regions. The people [were] quite different from the others, and in proportion as those before were gentle in behaviour, these were in roughness and appearance the more barbarous ; so that no matter how many signals we made to them, we could hold no conversation with them. They were dressed in the skins of bears, wolves, marine lynx (cermeri marini, seals?), and other animals. 15. He passed around south of Martha s Vineyard and Nan- tucket, considering them as the main land, and must have been made cautious of danger by the tide rips and soundings on Nan- tucket shoals. These lie indicates on the map as a long sand spit, which seems to be named Cap Arenosus on the map; and steering well clear of Cape Cod, he probably made Cape Ann and the rocky coast of Maine. The change of scenery and of the people are noted. 16. Twenty-five men went inland, against their [ the natives] will, two or three leagues, and when they returned to the shore they shot at us with their bows, shouting loudly, and escaping into the woods. We found nothing of any value in the land, except immense forests, with some hills. They may have some metals, as we saw many of them with copper (rame) rings in their ears. 16. It is uncertain where this landing was made, but it was probably between Nahant and Cape Ann. 17. We departed, running along the coast between east and north, which we found more pleasant, open and bare of woods, with high mountains back in the land, sloping towards the shore of the sea. In [the space of] fifty leagues, we discovered thirty-two islands, all near to the continent, small, and of good appearance, following the outline of the land (alte tenendo la verzura delict lerra), from which were formed the most beautiful ports and 48 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. canals, as they do near Illyria and Dalmatia, in the Adriatic sea. We had no intercourse with the people, bnt supposed them to be, in their customs and nature, like to those we had left. 17. The distant mountains may well have been the White Mountains in New Hampshire, which, on clear days, are visible from the sea, and would at this season still be covered with snow. His remark that there are no mountains near the coast is a cor rect one. The rocky islets of the coast of Maine, which he so well com pares to those on the Illyrian coast, prove that he had really been here, for no map of the time could have suggested this feature. 18. Sailing between east and north for the space of 150 leagues, and having already consumed all our naval stores and victuals ; having discovered 502 leagues, that is 700 more of new land, supplying ourselves with water and wood, we determined to return to France. 18. In the appendix, he gives his departure from the coast as in latitude 50 deg., which would imply that he visited the east coast of Newfoundland. This we doubt, as he merely wished to connect his own coastwise explorations with the well-known Terra de Brctones and Terra Nova, and would hardly extend his voyage to points frequented by the Portuguese and Spaniards. His map shows no trace of the Bay of Fundy, and he does not describe any point, towards the close of his coasting, that can be identified. It is probable that he turned away in about latitude 44 deg., being confident, from the easterly trend of the coast, that he had traced the continental barrier to a point already visited. The map shows a large river estuary, which is, perhaps, the Penobscot, whence he started homewards. He may have sighted Cape Sable, but probably missed it by having taken an E. S. E. course from the point of his departure. His estimate of 500 leagues of new discovery is nearly correct, if we assume that he struck the coast in latitude 39 deg. 30 min., and left it in latitude 44 deg. His own estimate of the length of a degree is 62^ Italian miles, and he coasted, from our estimate below, some 540 geographical miles. His expression " 500, that is 700 leagues," is explained in EXPLORATION OF THE AMERICAN COAST. 49 the appendix, where he says that lie made 300 leagues in latitude (about five degrees), and 400 in longitude. He could, as we believe, not have coasted an extent of more than five degrees of latitude, and about six degrees of longitude. Ths dates appear to be as follows, old style: January 17th, leaves the Desiertas. March Oth, reaches land. March 15th, probably reaches New York harbor. April 21st to May 6th, in Newport harbor. May 6th to 20th, probably coasting. July 8th, arrives at Dieppe; twenty-eight days voyage. Upon an attentive examination of the courses and distances sailed, some of which are given twice, we come to about the same result as his own. 1. From landfall, coasts south 50 leagues. 2. Coasts north to New York, say. 100 " 3. Thence east and north to Thames R 100 " 4. To Newport (overestimate ?) 80 " 5. Newport to Cape Ann 150 " 6. North-east. . 150 " 580 . The navigator must have meant to use the term miles of 62^ to a degree, for he would otherwise quadruple the true distances. In the case of the third course and of part of the fifth, he cer tainly repeats himself. His estimates must be mere guesses in round numbers. A measurement from a U. S. Coast Survey chart of the coast, dated 1864, gives the following result: Latitude 39 deg. 05 min. to New York 90 miles. New York to Montauk point 110 " Thence to Thames and Newport 60 " Newport to Cape Ann 170 " Cape Ann to Penobscot river 110 " 540 miles. 50 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Old navigators were very prone to exaggerate the distances sailed. See instances quoted by Humboldt, Examen Critique, V. 101, who says that the direction is more important than the distance. LETTER AND MAP COMPARED. With the aid of the ma,p newly discovered, we can follow Verrazano s track along our shores with some confidence. First, the Jersey coast is shown trending too much to the N. E., but the variation of the compass to the west ward would cause it to appear so to him. Then the har bor of New York shown as a river only, because he probably did not penetrate far into it. Next the Long Island coast, correctly shown, inclining more to the east ward, with the interesting and correctly -indicated feature of a sound behind it. He passes Fisher s island, which he seems to have supposed to be connected with Point Judith, of the mainland, just east of it, which appear on his map as a promontory, beyond which he places Narra- gansett bay, with his /. Luisa, or Block island, off its mouth. The E .S. E. trend of the coast from that point on his map is due, as observed before, to his having taken Martha s Vineyard and Nantucket as part of the mainland. The long sand-bar to the east of this is a rough draught of Nantucket shoals, or Cape Cod, as they presented them selves to him. It will be noticed that the parallels of latitude on the map are very different from the observations recorded in the letter. These parallels are all full five degrees too much to the south of their proper position. Hieronimus, who made the map, must have committed this mistake, and we can offer no explanation to account for the dis crepancy. On the charts of those times, we do not expect that the longitude can be more than guessed at, but the latitude is generally within much narrower limits of error. His OCCUPATIONS AFTER VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 51 Columbus, also, was very wrong in his data for the latitude of the island oLCuba, and does not seem to have ever corrected himself. Perhaps the latitudes on this map were made expressly incorrect in order to mislead the uninitiated, or in order to avoid appearing to encroach on the Spanish discoveries, which, under Matienzo and Ay lion, had been carried, in 1520, to lat. 34. Giovanni was, no doubt, aware of the fact that the Spaniards had reached this altitude before his voyage hither, and Hier- onimus in 1529 had, perhaps heard that lat. 87 had been reached by Ay lion in 1526. Perhaps the indication of a western sea, separated by an isthmus from the Atlantic ocean, appearing on maps after 1529 as Mar de Verrazano, was an attempt to place the great Baia de Santa Maria (Chesapeake bay) on his chart, thus giving to Nova Gallia the appearance of a land distinct from the Florida of the Spaniards. This would account for the absence of all mention of it in Giovanni s letter of 1524. For some remarks on the cosmographical portion of the letter, we must refer to the notes at the end of this paper. His OCCUPATIONS AFTER THE VOYAGE TO AMERICA. After the dispatch of the letter to the king, we learn from Carli that Verrazano was expected at Lyons, where he may have gone to report in person to the king, but there is no mention of his appearance there. Afterwards we almost lose sight of the adventurous explorer, who offered to the French monarch a vast province in a tem perate latitude, on which France might well have concen trated her enterprise, and which would have repaid her a hundred-fold as a colony, and as a school for her maritime forces. But at that time, France was nearer annihilation than during her recent struggle with Germany, and all thought of colonization beyond the seas was out of the question. The king was a prisoner in the hands of the emperor, his army had been dispersed, his treasury 52 NOTES ON THE VEKRAZANO MAP. emptied, and the prospect was such that without help from abroad France would have become a province of the empire. England, at this juncture, lent her assistance to her distracted neighbor in her traditional form, a loan of money. As Mr. Biddle well suggests,* Yerrazano, iinding no response to his offers to make further explora tions, may have laid before Henry the Eighth his newly made discovery, for we find Hakluyt, in 1582, f saying that " John Verazanus, which had been thrise on that coast, in an old excellent mappe which he gave to King Henrie the eight, and is yet in the custodie of master Locke, doth so lay it out as it is to bee seene in the mappe annexed to the end of this boke, beeing made according to Verazanus plat." Hakluyt is advocating a renewed search for a north-west passage to China, and colonization of the coasts visited by Verrazano. His statement that he had been thrice on that coast is probably taken from Sir Humphrey Gilbert s little treatise of 1566, J published in 1576, who only says, Cap. X, "Also divers have offered the like unto the Frenche king, who hath sent two or three times to have discovered the same," meaning the north west passage. Gilbert was, no doubt, familiar with the work of Ramusius, and names Verarsannus, a Florentine, several times, though in one case (Cap. Ill, 7), the name of Cartier is intended. In a paragraph just before this, he states that " Jacobus Cartier made two voyages into those partes." He does not seem to have been acquainted with Roberval s voyage, so that he evidently meant to include Cartier s voyages of 1534 and 1536 in his expression above quoted. Hakluyt has left another notice of the "excellent Mappe" contained in an unpublished manuscript belong ing to Sir Thomas Phillips, and which this gentleman has kindly allowed to be copied for the Maine Historical *Biddle s Cabot, 1831, p. 276. \Dwers Voyages, Epist. dedic. \A discourse of a Discouerie for a new passage to Gataia ; London, 1576, 4th. This rare tract is given in Hakluyt. His OCCUPATIONS AFTER VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 53 Society. This manuscript will be published at an early date, with notes ; but, meanwhile, in the first volume that was prepared for this society by Dr. Kohl, we find an extract from it, added to a foot-note at page 291, by the late Gov. Willis, who edited the volume. This manuscri pt, prepared in 1584 for Sir Walter Raleigh, and covering over sixty-two large folio pages, makes, in Chap. 17, 10,11, an interesting reference to "a minhtle large olde mappe in parchmente, made, as it should seme, l>y Verrazanus, now In the custodie of Mr. Michael Locke" and also to "an olde excellent globe in the Queene* s prime gallery at Westm r, lo ch also seemetJi to be of Verrazanus making e" It will be observed that in neither of these passages from Hakluyt is the map positively said to have been made by John Verrazanus, but that it was derived from him, and that it seemed to be of his make. This careful absence of an assertion that it was by John, was, no doubt, owing to the name " Hieronimus de Verrazano faciebat" appearing on it. Hakluyt could not probably explain this difference of name, and therefore makes a carefully-guarded statement concerning it. He describes, however, the map now preserved in Rome in these few words so exactly that we are led to suppose that it was the very one that was presented to the English king about 1529, and still to be seen in the queen s gallery in 1584. Sebastian Cabot s great mapamundi of 1544 was also in this gallery, and we should be rejoiced to find in some old document a list merely of the maps that hung there. That Verrazano may have made a proposal for discovery to the English king is possible, but there is not a scrap of evidence to prove it, excepting Hakluyt s assertion above quoted. If he made such an offer, it was not for the sake of emolument, for he seems to have been provided with ample funds, as we have just shown, and as might be expected after the rich captures he had made. 54 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. In 1526, or perhaps later, his name is included as the commander or pilot of a squadron of three vessels fitting out, apparently for a mercantile venture, but in reality for another cruise in Spanish waters. We find proof of this in a document discovered and quoted by the indefa tigable Mons. Margry, in his Navigations Franqaises, etc., Paris, 1867, p. 194, and given in a partly abridged and translated form in the notes to this paper. This document is an agreement for a voyage to the Indies for spices, including prospective predatory cap tures, which last were, no doubt, the chief incentives to the enterprise. Nothing is said about discovery, or the search for a western route to the Moluccas. The agreement is made between Philipe Chabot, admiral of France, Preudhomme, the general of Nor mandy, several merchants, among whom is the notable and famous Jean Ango, and " messire Jehan de Yaresam, principalle pilote." This was indeed a partnership of distinguished men ; two royal officers of high rank, three rich merchants, and a pilot who is able to venture a sum equal to that of Jean Ango, the great merchant-prince of Dieppe. There can be but little doubt that this pilot was our successful corsair, who must have reaped a fair share of the prize taken from the Spaniards. The paper, unluckily, is not dated, but, as Mons. Margry remarks, it must be posterior to 1525, as Chabot was not appointed admiral of France until 1526.* The enterprise was hardly meant to be a purely com mercial one, when the character of three of the partners is taken into account. Commanded and guided by a successful corsair, who five years before, had captured most valuable prizes from the Spaniards and Portuguese, and who, three years before, had taken the spoils of *His appointment, according to Pere Anselme, Vol. IV, p. 571, dates from the 23d of March, 1525. As the legal year began March 25th, he was really appointed in 1526. His OCCUPATIONS AFTER VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 55 Mexico when just about to be laid at the emperor s feet, it is not likely that he should be contented with a distant and uncertain trip to the Spice islands. * This new venture was, no doubt, to be another corsairial one, and the paragraph of the agreement which alludes to possible prizes to be taken, and which we give in full, explains the animus of the undertaking. Giovanni de Verrazano was therefore alive and prosper ous in 1526. That the French were able to fit out vessels in spite of the national distress, we have sufficient proof. But a slight impression could have been made on the towns of the Atlantic coast by the war with the emperor in Italy. The armies were small, the French Mediter ranean fleets were fitted out on the southern coasts, and only the people along the line of march of the armies could have suffered much. Whether this voyage was undertaken, and if so, what happened during the course of it, is unknown. If the vessels reached the East Indies, they would have been absent two years. Perhaps a careful study of the plani sphere of 1529, as recording what was then known about the south-eastern regions of Asia, might throw some light on the question whether Verrazano was there in person. A cursory study of it will show that it contains some discoveries of the Portuguese, then recently made ; but these may have been copied from charts taken from prizes, and do not prove anything. If the execution of our navigator took place in 1527, f and the late Buckingham Smith stated to the president of our society that he had proofs to that effect, which are shortly to be published, it is possible that Verrazano was captured while on this cruise. His previous success may * See notes, Admiral Chabot ; also BuckingJiam Smith. fSee Transactions of this Society for 1871, p. 82. Also the Rev. B. F. De Costa s "Northmen in Maine," etc., 1870, p. 61, note, who states, on Mr. Smith s information, that the execution took place at El Pico, in New Castile, in October, 1527. (V-u_ <*** GwU, ^ 56 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. have led to the fitting out of the armament above described, the mention of the East Indies in the agreement having been inserted in order to conceal the real objects of the enterprise. The uncertainty that hangs over his death, both as to its manner and date, may be cleared up, but at present his name disappears from history after the proposed voyage to the East Indies. Ramusius, in the preface to the letter of 1524, states simply that on the last voyage which he made, naming no time or locality, he was taken by " those people " when landing with some companions, and was roasted and eaten in the presence of those who had remained on the ship. Having just spoken of his voyage to Florida, Ramusius, no doubt, meant by " those people, " American savages, who however, never killed and eat captives unless they were prisoners of war. Supposing, however, that the story came to his ears in that form, whence or from whom did he derive it ? Ramusius was in correspondence with Oviedo, the Spanish historian of the Indies, and may have learned the story from him, as we shall presently show, though Oviedo could hardly have told it as having happened to Verrazano. Ramusius himself, as we suppose, inserted the Italian navigator s name as the victim of the butchery. In order to understand clearly what we are to believe, it will be well to say that no exploring voyage to the American coast, between Terra Nova and Florida, is known to have been made between the years 1524 and 1534, excepting the Spanish ones of Estevan Gomez, in 1525, and of Ayllon, in 1526, and one by John Rut, or Root, sent out in 1527 by Henry the Eighth. The French, most certainly, did not undertake one, and the above are the only ones of which there is any record. The voyage of Gomez, who explored the coast from Bacalaos to Cuba, was planned in 1523, but was delayed until 1525 by his having to attend the Council of Bajadoz, His OCCUPATIONS AFTER VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 57 and it was then possibly hastened by the report that the French had undertaken a similar one. Ay lion s voyage was made northwards from the West Indies, and is fully described by Oviedo ; but he certainly did not get further north than Cape Fear, in north lat. 34. The English voyage to which we have alluded was made in 1527, but very little is known about it. It appears to have been an attempt to accomplish the discovery of a north-west passage by some strait north of Newfoundland, and like all others before and since, it failed in its object. It is not certain at whose instance it was undertaken, Hakluyt giving Robert Thorne, an English merchant trading in Seville, as its projector, * while Biddle hints at the possibility of its having originated with Verrazano. f If he sailed for the East Indies about this time, he could not have been in England to propose such an expedition. We find, however, that a certain learned Italian, Albert de Prato, was with the expedition, and it is possible that he was the active agent who induced the English monarch to send it forth. De Prato was a Florentine, perhaps a friend or agent of Verrazano s, who may have supplied him with the arguments to lay before the king in favor of the enterprise. Jerome, the author of the map before us, may have accompanied him to England to forward the views of his relative, but all this is mere conjecture. Hakluyt, in 1582, and in his later works, speaks of an expedition of 1527, about which he could ascertain but very little. J Samuel Purchas, in Vol. Ill of his " Pilgrimes," 1625, p. 809, has a letter, written from Newfoundland, August 3d, 1527, and some authentic details concerning this voyage, made nearly a century before. We learn that its commander was John Rut ; that two vessels, the Mary of Guilford and the Samson, were under his command, and * See note, Voyage of 1527. f Biddle, Cabot, p. 276. JSee note, Voyage 0/1527, and HaJdnyt, on same. 8 58 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. that they sailed from Plymouth June 10th, and attempted to pass to the north of Newfoundland. The Samson parted company in a storm, and was not heard of again, while the Mary, two days afterwards, on the third of July, met with ice, and, giving up the main purpose of the voyage, put into St. Johns, Newfoundland. Here Kut addressed a letter, dated August 3d, to the king, accom panied by one from Albert de Prato to Cardinal Wolsey. Purchas, unluckily, does not give this last one, and the originals of both have disappeared. Kut declares his purpose to reach certain islands, to which he has been ordered, whether the Moluccas or West Indies is uncer tain. Purchas says nothing about the return of Rut, but Hakluyt, in his work of 1589, informs us that he had heard that he reached home in October. This is all that is positively known about this voyage, from English sources, but we find in two Spanish authors a notice of the visit of an English corsair to the West Indies in this year, whose commander gave such an account of his adventures that, as first suggested by Mr. Biddle in 1831, we must believe the vessel to 1m ve been the Mary of Gruilford.* The story was told by the English commander to a certain Grinez Navarro, captain of a caravel in the harbor of San Juan (Portorico), in November, 1527, and it agrees well with the details recounted in the letter of August 3d, but has the additional mention of the death of his pilot. This, he said, had happened between Newfoundland and Rio Chicoraf (Savannah R). The pilot, a Piedrnontese, had landed to speak to the Indians, who had killed him. His name is not given, nor is it said that he was roasted and eaten, together with those who landed with him. Mr. Biddle,:}: with much ingenuity, placing the above * See note, Oviedo and Herrera on the English vessel of 1527. f This name was given by Ayllon in 1520. t Biddle, Cabot, Chaps. IX, XIV. His OCCUPATIONS AFTER VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 59 facts together, concludes that the Piedmontese pilot was Verrazano, thus confirming the account by Ramusius, and giving its true date. It will be noticed that the name of Verrazano is nowhere associated with this voyage, and that Mr. Biddle s conjecture is founded on the fact related to Navarro that the pilot was a Piedmontese, and that his fate was somewhat similar to the one recounted by Ramusius as having happened to our navigator. From this theory, plausible as it may appear, we must dissent, for the following reasons : Verrazano was a person of too much consequence, supposing him to have been the pilot of the expedition, to have remained without mention in Rut s letter. Neither was his name recorded in De Prato s letter, else Purchas would have quoted it, for it was familiar to the author of the " Pilyrimes" and he would have eagerly published the fact. Again, had Verrazano been with Capt. John Rut, it is not probable that he would consent to repeat his explora tion of our coast while the north-west passage remained to be attempted. This would have converted an enter prise which had a noble object into a mere trading voyage, while we know that Verrazano 1 s favorite idea was the discovery of a short sea-way to the Moluccas. He had, to be sure, proposed colonization to the French king, but Rut seems to have had no such instructions. As Navarro relates, he wished to reach the territory of the Grand Khan, but was easily turned aside from his purpose, and sought a market for his wares in the West Indies. Verrazano, further, was the very last person to have consented to a West India voyage only, for his name was in every Spaniard s mouth as having captured several of their treasure- ships, and he would not have deliberately put his head into the lion s mouth. If Rut did lose his pilot in the manner told by Rut, it may well have been Albert de Pra,to who was killed. We know nothing about this Florentine, but he appears to have been the companion and associate of Rut, no doubt GO NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. his pilot, as sailing masters were then called, and he was probably in possession of a chart of the exploration of 1524. Ignorant of the savage nature of the tribes inhabit ing the coasts of Maine, who appear to have been made more hostile by the French fishing vessels, who from an early day frequented those coasts, he may have been massacred on attempting to land among them. V errazano knew their nature better, and would not have exposed himself to such risks. The stubborn fact, however, remains that Ramusius should himself have ascribed such a fate to Verrazano. The Italian historian may have, perhaps, learned from Oviedo, that the Italian pilot of an English vessel was killed on our coast, and thus supposed the victim to have been Verrazano. Oviedo, however, in his account of the visit of the English vessel, as quoted in the appendix, does not say a word about the death of its pilot, and has it that the vessel came from Brazil. It is however certain that it was the same vessel which is mentioned by Herrera, from the attendant circumstances being described exactty as told by Navarre. Oviedo places the visit in the year 1527, while Herrera erroneously puts it in 1519. * As al cade or commander of the fort of the city of Santo Domingo after 1533, which had fired on the Englishman, he must have gathered many details on the spot, though his account is less full than Navarro s report, which was first published by Herrera in 1601, and which Ramusius, probably, never saw. It might be suggested that the Italian historian was also a correspondent of the veteran navigator, Sebastian Cabot, and learned the story from him. But Cabot was engaged from 1525 to 1531 on his expedition to the La Plata river. He may have heard of the voyage of Rut * The Rev. B. F. De Costa dissents from this supposition, but he had not seen the account in Oviedo. See Northmen in Maine, p. 54. His OCCUPATIONS AFTER VOYAGE 10 AMERICA. 61 afterwards, and of the death of his pilot, and learned his name. * Had it been Yerrazano, and had he written to that effect to Rainusius, he would have added some authentic facts, which the latter would have recorded, leaving no uncertainty as to the date of his disappearance. One more remark, and we close this part of our subject. If Yerrazano had lost his life after his capture by the Spaniards or in the manner suggested by Ramusius, it would seem remarkable to h rid no allusion to his death on the planisphere of 1529. This map contains several legends on the American coast relating to him, and if he had died meanwhile, they would have been, no doubt, differently worded ; or if he had been killed on that coast, Hieronimus would have added a legend to that effect. The voyage of 1527 was so recent that the mapmaker could have easily ascertained from Rut or his companions the precise locality where the scene had occurred. From a consideration of all the above data, we must conclude that if Yerrazano lost his life on our coast, it was not on the voyage made by the Mary of Guilford in 1527. Ramusius may be right in his account of it, but then it must have happened at a later date, which is pos sible, although no record has been preserved of voyages hither, by exploring vessels of any nationality, until 1534, when Jacques Cartier sailed around the Gulf of St. Law rence, and in 1536 wintered on the river of the same name, near Quebec. After the positively authentic appearance of Yerrazano as a subscriber to the French expedition to the East Indies, and as its chief pilot, we lose sight of the Floren tine completely. He may have died in the course of it, if it ever left the shores of France, but all speculations as to his occupations after this must be mere guesses, * A tale was told in Spain, concerning Cabot himself, somewhat similar to this one, namely, that he had been killed in a conflict with the natives, for which see Biddle s Cabot, p. 167. 62 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. though future researches may bring to light, as in the case of Sebastian Cabot and Jean Alfonse, some papers that might help to clear up the doubts which now sur round his career. His name appears but once after the year 1526, and then in such a manner that no satis factory inference can be drawn from it. Tiraboschi, the author of a most valuable history of Italian literature, who was the first, as before sta/ted, to draw attention to the Strozzi manuscript, also referred to a letter, printed in 1581, * among the collection of the epistles of Annibal Caro, as having a reference to Giovanni di Verrazano. This, the seventh of the collection, is dated from Castro, October 13th, 1537, and is addressed to the inmates of the household of Mgr. Giovanni Gaddi at Rome, Caro being at that time the secretary of the Cardinal, and already distinguished for his literary and artistic tastes. It is written in a playful vein, and is of considerable length, describing the little journey he was making, in humorous terms. In the beginning, he speaks of having been left at home while his friends have gone to visit some caves, and to pass the time, he now addresses them, each in turn, in this epistle. The first one addressed is a Verrazano, in the following terms : " To you, Verrazano, as a searcher (cercatore) of new worlds and of their wonders, I cannot yet tell anything worthy of your map, for we have passed no lands which have not already been discovered by you, or by your brother (fratello)." The rest of the letter is meant to be amusing, but in the passage above quoted he is certainly addressing a real personage. Mr. Smith, in his Inquiry, assumes that * The editions of 1572 and 1574, printed by Manucius in Venice, we have not seen. We quote from the one issued by the Giunti in Venice, Vol. I, pp. 6-9, entitled, " De lettere famUiari del Commendatore Annibal Caro. In Venetia, appresso Bernardo Giunti, e Fratelli, M.D.LXXXT." 2 vols. 8, pp. 176 and 272. Hrs OCCUPATIONS AFTER VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 53 Caro was at this time a tutor in the family of M. Gaddi, an opulent Florentine, and that he was addressing his pupils, and sportively referring to their studies. Anni- bal Caro was born in 1507, and coming of a poor but good family, he was compelled, after completing his studies, to become a tutor to the children of Ludovico Gaddi, in Florence. The cardinal, a brother of Ludovico, noticed him, and took him to Rome as his secretary. This was in or before 1537, consequently Caro was not addressing his pupils in Florence, but a household composed of men of considerable intelligence and learning. Hieronimus was, no doubt, one of the cardinal s proteges, and was, therefore, playfully addressed by Caro. It is hardly possible, now that we have the mapamundiof 1529 before us, to doubt but that the author w T as the mapmaker of the letter. Thsfrafallo may have been Giovanni, but, so far, no evidence to corroborate his being still alive in 1537 is known. Had he not been then in existence, how ever, the terms of the letter would probably have been differently worded. In time, some proofs settling the vexed question of Verrazano s death may be discovered, but at the present time we know nothing that is convincing and satisfactory. Verrazano was certainly alive in and after 1526, and w^as then only forty-six years old. He had been success ful as a corsair, was an experienced navigator, and must have been a man of some mark arid influence. Had he been captured and hanged, or had he met with the death described by Ramusius, the occurrence would certainly have been noted somewhere, and a document may yet be found, attesting the mode of his death, whether fortuitous or from natural causes. The discovery of this mapa- mundi, so long unknown, shows that we may yet hope to learn further details concerning the first explorer of our coasts. The land that can pride itself on having produced a Columbus, a Vespucius and a Verrazano, is no longer divided into petty states, rivals and jealous of 64 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. each others fame, but is a great and united empire. The memory of deeds done in the past by a Genoese or a Florentine, a Venetian or a Neapolitan, ought to be recorded as done by an Italian, and thus induce a more active inquiry into what is now obscure and neglected. CONTENTS. 65 NOTES TO PAPER ON YEKKAZANO. I. Bacalaos. II. Explorations for a Western Strait North of Florida, up to the year 1527. III. Explorations of the Atlantic Coast of Florida from the South, 1510, 1526. IV. Explorations for a Strait to the Westward in the Caribbean Sea and within the tropics. V. Explorations in the Gulf of Mexico. VI. Sebastian Cabot. VII. Alonzo de Zuazo on a Strait to the Moluccas. VIII. Hernando Cortes and his proposal in 1524 to search for a Strait. IX. Estevan Gomez. X. Identification of Juan Florin as Giovanni di Verrazano. XL Decades of the New World , by Peter Martyr. XII. Letters of Peter Martyr. XIII. Contarini on the French corsairs. XIV. Herrera s Decades. XV. Bernal Diaz del Castillo. XVI. Oviedo on the capture of 1523. XVII. Gomara on Florin. XVIII. De Barcia on Juan Verrazano. XIX. De Viera on Juan Florin. XX. Cortes de Valladolid, 1523. XXI. Cortes de Toledo, 1525. XXII. Corsairs in the West Indies after 1527. XXIII. Routes to and from the Indies. XXIV. Suppression of geographical knowledge by Spain. XXV. Family of Verrazano. XXVI. Crignon, Parmentier, Estancelin. XXVII. Desmarquets. XXVIII. Ribault. XXIX. Tavannes Memoirs, 1536. XXX. Andre Thevet, 1557. XXXI. Francois de Belle-forest, 1570. XXXII. Italian versions of the Heading to the Letter. XXXIII. Cosmographical portion of the Letter. XXXIV. Notes on the cosmographical portion of the Letter. XXXV. Examination of the Voyage across the Atlantic. 9 (36 CONTENTS. XXXVI. Thomassy. XXXVII. Description of the Mapamundi by Hieronimus de Verrazano. XXXVIII. Charts after Verrazano. XXXIX. New France, of Verrazano. XL. Gastaldi, 1548, Mercator, 1569. XLI. Ramusius. XLII. Admiral Chabot and Verrazano. XLIII. Oviedo on the English voyage of 1527. XLIV. Herrera on the voyage of 1527. XLV. Hakluyt on Rut s voyage of 1527. XL VI. Tiraboschi. XLVII. Carli s letter. XLVIII. Jean Alfonse, and his death. XLIX. Buckingham Smith s notices of Verrazano s voyage. L. Dr. J. G-. Kohl on Verrazano s voyage. BACALAOS. 67 NOTES. I. BACALAOS. Numerous derivations have been suggested for this word, which is simply an old Mediterranean or Romance name, given to the preserved Codfish, when it has been dried and kept open and extended by the help of a small stick. This was the Stock fish of the North, and from the word bactdum, it became the jBacalao and Baccalieu of the South of Europe. The baculum or rod was an attribute of the Gods Bacchus and Mercury, being perhaps a synonym of the first, in allusion to the rod sup porting the grape-vine. Many words of Latin origin can be traced to this and the Greek ftdx^oq. Another root, the Sanscrit cad or gad, a stick, is found in the Greek and Latin name of this fish as Gadus. The English word goad shows the same root, and gives the English name Codfish. The Holland word Gabel, a fork, Latin gabalus, is the root of the word Cabelyau, the Batavian name of the Codfish. Other varieties of the dried Cod are known as Dunfish, because dried on the downs or dunes / Klipjish when dried on the cliffs or klippen: Tusk or Torsfc when dried by the help of fire, from dorren, Norwegian to dry, past part, gedorr. The French name Morue, for the Codfish, is of uncertain ori gin. It may be from Mor, a Gothic name for the sea, having the same root as Mare, Mer, etc. The French name for wet salted Cod is Morue verte, perhaps from its being procured from the Isle Verte, which is, as we believe, one of the earliest names given to Newfoundland, and may be found there still in the name Bane au vert, or green bank, South of the Island. We shall endeavor to show at another time that the Banks were visited for their fisheries, and were well known in the early part of the fifteenth century. 68 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. II. EXPLORATIONS FOR A WESTERN STRAIT TO THE NORTH OF FLORIDA, UP TO THE YEAR 1527. The early explorations of the Northmen from Greenland, and the fishing voyages of the Bretons and others, were not made in search of a strait, and are not here noticed. 1476. Johann von Kolno or Scolnus said to have been sent by Christian II of Denmark, to search westward, and to have reached land west of Greenland. 1490-96. Bristol men attempt at various times to sail out west ward, but find no land. 1497. Sebastian Cabot leaves Bristol in May, with one vessel ; passes to the South of Isle Verte or Bacalaos, and enters the gulf behind it June 24th, searching for a strait to the West ; sails around the gulf, passing out through the Strait of Belleisle, and reaches home about August 10. 1498. Cabot is said to have made another voyage with uncer tain results. Probably coasted north of lat. 52 deg. 1500. Juan Dornelos, said to have been sent from Spain to explore to the Northwest. 1500. G-aspar Cortereal leaves Lisbon with one or two vessels, in May, and sails North of Bacalhaos to Labrador, but does not land there, being absent about five months. 1501. G-aspar leaves again, May 15th, with three vessels and lands in Labrador. He is lost, but the other two vessels reach home about the middle of October, bringing seventy of the natives. 1501. An English expedition said to have visited Terra Nova, guided by Portuguese. 1502. Miguel Cortereal, brother of Gaspar, leaves May 10th with one vessel for Bacalhaos, and is not again heard of. 1503. Two vessels said to have been sent to search for the Cortereals, which perhaps survey the coast from Cabo Raso to Bonavista. 1504-6. Jean Denis leaves Honfleur with Gamart of Rouen as pilot, and explores the Island of Newfoundland, North of Bonavista. 1508. Tfiomas Aubert, of Dieppe, in the Pensee, visits New foundland. EXPLORA TIONS OF A TL ANTIC COAST OF FLORIDA. 69 15 J 2. Juan de Agramonte, commissioned by Queen Juana of Castile, to explore to the Northwest, with two Breton pilots. 1524. Giovanni di Verrazano, in the employ of Francis the First, after an unsuccessful attempt in 1522, leaves Madeira January 17th with one vessel, sights the New Jersey coast of the United States, and explores these shores from lat. 39 deg. to 44 deg., and reaches Dieppe July 4th. 1525. Estevan Gomes, a Portuguese in Spanish employ, leaves Corunna with one vessel, traces the American coast from North to South, from lat. 44 to 34, and reaches Corunna in December, bringing home a number of the natives. 1526. Nicolas Don (D aunis?), a Breton fisherman, is driven by gales Southwest from Cape Breton, and believing that he has discovered new coasts, offers to explore them for the Emperor. 1527. John Rut, with Albert de Prato as pilot and cosmogrnpher, leaves the Thames, May 20th, with two vessels, the Mary of Guilford and the Samson, to search for a strait westward. The Samson is lost in June, and her consort puts into St. Johns, New foundland, where they found Norman, Breton and Portuguese fishing vessels, and then coasted to Florida, visited Hispaniola and Porto Rico, reaching home in October. III. EXPLORATIONS OF THE ATLANTIC COAST OF FLORIDA, FROM THE SOUTH, 1510-1526. 1510 or before. Terra or Isla de Bimini (Bahama or perhaps Florida) discovered. 1513. Juan Ponce de Leon, with the pilot Alarninos, discovers the mainland of Florida, coasting its gulf shore to lat. 24 deg., and the Atlantic shore to near lat. 30 deg. On his return he has to stem the Gulf Stream, gets entangled among the Bahamas, and finds the pilot Diego Miruelo the elder exploring them. 1520. The Licentiate Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, one of the Auditors of Hispaniola, sends two vessels from Puerto de Plata, on the North side of Cuba, to capture slaves along the coast of 70 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Florida. One of his vessels said to have been commanded by Captain Jordan, with Diego Miruelo as pilot, the other by the pilot Pedro de Quejo. This last one reaches in lat. 34 deg., August 18, Cabo de Sta Elena (Cape Fear) and probably farther still. In company with the last one of Ayllon s vessels there went a small vessel, sent by another of the Auditors, Juan Ortiz de Matienzo, under the pilot Fernando Sotil, for exploration, which went as far as lat. 34 deg. also. 1521. De Leon having a royal grant to colonize Bimini and Florida, makes an expedition with two vessels from St. Juan (Porto Rico). 1521. Ayllon said to have again sent two vessels to Chicora, which appear to have coasted as far as Bahia Santa Maria (Chesa peake Bay). 1523. June 26, Ayllon obtains a royal grant to colonize Chicora and other provinces, between 35 deg. and 37 deg., but delays acting under it. 1526. Ayllon takes the command of a large expedition, con sisting of one large and three smaller vessels, with two boats, manned or carrying 500 men and 80 or 90 horses. Leaves Puerto de Plata with Pedro de Quejo as pilot, in middle of July. The larger vessel is lost entering the Rio Jordan (Cape Fear R.), winters at Guadalpe, some 40 or 50 leagues to the S. W. (Pedee R., Georgetown?). Ayllon died October 18, leaving his nephew Juan Ramirez as Governor. The dissensions that arose after his death and the many deaths from disease and cold, cause the abandonment of the enterprise, and 150 men only get back, the body of Ayllon being lost on the way by the foundering of one of the small vessels. A careful and close analysis of the Maps of 1527 and 1529, of Hernando Colon and Diego Ribero, was published in 1860, by Dr. J. G. Kohl. The names on the Maps are compared by him with the known documents that illustrate their origin. We must refer to this able work for critical details which lie beyond the scope of this paper. EXPL OR A TIONS FOR A STRAIT IN THE GA RIBBEA N SEA. 7 1 IV. EXPLORATIONS FOR A STRAIT TO THE WEST WARD, IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA AND WITHIN THE TROPICS. 1492. Christopher Columbus, sailing westward, discovers islands, and reaches to Nuevitas on the north side of Cuba. 1493-96. Columbus sails on his second voyage, but only reaches the Isle of Pines on the south side of Cuba. 1498-1500. Columbus on his third voyage discovers the main land of South America, near the Island of Trinidad, coasting to Margarita. 1499-1500. Alonzo de Hoyeda, with Juan de la Cosa and Americus Vesputius, touches S. America, and coasts it to lat. 3 deg. North. Alonzo Nino and Christoval Guerra : uncertain as to point reached. Vicente Yanez Pinzon reaches to lat. 8 deg. 20 min. South of the Equator, on the coast of S. America. 1500. Diego de Lepe searches South of Cape St. Augustine. 1500. Pedro Alvarez Cabral, with a Portuguese fleet, on his way to the East Indies, discovers the East coast of Brazil. 1500-1502. Rodrigo de Bastidas with Juan de la Cosa, coasts the mainland of S. America, to Cape San Bias on the isthmus. 1502-3. Hoyeda, with Juan de Vergara, follows the same coast to Curasao. 1502-4. Columbus on his fourth voyage explores the coast of the Caribbean Sea from Guanaza and Ruatan Is. to near the Gulf of Darien. 1504-5. Juan de la Cosa visits the Gulf of Uraba. 1505. Hojeda visits the coast near Caquibacoa. 1506 or 7. Vicente Yanez Pinzon and Juan Diaz de Solis sail west from Hispaniola, and explore the coast of Yucatan, from Golfo Dulce to the Rio de Lagartos on the North shore. 1508-9. Pinzon and De Solis reach lat. 40 deg. S., on the coast of Brazil. 1511. Peter Martyr s map appears: the first Spanish one of the West Indies published up to that date. It contains all the West Indian discoveries up to the year 1508. 1513. De Balboa discovers the Mar del Sur. 72 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. 1524. Gil Gonzales Davila sent from Hispaniola to search for a strait about Golfo Dulce. V. EXPLORATIONS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO. Columbus on his first voyage in 1492 was steering along the parallel of 28 deg. directly for the coast of the United States, and if he had not turned to the Southwest, would have made land about Cape Carnaveral in Florida. On this voyage he explored part of the North coast of Cuba, which he believed to lie Northwest and Southeast. On his second voyage in 1494 he sailed along the South coast of the same Island as far as the Isle of Pines. Here he paused and prepared a declaration, which he forced all his companions to sign, to the effect that Juana (as he called it) was a long penin sula jutting out from Asia.* The Map which he presented to the Pope and to Rene of Lor raine about 1498, is now lost, but it was no doubt copied by Johann Ruysch in his Mapamundi attached to the Roman edition of Ptolemy of 1508. Much altered, it was copied by Hylacomilus as the Tabula Terrae Novae in the Strasburg Ptolemy of 1513. In this last Cuba appears twice, the St. Die geographer having inserted Isabella between the Cuban peninsula of Columbus and Espanola, its insular character being then recognized. Johann Schoner on a globe of 1520 has also a copy of the Columbus Map of 1498. Of the names attached to the Cuban peninsula on these three sketches, which are a part of the hundreds, which Columbus gave to points on the coast, f we have identified nearly all, as names which were familiar to the discoverer from his Mediter ranean experience. Thus we find names altered by copyists, but which can be recognized, such as Fin de Apulia, Cabo del Gato, Cabo Melle, de Lucca, de Livorno, d Aries, de Como, de Parma, d Alicante, etc. * Navarrete. Coleccion de los Viages, &c., II, 143. f See third voyage of Columbus. EXPLORATIONS JN THE GULF OF MEXICO. 73 It soon became known that Cuba was an Island, apparently from what Peter Martyr says, before 1500, though it was not circumnavigated officially until 1508, by order of Sebastian de Ocampo. The last voyage of Columbus in 1502, completed the explora tion of the shores of the Caribbean sea to Guanaja or Roatan I. Vincente Yanez Pinzon and Juan Diaz de Solis, on a voyage of adventure in 1507, sailed along the East coast of Yucatan from the Golfo Dulce to the Rio de Lagartos, and this last limit of northern exploration in this quarter is given on Peter Martyr s little Map of the West Indies, accompanying his first Ocean Decade of 1511.* In 1513 (not 1512) Juan Ponce de Leon discovered Florida. Alaminos was his pilot, and together they coasted the Atlantic shores of it, to near the mouth of the present St. Johns river, in lat. 30^ deg. The fair open channel, with the swift current run ning through it from the South, was observed by the pilot and used by him, as will be seen below. Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus and discovered the Mar del Sur in the same year last mentioned, and it would seem a natural supposition to have at once sought for a passage into it North of the Rio de Lagartos, but this was not done. Francisco Hernandez de Cordova, February 8th, 1517, accom panied by the pilot Antonio de Alaminos, who as a boy had been with Columbus, and to Florida with De Leon, sailed west from Havannah and struck Cape Catoche ; then coasted west and southwest to the Bahia de Malapelea in Campeachy, where the natives repulsed him and he turned back. He gave to Yucatan its present name, but considered it an Island. On his voyage home he landed in Florida. In 1518, Juan de Grijalva, by order of Diego Velasquez, his uncle, the first Governor of Cuba, explored the coast with Alaminos, beginning with the Island of Cozumel, and ending apparently at Cabo Rosso in lat. 21 deg. 45 min. near Tampico. He brought home a large amount of gold, and exciting accounts of a vast and rich empire in the interior of the land he * See Martyr, Dec. II, Cap. 7; Herrera, Dec. I, Lib. VI, Cap. 17; Docum. Ined, 1842, 501. 10 74 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. had discovered; and in the following year (1519) the famous Hernando Cortes, burning for its conquest, with Alaminos again as pilot, undertook the expedition which resulted in the subjuga tion of Mexico. The first vessel despatched to Spain, with treasure, by Co.rtes from Vera Cruz, July 26, 1519, passed into the Atlantic through the Florida Channel. Alaminos, her pilot, the discoverer of this passage,* in 1513, was the first who led a vessel through it to Spain. In the same yearf Francisco de Garay, Governor of Jamaica, and the rival of Cortes, either in person or by his deputy Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda, ran along the coast to the Rio de Panuco or Pal mas, in lat. 23 deg. 45 min. In 1520 De Garay sent Diego de Camargo north, in the gulf, with three or four caravels, and the exploration of the coast appears to have been begun somewhere about Pensacola, so as to very nearly connect it with the Florida of Juan Ponce, and was carried westward to Panuco, if the Map and memoir that he pre sented to the Emperor can be trusted. (See Navarrete III, 147-8, and Martyr Dec. Y, cap. I.) In 1523 De Garay went in person to the Rio Panuco, with Diego Meruelo the elder as his pilot. J It would appear, how ever, that De Garay s explorations remained unknown to Cortes, for in his letter to the Emperor of 1523, he is uncertain whether Mexico and Florida were joined together. The short unexplored coast line, from Pensacola to Apalachi- cola, appears not to have been traced until the unfortunate Pamphilo de Narvaez landed on the coast of Florida in 1527, * Herrera, Vol. I; Descripcion, p. 4; Barcia Ensayo, p. 154. f Gomara II, cap. 25, says 1518, which is improbable. Pineda was one of the malcontents accompanying Cortes in 1518, and who conspired to abandon him. Two of them were sentenced to death; the pilot De Umbria to have his feet cut off; Pineda, another pilot, and his brother to receive two hundred lashes, etc. De Umbria seems to have remained after this in the service of Cortes, but Pineda got away and entered the service of De Garay. ^ Diego Meruelo had been sent by Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon in 1520 to the Rio de Chicora, and, according to Barcia, lost his life there with Ayllon in 1526. His nephew, of the same name, went as stated, with Narvaez to Apalache. SEBASTIAN CABOT. 75 and his pilot Diego Meruelo the younger had coasted in search of him, finding the land running East and West, thus positively connecting the above provinces. The exploration of the Gulf of Mexico was therefore spread over a period of twenty years, while it might have been accomplished in as many days. * VI. SEBASTIAN CABOT. It is now certain that Sebastian Cabot never sailed along the coasts of the United States South of Nova Scotia. The English have often claimed that he did so in 1497 or 1498, and upon this shadowy basis founded a right of possession by discovery. Cabot himself never published any statement to the above effect, but his papers, which Hakluyt says were in the hands of a certain William Worthington, as late as 1582, are now lost. Had he made such an exploration, Hakluyt would not have been satisfied with the meagre parade of hearsay reports, on which he claims such discovery. A very important note by a friend of Cabot, given below, and published during his lifetime, is suppressed by Hakluyt, while he attaches weight to the perhaps ill understood report made by Cabot to Peter Martyr in 1515.f Had Cabot really thus visited this coast, from Newfoundland to Florida, he would of course have been appealed to as an authority by the Congress of Bajadoz in 1524, of which he was a member when the question of searching for a strait about there was considered. His silence at that time is of itself conclusive on this point. We have carefully investigated the older and the more recently published accounts of Cabot s voyage of 1497, and shown that his land-fall was Cape North on Cape Breton Island, that he got embayed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and came out of it through the straits of Belleisle, whence he sailed back direct to England. J * See Oscar Peschel s excellent resume on the discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico, Zeitalter der Entdeckungen 1858, Cap. 7. f Martyr Dec, III, Lib. VI. $ Historical Magazine, New York, March, 1868. 76 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Over-estimating the distances sailed inside the Gulf, he meant to inform Martyr that he had sailed West to the meridian of Cuba, and the good historian no doubt added that he had reached South to the Latitude of the straits of Gibraltar, misunderstand ing the range of the voyage. That Cabot himself did not claim to have sailed so far South is also definitely proved by a passage hitherto neglected because unfavorable to the English claims in the preface to Richard Eden s Decades, 155o, sig. c. i. " These regions are cauled Terra Florida and Regio Baccalearum or Bac- cliallaos of the which you may reade sumwhat in this booke in the vyage of the woorthy owlde man yet lyuing Sebastiane Cabote, in the vi. booke of the thyrde Decade. But Cabote touched only in the north corner and most barbarous parte hereof, from whense he was repulsed with Ise in the moneth of July." Written under Cabot s own eye, and perhaps dictated by him self in order to rectify Martyr s misstatement of his claims, it would seem to set the question at rest most completely. Hakluyt in his passages, gathered after Cabot s death, to back the English claims, omits this distinct limitation of Cabot s discoveries, and even Richard Biddle, in 1831, does not seem to have observed it. Cabot corresponded with Rarnusius, and perhaps had corrected the statement made by Martyr, for in the Somario of Martyr s three first Decades, made and published by the Italian historian in 1534, it is not repeated. That Ramusius was aware of the real extent of Cabot s explorations is also evident from the Intro ductory "Discorso" to his third volume of 1556, written in 1553, while Cabot was still living, in which no mention is made of his explorations South of New France. Hakluyt, of course, did not notice these omissions, as they would have led to the plain infer ence that we here point out. Cabot s own planisphere, of which but one copy, discovered in 1843 by Yon Martins, is now known, preserved in the French National Library, shows distinctly his Prima Vista to be Cape North, and he places no other name of his own on this coast, excepting to the Island of St. John (Prince Edward s ?), just west of the cape and inside the Gulf. Verrazano was therefore the first one that we know to have sailed along our coast, and his name deserves to be attached to some prominent point of it. ALONZO DE ZUAZO ON A STRAIT TO THE MOLUCCAS. 77 VII. ALONZO DE ZUAZO ON A STRAIT TO THE MOLUCCAS. Although the following passage more directly belongs to another subject, we quote it to show how intelligent minds were at a certain period of time endeavoring to solve a problem which was not fully answered until Magellan s ship had circumnavigated the globe. It has but recently appeared in Spanish (Doc. Ined., 1864, p. 290), copied from the Archives of the Indies in Seville. The Licentiate Alonzo de Zuazo, the legal adviser of the three Jeromite friars who were sent by the Regent, Cardinal Cisneros, in 1516, to Hispaniola to govern the West Indies, and who is best known as the mediator between Cortes and Narvaez, wrote to the Emperor, January 22d, 1518: " In another matter there is a great mystery [secreto]. The concession of Pope Alexander is known ; the partition of the world as if it were an orange between the King of Portugal and tbe grand parents of Your Majesty by certain imaginary lines which were not drawn, because although they sent certain pilots to mark a boundary and fix those lines at the points where they ought to be, as this was a division by longitudes, of which the pilots know nothing and practise nothing, they could not and knew not what to do with certainty, and therefore returned without accomplishing anything. "While drawing the lines, I found that your Majesty was much wronged in the Tierras Firmes of Brasil. From Cape St. Augustine thirty leagues at best may belong to the King of Portugal, and he possesses more than two hundred, from which he yearly receives more than twenty thousand ducats in brasil [wood] and slaves. I, to make sure of it, sent a pilot at my cost to the said Cape, and I found that its position on the Maps was more than a hundred and thirty leagues too much to the East.* " There is another mystery. In the East, Portugal possesses much which belongs to Your Majesty. The City of Malaca itself, which has 25000 inhab itants, belongs to you, as it would appear, from that Mapamundi which Americo caused to be printed, who went to those parts : the [same] which the Senor Infante f has in his chambers, in a circular form. * The good Zuazo deceived himself on this point. See " Die TJieilung der Erde, &c., by Oscar Peschel, Leipzig, 1871. Bulletin de Geographic, ind Kohl s text to Die dltesten general kartell von Amerika, Weimar, 18GO. f The Spanish editors, in a note, say that this must have been Don Fer nando, brother of Charles the Fifth and afterwards Emperor of Germany. A printed Map of the world, compiled by Americus Vespuccius, is not now known. Zuazo may probably have seen a Map drawn by hand for or by Vespuccius. 78 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. "That Your Majesty may not mourn over this, as did Alexander to call himself master of other worlds, you must first order the division to be made: and secondly fit out two small fast sailing vessels to examine it all (mean while the strait which I have heard of in Tierra Firme may be verified, and Diego Alvitez, recently from there, has said it was so), and they can sail along the coast to the South,* or reach that which comes from the North (fiacerse en la Costa del Sur o llevarse a ella de la de Norte) as Vasco Nunez has been doing." VIII. HERNANDO CORTES, AND HIS PROPOSAL, IN 1524, TO SEARCH FOR A STRAIT. The letter, known as the fourth carta-relacion, sent by the Conqueror of Mexico to the Emperor, contains an interesting passage relating to a proposed search for the strait, between Florida and Bacalaos. From the date of the letter, October 15, 1524, it appears that Cortes had heard of the geographical con gress met at Bajadoz, and wished to please the Emperor by causing explorations to be made in both oceans for it. A good version of the extract may be found in Biddle s Cabot, Chap. VII, copied by Conway Robinson, in his work, " An account of discoveries in the West until 1519, and of voyages to and along the Atlantic Coast of North America, from 1520 to 1573. Rich mond, 1848," page 300.f We give below an abridged version from the Spanish text in Gayangos. "I have informed you in the earlier part of this letter of the parties sent by sea and by land, which I hope may meet with success, as I wish to serve your Majesty in every possible way. All that I see remaining to be done in that way is to learn the secret of the coast remaining to be discovered, between the Rio de Panuco [Lat. 23 deg. 45 min.] and La Florida,:}: which last was discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon ; and thence along the North- * Zuazo does not seem t r ) have heard of the voyage of Juan Diaz de Solis in 1516 along the coast of South America. f This work deserves wider circulation and notice. Robinson consulted many original authorities, and gives an admirable resume of the subject. | Cortes had not learned of the explorations of Alonzo de Pineda in 1519, and of Francisco de Garay in 1520, by which the Gulf Coast had been com pletely traced. COR TJKS, A ND HIS PR OP OS A L TO SEA R CH FOR SrRA IT. 7 9 erly coasts of said Florida as far as the Bacallaos. * It is certain that along those coasts there is a strait that passes through to the South Sea. If found, it will be seen that it comes out very near to that archipelago which Magel lan discovered,! according to a certain Map [figure] which I possess \ of those parts. Should a strait be found about there, it would be of great value in reaching the Spice Islands by a route shorter than any other by two thirds, and also because it would pass through lands now owned by your Majesty. Although much in debt for the cost of the expeditions already sent out, and for the expenses of this Government, I have resolved to send three caravels and two brigantines out on this undertaking, but it will cost me over ten thousand gold pesos. This will be the greatest service of the kind I have done, if as I say the strait should be found, but even should none be met with, it must happen that many great and rich lands will be discovered, which will increase your Majesty s possessions. "There is also a negative advantage in case no strait be found, in that your Majesty can then determine what measures will be best in regard to the use of the Spice Islands and lands adjacent to them. In such a case I offer my best services, which will cost your Majesty but little, in carrying out your orders. Please the Lord, the strait may be found, and I will do all I can towards that end. I mean to send the vessels on the South sea to explore the coast, simul taneously with those in the North sea. The first will follow the coast until they find the strait or connect the shore line with that discovered by Magel lan, and the last until they come to the Bacallaos." Cortes at this time conceived Nova Hispania to be a part of Asia, bat by the year 1540 he had explored the coast so far North as to make it nearly certain that North America was a continent by itself. Oviedo, Lib. xxxiii, Cap. xli, Ed. Acad. 1853, p. 456, remarks on this letter: " I take Cortes to be better as a Captain, and more versed in warlike mat ters, such as we have been describing, than as an expert cosmographer, for all what he says ; for the strait of Magellan is very far from the point he speaks of, and very far from being placed where Cortes, according to his * Neither had he heard of Leon s and Ayllon s undertaking on the Atlantic coasts, which had reached to about 84 deg. N. Lat. f Probably Magellan s I. de Ladrones (the Marianas?) or the Philippines. He could hardly mean the Desventuradas. \ No map by any of the companions of Magellan is now known. Their track was perhaps copied by Agnese, on Maps described in this Note. It does not appear that Cortes sent out these last vessels. His explora tions in the Pacific, actively pursued, do not bear on the subject. 80 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. say or his Map, which he says he has, wishes to make it, and there can be no doubt about this now " [1541]. Oviedo in this sneer displays much ignorance, for Cortes was speaking of an undiscovered strait that might be found in the North, and whose Westerly opening might not be far from the Philipines or Ladrones; a plausible conjecture, which the Map recently described by Prof. Peschel explains quite clearly.* This little Mapamundi, which is preserved in Munich, seems to be the w r ork of Baptista Agnese, and a duplicate of it from Dresden, is given by Dr. Kohl (Maine, No. XIV), who had seen still another in the British Museum ; this last one signed by Agnese and dated 1536. Another Map from the Bodleian Library, Oxford, given by Dr. Kohl (Maine, XV, c), drawn, perhaps, by Agnese also, shows a Northern strait between Terra de los Baccalaos and Terra de los Bretones, much as Cortes may have imagined it to be. There is a small Mapamundi, which may best illustrate the geographical views of Cortes, prepared by Gaspar Vopellius, and inserted by Hieronimus Girava in his Cosmographia, which appeared in Spanish at Milan, 155(5, and again at Venice in 1570. On this Map, in which Nueva Espana is joined to India Oriental, the Malucas are placed on the Equator, some forty degrees West of the longitude of Mexico, and close to the American coast, which is made to run almost East and West from Panama to the Ganges. IX. ESTEVAN GOMEZ. Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese pilot, entered the service of the King of Spain, offering to discover a western sea way to the Spice Islands, but Fernan Maghalhaens was preferred to the command of the expedition, with Gomez as his first officer. When half way through the Strait, Gomez, who had been made pilot of a vessel commanded by Alvaro de la Mesquita, abandoned the expedition, arrested Mesquita and returned to Spain. Pend ing the settlement of their dispute, the two were sent out in 1523 with a fleet fitted out to pursue the French corsairs. Later, * Italienische Weltkarte, etc. , Leipzig, 1872. ESTEVAN GOMEZ. 81 Gomez prevailed upon the Emperor to fit out a vessel for the discovery of a Strait North of Florida, between lats. 37 deg. and 44 deg. He was detained by having to attend the Geographical Congress of Bajadoz, appointed to determine the mutual claims of Spain and Portugal to the Moluccas, and also, it is said, by a remonstrance against his enterprise from the Portuguese King, who claimed Newfoundland as falling within the demarcation line of 1515. The Congress sat from March 1 to May 1, 1524, and perhaps longer. The commission to Gomez was not signed until February 10, 1525, and he probably sailed within a few days after that date, leaving Corunna with one vessel. No trust worthy account of his voyage has ever appeared. Spanish authors treat of it in general terms, and the Tierra de Gomez appears on Spanish Maps afterwards, but it is uncertain what extent of coast was explored. It appears that he searched it from Newfoundland to Florida, being absent ten months, returning in December, unsuccessful in the main object of his voyage. A paper entitled " Ilernando Magallanes and Estevan Gomez, pilots who sought a Western strait to India," was read June 5, 1866, before the New York Historical Society, by the late Buckingham Smith, which is briefly reported in the Historical Magazine, Vol. X, 1866, p. 229. Mr. Smith appears to have learned that a full account of the voyage was to be found in an unpublished work by the geographer Cespedes, who wrote near the close of the sixteenth century, containing full details of it, but was unsuccessful in finding it, nor had Munoz or Navarrete seen it. Andres Garcia de Cespedes was the author of several geograph ical or mathematical works, enumerated by Leon y Pinelo in his Epitome of 1629, pp. 140, 148 and 184. One of these is entitled Regimento de Navegacion que maudo hazer et Reg. N. S. por orden de su Consejo real de las Indias. Madrid, 1606, folio. This work does not contain the full voyage of Gomez. Another one, perhaps containing it, is his " Isolario general" in manu script, present owner unknown. 11 82 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. X. IDENTIFICATION OF JUAN FLORIN AS GIOVANNI DI VERRAZANO. In the Spanish accounts of his exploits as a corsair, he is always called Juan Florin or Florentin. Peter Martyr first mentions him as Florin, in the sixth chapter of his eighth Decade, written 1525, but first printed in 1530. Though mention is often made of the French pirates, from the eighth chapter of the fifth Decade (written in 1521), to the end of the work, and especial stress is laid (Dec. VIII, cap. IX) on the safe arrival of the treasure ships at the end of July, 1525, guarded by the fleet sent out to convoy them, he omits any allusion to the capture of Juan Florin. Such a matter would hardly have escaped his notice, nor does he mention it in his letters. These letters were first printed in 1530. The first notice of the leader of the pirates by name, is in one dated November 19, 1522, where he is simply called Florinus, a French pirate. In June, 1523, he speaks of Joannis Florini, the French pirate, and he is last mentioned by name in August, 1524, though the French pirates are spoken of later in the year. All that can be negatively inferred concerning the capture of Florin, from Peter Martyr, is that in this last letter of November 1 8th his name does not appear. Ramusius does not appear to have seen the full edition of the Decades, of 1530, nor the letters either, for in the Italian Somario of 1534, which, as Mons. Davesac* has recently shown, was pre pared by him, he had only the three first Decades (as published in 1516 in Spain, in Basle in 1533, and Cologne 1574) before him. Nor does Ramusius appear ever to have seen these last five Decades. Had he seen them, he would perhaps have recognized Verrazano under the names which Peter Martyr uses, when speak ing of him. The full editions of Martyr s Decades and Letters do not seem to have left Spain for many years, and were perhaps jealously guarded from general circulation for more than fifty years, since in 1574 but three Decades were reprinted, and not till Hakluyt published at Paris in 1587, the whole eight, do they seem to have been quoted by authors generally. * Daveeac. Bull, de Gtog. , July, 1872, p. 10, note. DECADES OF THE NEW WORLD. 83 Oviedo does not, but Gomara does name Florin, and as a pirate his name does not appear in any published Spanish or other work until Herrera (Dec. Ill, Lib. IV, cap. XX), in 1601, speaks of him as Florin de la Hochela, captain of six armed ves sels. In the same Decade (Lib. VI, cap. IX), he gives the voyage of Juan Verraano Florentin, from Ramusius, without a suspicion that these names belonged to one person. The next printed reference to him as a corsair, is in Bernal Diaz del Castillo, whose narrative of the Conquest of Mexico, written in 1568, was not printed until 1632. He calls him Juan Florin and Florentin^ a French corsair, and gives the first pub lished account of his capture and execution. De Barcia, in his Ensayo Cronologico de Florida, 1723, was the first to identify the corsair with the discoverer. He calls him Juan Verrazano Florentin, Corsario de Francia, and gives a very brief notice of his exploring voyage, from Ramusius, and of his exploits under the name of Juan Florentin, alludes to the report of his death in America, and then gives the story of his capture and execution, apparently from Bernal Diaz. Thus two centuries had elapsed before this identification was made, during all which period no one had even suspected it. The heading of his own letter, first published in 1556, might have awakened a surmise to this effect, and possibly the Spanish Government knew the truth, but it is curious that the fact should have been so slow in finding its way into print. XL DECADES OF THE NEW WORLD, BY PETER MARTYR. Translated Extracts from the Decades of Peter Martyr concerning French pirates. Dec. V, Cap. 8 [1532 ; and written about the same time as his letter of November 19]. " Of these two" [hidalgos who had served under Cortes], " Benavides, leaving his companions, returned recently in one of the two ships sent by Cortes. In them gifts are brought, which are said to be far more precious and beautiful than those which came in the year when his Majesty went to Belgium, and seen by your Reverence. They estimate these 84 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. treasures to be worth about two hundred thousand ducats, but these ships have not yet reached us. They have stopped at the Cassiterides, called the Azore Islands by the Portuguese, the sovereigns thereof, to avoid falling into the hands of French pirates, as happened to one coming last year from Plispaniola and Cuba loaded with Gold of the weight of Seventy-two thou sand ducats, of precious pearls six hundred eight ounce pounds, and two thousand arrobas of sugar. The Spanish arroba con tains twenty-five six ounce pounds. Many brought individually much besides, all which became the booty of the pirates. An armed fleet has been sent, which is to bring these two safely from the Azores. These ships bring, as Benavides reports, three tigers. Two gentlemen, captains in the wars in those countries, remain in charge of these ships, Alfonso de Avila and Antonio Quig- nones, carrying the gift to the King from the people, but the share of Cortes is entrusted to Juan Ribera, private Secretary of Cortes, and his companion in all his labors from the beginning. News has recently been brought that fifteen ships of the French pirates were seen cruising on the Ocean, expecting to lay hands upon these ships as they did with the other, but that they were driven by storms on the Coast of Africa, and that many of them were drowned." Cap. X (1522)., "... .but there is a rumor of uncertain origin, that the French pirates have already got scent of those ships ; may God bring it out aright." Dec. VI, Cap. X (1524). "The troubles of these times, due to the various pirates and the hostilities with the French King, have put a stop to our communications both by land and by sea." Dec. VII, Cap. IV (1524). "They say that Cortes has 300,000 pesos ready to send to Caesar but learning of the capture of so many laden ships by the French pirates, hardly ventures to despatch these. Thus, while in our Council of the Indies, coun sel was being held on the measures to be taken for the safety of these ships, it was resolved, and provided by Caesar upon our petition,* and ordered that they should gather, as fast as each one was laden, at Hispaniola as a rendezvous. The ships being gathered from all those lands, a strong fleet would thus be formed, * See Cortes de Valladolid. DECADES OF THE NEW WORLD. 85 which would be safe from the attack of pirates if they had to defend themselves. What fate is to befall the armament is to be determined by Divine Providence." Cap. V (1524). " While I am writing of these things, word is brought that four ships from the Indies have arrived on our Spanish coasts. What treasures they bring we have not heard." Dec. VIII, Cap. IV (1525). "They say that Cortes is still deplor ing the loss of those great treasures, captured by the French pirates about three [two ?] years ago, which he was sending to C3sar. But what shall we say concerning the gems and precious stones ? Passing over the rest, there was a pyramidal emerald, whose base was nearly as broad as the palm of a man s hand. It was told to us in the Council and to Caesar that such an one had never seen by human eye before. It is said that the French Admiral purchased it at an incredible price from the captor of this booty. But they treat Alfonso de Avila with inhumanity. He is a young man of noble family, but not rich. They keep him a prisoner in a foul dungeon, upon the sole pretext that to him were entrusted this jewel and the other treasures. They think that they can exact from him twenty thousand ducats if he wishes to ransom himself." Cap. VI. " Cortes, by reason that the French pirate named Florinus, took his fleet with many precious things, which he and the other officers in New Spain, partners in his conquests, were sending to Cresar, has from grief over so great a loss, sent no letters either to Ca3sar or to our Council. He has thus allowed a suspicion to arise from this and from the sayings of many who frequently return from those Kingdoms, of a defection from Csesar." Dec. VIII, Cap. IX [writing about a large fleet bound to the West Indies, on which there went a retainer of his, Juan Mende- guren, he says, November, 1525], "From him I have received letters from Gomera, one of the Fortunate Islands, where all vessels crossing the Ocean stop for refreshments. He writes that they had got thus far prospering, in the space of ten days, and that fast ships could do it in less, but that it was the duty of the convoy to wait for the slow sailers, lest they should fall into the jaws of the French pirates, who watched them for some time 86 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. under sail, that they might fall upon the laggards. I do not remember whether I have said or not, that two ships sent by Fernando Cortes from New Spain, the latest new lands known to us, had arrived at the Azores. I will tell you how it was arranged that they should not fall into the wide spread jaws of the pirates, who had long waited for them cruising around, and how they avoided them and what they bring. One of them, having dis charged her cargo, determined to try her luck, and by the help of Providence, did not fall among the robbers, escaping safely. This news being heard, a fleet of six ships was hastily prepared, of which four are two hundred tons burthen, and also two cara vels completely equipped for fighting, in case they met with pirates. The King of Portugal added four others, good sailers and well furnished with all kinds of guns. They sailed on the 25th of June, took in the cargoes left behind, and returned safely about the end of July. Thanks were offered to God in Seville. We expect the chief captains every day. There were only two small ships from Cortes. They ascribe the little treasure in the ships to the poverty of those regions. They bring to Caesar only seventy thousand gold pesos." [He gives the reasons for ordering the spice laden vessels from the East Indies to start and to land at Corunna, among which is the fear of pirates along the South ern coasts, for, as he says], " there are in those shores between the high mountains many desert valleys, which are not much peopled on account of their sterility. These are the hiding places of pirates, who signalled by their men watching on the top of the mountains, attack the passing ships. On this account it was ordered that business should be carried on there " (at Corunna). This Chapter is dated November 19th, 1525. Martyr completed one more Chapter of this eighth Decade and died in October, 1526. There is some confusion in his accounts as given in the Decades, and they must be compared with his Letters in order to understand them. It will be noticed that in the Decades he only names Florinus once and that he says nothing about his capture. LETTERS OF PETER MARTYR. 87 XII. LETTERS OF PETER MARTYR. The letters of Peter Martyr cover a most interesting period of European history, namely, from 1488 to 1525. They are full of details which can be found nowhere else, and abound with gossip of nil kinds. He wrote them in fluent but not very classic Latin, to persons in Italy or Spain, and often in haste, as he himself admits. We find in them many passages concerning the New World, taking, as he did, a vivid interest in the progressive dis coveries made there. As a member of the Council of the Indies and as an attache to the royal court he had opportunities of learning all that was happening there. He gathered these details into Decades, the first one, written before 1500, being published in 1511, two others appearing in 1516, and the whole eight in 1530, after his death, which occurred in 1526. The letters, 812 in number, were first published at Alcala in 1530, and again at Paris in 1670, but have not been translated. In Ep. 634 (Paris Ed.), dated January 30th, 1519, he mentions treasures expected to arrive from islands near the Continent. This was the consignment of gold collected by Juan de Grijalva during his expedition to Yucatan and the lower Mexican coast in 1518. This was forwarded by Velasquez, Governor of Cuba, and got safely in to Seville. In Ep. 650 (Paris Ed.), dated December 2d, 1519, he announces the arrival of the first treasure sent by Cortes. In Ep. 686 (Paris Ed.), dated September 13th, 1520, he says that all Gold from the Indies must pass through the Casa de Contratacion, and in Ep. 715 (same ed.), of March 6th, 1521, he alludes to treasure expected, as he says, from the lands West of Cuba. Verrazano, a few weeks after this last date, took one or two vessels from the Indies according to Herrera, but they were not sent by Cortes. The next four letters are full of details concerning the pirates and their captures. Epist. 774 (Ed. 1530), 771 (Ed. 1670). Valladolid, November 19, 1522. " These vessels from Fcrnand Cortes the conqueror of the Yucatan and other newest lands, have arrived at the Cassi- 88 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. terides, Portuguese Islands, commonly called the Azores. Con cerning the treasures thereof, but particularly the ornaments and vestments consecrated to their deities, and how far they differ from those sent by the same, and which you saw in Valladolid, they speak with great animation and say that those brought in one of the three ships exceed the former greatly in beauty and value. The other two vessels, however, fearing the French corsairs, have remained at the said islands. They pretend to say that car goes to the value of eight hundred thousand ducats are brought in them. There they will stay, consequently, until another fleet, which has been ordered to be fitted out, can be sent from Seville to convoy them, for we have been taught by a very bitter exam ple, which ought to make us more vigilant, unless fortune blinds us. For last year one Florin, a French pirate, captured a ship coming from Hispaniola with gold to the amount of eighty thou sand ducats, six hundred eight ounce pounds of pearls and two thousand arrobas of sugar. As Commander of these three ves sels came Juan Ribera, as private envoy of Fernan Cortes, who in the name of his Master, Fernan Cortes, is to present half of those gifts to Ca3sar, and the other half is to be offered by the two representatives of the magistrates and soldiers of those lands in their name to Ca3sar. These two are still with the ships. Juan Ribera resolved to tempt fortune with one of the ships and came in. What he brought you shall learn elsewhere. He has not yet landed the cases he brought, which, however, are all his own, nothing for the King himself. In the three ships they brought over three tigers, reared from whelps, each in his cage. By the violence of the storms, one of the cages was opened a little one night. By great exertion the tiger burst the planks asunder and attacked the men as fiercely as if it had never seen one. Five of those it met were badly wounded (each) by one blow. Their comrades, roused by the noise, disabled the quadruped with spears and drove it into the sea. To avoid the same happening again they shot the second one in its cage with darts. So they only bring one, which God grant may, with the other things, escape the jaws of the pirates, for they have become so greatly allured by that booty, by means LETTERS OF PETER MARTYR. 89 of which they have gathered fresh strength, that we can no longer safely navigate our ocean." Epistle 782 (Ed. 1530), 779 (Ed. 1670). Valladolid, June 11, 1523. "This very day more bad news is brought. I have already written about three ships which Fernan Cortes sent with immense treasures from the most remote lands, two of which for fear of pirates stayed at the Cassiterides, the Azore islands, until a new fleet could be sent to convoy them. A little fleet of three cara vels was sent for their protection, but in vain. The larger vessel laden with those precious things, attacked by two ships, fell into the hands of John Florin, the French pirate. The other ship escaped, with only one of the twelve large cases, and one of the tigers of which I have already spoken. These few thus escaped, immensely excel in richness and elegance of the dresses, the gifts seen by you, before the Emperor s departure from Valladolid to Galicia on his way to the Low Countries. And no wonder. Those came from tribes in the provinces, these were brought from the treasury of that great King Muteczuma, and the other gran dees of his court and their famous temples. Those who had handled the articles aver that those lost by this mischance exceed in value 600,000 ducats. There was a large quantity of gold dust, and the robes dedicated to their Gods were richly trimmed with gold. I took the Venetian Ambassador* and several nobles to see them at the house of those who are taking care of this box, until it is presented to Caesar. These enable us to judge of what was loet. They admired the beauty and richness, the designs wrought with wondrous skill, and figures intermingled with all kinds of flowers, plants, animals, snares and birds. They are a strong proof that these people are polished, of acute minds and industrious." Ep. 804, Ed. 1530. Ep. 800, Ed. 1670. Valladolid, August 3d, 1524. " To turn to other matters ; a courier of the King of Portugal comes hither with the complaint, that Florinus the French pirate had captured a ship of his King, coming from the Indies, in * See Contarim. 12 00 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. which the freight they brought was taken, amounting to a sum of one hundred and eighty thousand ducats of gums and spices." Ep. 806, Ed. 1530. Ep. 802, Ed. 1670. Valladolid, November 18th, 1524. " The sea is also hostile to us. Of the many carracks wrecked and damaged by storms you know most fully, for they were all Italian. Jacob de Veer, distinguished in Spain in your day, built one. This fell into the hands of the French pirate, with a thousand five hundred bags of Spanish wool, and with other things which were going to the fairs of Belgium and Antwerp, amounting in value to seventy thousand ducats. XIIL CONTARINI ON THE FRENCH CORSAIRS. The Venetian envoy in Spain, at this time, was the well-known Gaspar Contarini, and we find several allusions in his despatches home to the captures by the French corsairs. These papers are now in the Marciana (library) in Venice, bequeathed to it by one of his descendants, in 1843. Mr. Rawdon Brown, the able editor of several volumes of Calendars of Venetian State papers, relating to English affairs, pointed out these letters to Mr. Henri Harrisse, author of the Biblioteca Americana Vetustissima, 1866, and of other works showing great research. We give such extracts from them as bear upon the treasure of Cortes, from his Supplement to the work just mentioned, Paris, 1872. The first extract, not dated, speaks of the new empire dis covered by Cortes. The second, from Carte 27, dated November 18, 1522 (one day previous to a similar one of Martyr s, both written after the arrival of Juan de Ribera), mentions the treasure, but says nothing about corsairs. The third extract, from Carte 29, dated June 7, 1523, announces the capture of two out of three treasure-vessels by French vessels, and the escape of the third. He then adds: "His Majesty, here, has written to all his ports that as many as HERRERA S DECADES. 91 possible should go out and pursue the said French vessels, and desires that half of the gold and vestments which may be recap tured should remain to them; for they hold that these French vessels cannot have yet reached a place of safety." The other extracts are not dated, and speak of still richer trea sures expected, etc. XIV. HERRERA S DECADES. Decade III, Lib. IV, Cap. XX, 1523. Alonzo Davila, Antonio de Quinones, Diego de Ordaz and Alonzo de Mendoza were waiting at Santa Maria, in the Azores, to be sent for, and, becoming tired of waiting, Diego de Ordaz resolved to come on with other passengers, in a Portuguese ship, and landed in Lis bon. Capt. Domingo Alonzo left the vessels bound to the Indies, that he was convoying, at the Canaries, and went to the Azores with his three caravels. Coming back to Spain with Davila, Quinones and their fellow passengers, with the gold and things they were in charge of, at ten leagues from Cape Saint Vincent, six armed French vessels came out against them,* whose captain was Florin of Rochelle. Of the three Spanish caravels, one took to flight, two prepared for battle, and, although they fought bravely, were captured. Antonio de Quinones was killed, and Alonzo Davila was carried to La Roc helle, whence those vessels came, and was a prisoner there for three years. Almost all the treasure was lost, which Cortez was sending to the King, not only as a present, but also his fifth, and a vessel, which was coming from Espanola, with sixty-two thousand ducats, six hun dred marks of pearls, and two thousand arrobas of sugar. Cap. XXI. The Emperor felt deeply the loss of the two cara vels which the French captured, and of the ship, and with so much the more care he ordered that care should be had to protect the Armada by a fleet fitted out by expending the custom duties (averias). Lib. VII, Cap. IV. (The Emperor) sent instructions to all the Governors of the Islands and Tierra Firme to assure the safety *This is probably an exaggeration; Florin had, probably, four only. 92 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. of the inward and outward voyage, and directing them what course to follow to avoid the corsairs. Dec. Ill, Lib. X, Cap. XI, 1526. And as the French were still continuing to cruise (as corsairs), it was ordered that all vessels from the Indies should be well armed, and that they should gather at the Island of Hispaniola, and should sail together for mutual protection, for it was reported that the corsairs had captured a ship and taken from it the pilot and compass [chart ?] in order to learn the navigation and help to look for the ships of the Indies, where they might be taken with greater safety to themselves. The same arrangement was made for vessels sailing to the Indies, and that a Captain-General should have authority over the fleet, who, with experienced pilots, might save much loss, punish the mutineers, and repress the bad practice of the crews, who maltreated passengers and committed offences in the places where they stopped. Revised maps were to be prepared under the supervision of Hernando Colon, etc. A magazine of artillery and ammunition was also ordered to be established in Seville for arming the India-bound vesels. XV. BERN AL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO. Cap. CLIX (CLXIX), fols. 163 and 164. Let us leave the letters and speak of the good voyage which our Procuradores pursued after they started from the port of Vera Cruz, which was on the twentieth day of the month of December [ ? ], one thousand five hundred and twenty-two,* and they happily passed through the channel of Bahama, f and, on the way, two of the tigers out of the three which they carried escaped and wounded some sailors, and they determined to kill the remaining * This date appears only in Bernal Diaz, and is certainly erroneous. f The vessels were piloted by Anton de Alaminos, the discoverer of this channel, who accompanied Cortes to Mexico, and took his first vessel to Spain by this route. See B. Diaz, Cap. LIU; also note, Gulf of Mexico, to this paper. BERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO. 93 one, because he was very wild and they could not manage him, * and continued their voyage to the island called la Tercera; and as Antonio de Quinones was captain, and considered himself valiant and in love, it appeared that he was returning to that island with a woman, and a quarrel arose about her, and they gave him a sword cut on the head, of which he died after some days, and Alonzo de Avila remained sole commander; and while Alonzo de Avila was steering, with the two ships, towards Spain, f not far from the island, Juan Florin, a French corsair, fought with them, and he took all the gold and ships, and Alonzo de Avila, and took the prize to France. And, in the same manner, Juan Florentin pillaged another ship coming from the Island of St. Domingo, and took from it twenty thousand pesos of gold and a great quantity of pearls and sugar and ox hides, and, with all this, he returned to France very rich, and made great presents to his King, and to the Admiral of France, of the articles and pieces of gold which we brought from New Spain, so that all France was marvelling at the riches which we sent to our great Emperor, and the desire took the said King of France also to own a part of the Islands of New Spain, and he said, at the time, that with the gold only that was going to our Ca3sar from those lands he could wage war with his France, and although at that time Peru was not known or conquered, but, as I said, he only had that from New Spain, and the Islands of St. Domingo and St. Juan and Cuba and Jamaica, and it is told that afterwards the King of France said, or sent a message, to our great Emperor that as he and the King of Portugal had divided the world without giving him a portion of it, that they should show to him the testament of father Adam, whether they were named as his sole heirs, and lords of those lands which they had taken between the two without giving him any of them, and that for that * Herrera, Dec. Ill, Lib. Ill, Cap. I, says there were two, and that the one which escaped wounded eight men and killed two. These animals were American jaguars. f Bernal Diaz is the only authority for this scandalous tale, which may be only soldiers gossip. Herrera, better informed, says Quinones was killed in the action with the corsairs. Diaz omits all reference to Juan de Ribera, the secretary of Cortes, who, according to Peter Martyr, was the chief of the deputation. 94 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. reason it was lawful to rob and take all that he could on the sea; and forthwith he ordered Juan Florin that he should return with another fleet to seek his living by the sea; and on that voyage which he undertook, and on which he made another great prize of all cargoes between Castile and Canary Islands, he met with three or four strong ships manned by Biscayans, and some of them attacking him on one side and the rest on the other, they fought with Juan Florin and destroyed and disabled him, and captured him and many other Frenchmen, and took their ships and clothing, and carried Juan Florin and other captains prison ers to Seville to the Casa de Contratacion, and despatched them prisoners to his Majesty; and after he knew it, he ordered that, on the way, they should be executed, and in the Puerto del Pico they were hung, and thus made our gold safe, together with the captains who carried it, and Juan Florin who took it. Now let us return to our story, which is that they took Alonzo de Avila prisoner, and they put him into a fortress, believing that they would get a great ransom, because he carried so much gold in his charge guarding it well and Alonzo de Avila, &c., &c. XVL OVIEDO ON THE CAPTURE OF 1523. Lib. XXXIII, Cap. XLI, Ed. Acad. Madrid, 1853, Vol. 3, p. 467-8. This historian does not name Florin, although he mentions the loss of the vessels. After speaking of the despatch of the trea sure and curiosities, he adds : They were taken at sea by French corsairs, and many who I have heard speak of this, and who saw those things, estimated their value at more than one hundred and fifty thousand ducats of gold, and that of the money which they took besides, or rather the gold and silver, at as much more. And although he [Cortes] regretted what had happened, he said that on the other hand he was pleased that they had taken them, because they would not be missed by His Majesty, as he would labor to send others much richer and more curious, according to the news received from certain provinces, which he had then sent to conquer. And that he was also satisfied with such a loss, because the French and other nations to whom these things became known, would know that besides the great and extensive kingdoms and GOMARA ON FLORIN DE BARCIA ON VERRAZANO. 9,5 seignoralties which Their Majesties held in Spain and elsewhere, one of the least of their vassals could perform such a service in so remote a region as these Indies, gaining so many kingdoms for the increase of the royal sceptre of Castille." Oviedo arrived in Spain from Espanola November 5, 1523, and was with the Court during 1524 and 1525, starting again for America April 30, 1526. If, therefore, Florin had been taken or hung during that time, Oviedo would certainly have chronicled the fact. XVII. GOMARA ON FLORIN. La Gonquista de Mexico, (^aragoga, 1553, fol. Ixxxvii. After describing the things sent in the three caravels from Mexico, and giving the names of the officers in charge of their precious freight, all which seems to be taken from Martyr s Decades, he continues : "But Florin, a French Corsair, took the two caravels which carried the gold, this side of the Azores. And he took at the same time that which was coming from the Islands with seventy-two thousand ducats, six hundred marks of mother of pearl (aljofar) and pearls, and two thousand arrobas of sugar." Francisco Lopez de Gomara became the Chaplain of Cortes after the conquest, and is generally considered a most reliable though sometimes partial historian. He may have been in Seville, a young man, at the time of Florin s capture of the treasure, and is the first author, after Martyr, who mentions Florin s name. That he, like Martyr, should be silent about the taking and hang ing of Florin, is significant of the groundlessness of the story. XVIII. DE BARCIA ON JUAN VERRAZANO. Etisayo Cronologico para la Historia General de la Florida: por Don Gabriel de Cardenas y Cano. Madrid, 1723, folio. This is one of the numerous works of the indefatigable Don Andres Gonzales de Barcia, whose name is concealed under the above anagram of it. 96 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Fol. 8, year 1524. "Juan Verrazano, a Corsair of France, coasted the Eastern shores of Florida for more than 700 leagues. Having sailed on the 17th of January from the uninhabited rock of Madera, he arrived at the mouth of the river of Canada or St. Lawrence, noting the lands, its people and their customs, as he himself writes* to Francis the First, King of France, from Dieppe, on the 8th of June [July], whose narrative is abridged by Antonio de Herrera, who believed that he returned to France, although some say that he did not, having died on the way ; and others that on attempting to land he was eaten by Indians the following year. If he did not return to Florida afterwards, it would not be easy to agree about it. The truth is, that at that time, there infested our Seas Juan Florentin, a French pirate, who made himself famous from having taken, in the year 1521, the Ship in which Hernan Cortes was sending to the Emperor Charles V, a present of gold, silver and other precious things, in the charge of Alonzo de Avila, whom he took a prisoner,! and another ship coming to Spain from the Island of Santo Domingo, of great value, with which, and others, he returned to France very rich, and made great presents to the King Francis, and to those of his court, who was astonished to see such riches." " He took again to the sea. much honored and favored, and witli greater forces and preparations; did great damage, and took innumerable prizes; and retiring to France with them, he was met near the Canaries this year by four Biscayan vessels, who took his ships and what they carried, carrying him a prisoner to Seville, with others. Thence they were sent to Madrid, but those who had influence and had been damaged through his violence, clamored for justice: so he and the other Captains were exe cuted, being hung in the Puerto del Pico as pirates, public enemies of nations." Barcia erroneously places the first capture in 1521. We have shown that Florentin took a Santo Domingo ship in this year, * The Spanish reads, como se dice, que el mismo lo escrivio a Fran cisco, &c. ; " but he cannot mean to say that he was not acquainted with the letter itself in Ramusius. f Who (Avila) having recovered his liberty went afterwards with Francisco Montejo to the conquest of Yucatan as Royal Treasurer, keeping the rank he held in New Spain. (Parenthesis in text.) DE VIERA. 97 but the Cortes treasures, with auotlier West India vessel, were taken in 1523. In 1522 he was driven away from the Canaries, according to Viera, and also from the Spanish coast, according to Ilerrera,* without carrying off any prizes. The conflict with the Biscayans is the story told by Bernal Diaz. This is therefore a very confused account, and palpably incorrect as to dates. His story of the execution is evidently taken at second hand from Bernal Diaz, leaving but a slender hearsay report as a foundation for it. As before stated, these two writers alone mention the execution of Juan Florin. It will be noticed also that he makes him sail along our coast from north to south. XIX. DE VIERA. Notices of the general History of the Canary Islands, by Don Joseph de Viera y Clavijo. Madrid, 1772. 3 vols. sq. Svo. Vol. II, Cap. XII, p. 294 (Castillo MS., lib. 3). Action of the Governor of Canary, Pedro Suarez de Castilla, &c. (abridged). "In the sixth year of his government, which was in 1522, he sent out vessels to recapture seven boats with emigrants for the Islands, and made Juan Florin, the corsair, release them. " He then betook himself to the Azores, and captured two vessels return ing from America, sent by Cortes, with the Ransom of Montczuma, with over 88m. Castellanos in bars of gold and plate, precious stones, pearls," &c. There are two Castillo manuscripts mentioned by de Viera, in his Prologo. The above extract is probably from the one by Don Pedro Agustin del Castillo of Tenerife, being a history of the Islands. It would be interesting to look at this manuscript carefully, as it may contain further details about the above occur rence. * Dec. Ill, Lib. I, Cap. XIV. 13 98 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. XX. CORTES DE VALLADOLID. Las Cortes de Valladolid del ano do 1523. Printed 1551. Peticion LXXIII. " Item that the seas of the Kingdom of Granada and Andalusia, and also those of Castille, being full of Moorish, Turkish and French corsairs; so that no one can traffic, and every day they attack the forts and capture persons and effects, and also other damage, therefore your Highness is begged that the fleet may cruise in said seas, and that another fleet maybe prepared, if neces sary, so that the seas may be cleared in such a manner that com merce can be carried on, that the galleys may be equipped and entrusted to a person of experience and accustomed to maritime matters, and that your Highness would provide in such a way that these Kingdoms may not suffer such damage, disgrace and affront that no one dare leave his house, and merchants dare not come to Castille, from fear of the corsairs, and from this reason the goods that are brought and enter the Kingdom are twice as costly as they used to be. To this we answer, that we appreciate what you tell us, and it is right that measures should be taken, and we charge you to arrange among yourselves the manner and method which is to be followed to remedy it, and advise us thereof; because what can be provided according to our means shall be done, and in the providing of the galleys Ave have already entrusted them to a person experienced in the sea." Peticion LXXIL " Further ; that a guard of the coast of Granada be provided, as it was in the time of the Catholic Kings. To this we answer, that it shall be done." This is probably the petition alluded to by Peter Martyr, as having been presented by the Council of the Indies, in Decade VII, Cap. IV. It is, however, uncertain whether the sending of an armed fleet under Domingo Alonzo to the Azores, was an independent act of the Council of the Indies, or in accordance with this decree. CORTES DE TOLEDO. 99 XXL CORTES DE TOLEDO. Las Cortes de Toledo del ano de 1525. Printed 1550. Peticion XXII. " Also we entreat your Majesty that since all the Kingdom and the coasts of Castile, as well as those of Andalusia, are much cursed (damriiticada) by the robberies which the French and Moors have committed, and continued to do daily, of many ships and merchandise of great value, and of the gold from the Indies, which they have taken because our coasts are not guarded ; by which your Majesty is much injured, because the French provide themselves with our ships, and the Moors take them also, and with them carry on war, and the coasts will remain without ship ping, from which great damage will ensue to the whole Kingdom, may your Majesty be pleased to order that in the Cities and places in the land of Biscay and of Guypuscoa those who may wish to do so may arm, your Majesty ordering and aiding them to do this, and further providing thus for the sea coast as may be required ; and also in the ports of Andalusia and the Moorish coast, may your Majesty order this to be remedied and provided for ; in such manner that the French and the Moors may not do mischief as they have done hitherto ; all which your Majesty has promised many times for the peace of your Royal mind and for the honor and profit of these Kingdoms ; and towards this his Holiness has granted and grants many Bulls and Indulgences. To this we answer that w T e hold it a service for all those of our Kingdoms who desire it to arm for the above purpose ; and to aid in the outlay they may make, we have ordered and now order that during our Royal reign the fifth belonging to us in all prizes taken shall be granted; in furtherance of which we order our Council to make the required regulations ; and as for the coast guard, we have ordered our Council of War to issue orders, to provide that the coast be made safe and well watched, that our subjects may not suffer loss." This decree was perhaps issued in 1523 or 4, after the great captures of the Mexican treasure vessels, and the Biscayans, who met and captured a fleet of French Corsairs, probably fitted out under its authority. 100 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. XXIL CORSAIRS IN THE WEST INDIES AFTER 1527. Continual complaints of the ravages by French and English corsairs were made by the officials in the West Indies after the year 1527. The thirst of the Spanish monarchs for gold, and the rapacity of individual adventurers, left the colonies poor, and productive of little besides articles of intrinsic value. So little had been expended for the defence of these rich islands and provinces, that as late as 1535 there had been constructed but one fort for their defence,* the poor one in the port of Sto. Domingo, of which the historian Oviedo was alcalde from 1533 to 1554. His complaints of its poor condition, with its ten soldiers, a few small cannon and small supply of powder, were unceasing. This fort, and some minor defences at other points, are said to have been constructed for defence against the Indians only, and not as a protection to the ports. The only naval armament consisted, in 1541, of galleys at a few ports, f and the sea was quite open to any daring foreign adventurer. This defenceless condition became known to the French and English, who soon took advantage of it, and their privateers roamed in the Gulf and Caribbean Sea, entering ports and seizing laden vessels in them, sacking towns or levying ran som, and refitting in places which dared not refuse supplies. Some of the English vessels had French pilots, who were better acquainted with the routes to the islands and the coasts there than their own, the French having been the first to inaugu rate privateering at the sources of the supply of precious metals. From this time the pursuit of Spanish treasure became unceas ing, and was continued for a century and a half by the French or English, the Dutch also entering the lists after shaking off the Spanish yoke. The history of the early buccaneers has not been written, but many tales of the exploits of their successors have been gathered. Spain paid dearly for her colonial policy of exclusion, and reaped no lasting benefit from her possessions in the New World. *Doc. In., 1864, 581. f See in reference to the above : Oviedo, Hen-era, and Documentos Ineditos, particularly the volume for 1864, pages 12, 15, 511-13-48-70-72-75-81-83. ROUTES TO AND FROM THE WEST INDIES. 101 XXIIL ROUTES TO AND FROM THE WEST INDIES. No settled route from Spain to the West Indies had been pursued until Pedrarias Davila, in 1514, going to Castilla del Oro (Darien), with a fleet, took advantage of all that could shorten the navigation, and his path across the ocean was thenceforth adopted as the regular one to be followed. Oviedo, Herrera, Cespedes and others describe the route outward and inward circumstantially. The first course outward from Spain was to Gran Canaria, Gomera or Palma, occupying eight or ten days, where supplies were taken in. Taking a departure from Ferro, a course was made W. S. W., S., toward the Northerly windward Islands, favored by the Brisas or trades, endeavoring to sight La Deseada and Dominica. This course, occupying about twenty-five days, was estimated at 750 leagues. On a great circle, it measures 721 Spanish leagues, or 2,470 nautical miles. Vessels badly steered would go wide of the mark, and first make the leeward islands, or even the coasts of Honduras. From Dominica they would generally make for the city of Santo Domingo, on the south side of Ilispaniola, unless bound for Tierra Firme. The whole voyage was made in about thirty-five to forty days, and the vessels bound to the Northerly Islands would sail in April or May, but if for Tierra Firme, in August or September. The return voyage was made in a higher latitude, in order to avoid the trades and meet the north-west winds. At first, vessels passed out into the ocean through the old Bahama channel, but after the Florida channel had been discovered by Alaminos, and the corsairs became troublesome, they were ordered to rendezvous at Havannah, and sail in fleets for mutual protection. Thence they kept well to the north, sometimes sighting the Bermudas, and generally stopping at the Azores. If the Azores could not be made, a course was made to Cape Blanco. From either of these points the course was taken toward Cape St. Vincent, in Portu gal. In the winter season the lower course, in lat. 33 deg., was preferred. Twenty or thirty days was the average time of the voyage to the Azores, and fifteen or twenty thence to San Lucar, though much better time was sometimes made, while others were 102 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. three or four months on the way. The start from New Mexico, or Havannah, was generally made early in May. We give the above in order to indicate the stations which the corsairs would most likely select to waylay Spanish vessels, and the seasons at which they might expect them. About 1527, the French and English corsairs found that by following the trades to the West Indies, they could better attack the treasure-laden vessels of the Spaniards before they had gathered at their ren dezvous in Cuba. The precautions taken to guard them after they had thus met together almost put an end to the watch of the corsairs around the Azores and Cape St. Vincent, which had proved so profitable to Verrazano. XXIV. SUPPRESSION OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOW LEDGE BY SPAIN. The jealous secretiveness of Spain regarding her marine charts has been noticed in another note, and therefore the appearance of a chart of the West Indies in Martyr s Decade of the Ocean, in 1511, must have been unauthorized and probably distasteful to the government. Curiously enough, the King, in this very year, forbids the communication of Spanish charts to foreigners, and it may be that this measure was dictated by the publication of this chart as much as by the Portuguese attempt to get maps from Vespucius. Possibly this may have led to a suppression of the book, for but very few copies of it are now known. The next editions, of 1516 and 1530 (this last, the fullest one, and published after his death) have no maps at all. No maps by Columbus or by the Spanish explorers of America were ever published. We have none by Cortes or Pizarro, Magellan or Gomez, but they all prepared draughts of their dis coveries, no doubt, that served the Pilotos Majores in the com pilation of the fine manuscript charts preserved in European libraries. In fact, we find many references to such charts, but very few of them are now known. No official general charts of the Americas were published in Spain until 1790, but several sketches, such as Pedro de Medina s FAMILY OF VERRAZANO. 103 of 1545, appeared in Spanish works after the middle of the six teenth century. The first general map of the new continent, published from Spanish authorities, is that by Sebastian Cabot in his Mapamundi of 1544, of which but one copy, found by the late Von Martins of Munich, and sent to the Royal library in Paris, in 1843, is now known. Cespedes, in 1606, speaks of it as having been presented to the King of Spain. Its rarity can only be explained by the desire to suppress it by Spanish authority; and the loss of Cabot s papers and memoirs after his death, in 1556, was, no doubt, the result of the same jealous desire to suppress a general knowledge of the Spanish colonial empire. The attempts made to represent the New World by Hylacomilus, in 1513, by Schoner and Apianus, in 1520, and Gemma Frisius, in 1525, were mere guesses at the real outlines of America, until the general interest taken in the Spanish discoveries after the conquest of Mexico, and the wonderful voyage of Magellan, brought out the tolerably accurate map of Oronce Fine, of Dauphine in 1531. Severe penalties were threatened, and death was to be the punish ment of those who allowed strangers to get copies of Spanish charts. These charts, however, must have fallen, at times, into the hands of foreigners, and our navigator, no doubt, had found several such in his prizes, and thus the routes to the Indies became known to the English and French. Spanish pilots may have entered foreign service, but if so they probably assumed an alias, and but one such is named up to the year 1530. XXV. FAMILY OF VERRAZANO. Two Eulogies of Giovanni de Verrazano appeared in Florence about the same time. One, which we have not seen, was included by Giuseppe Allegrini, a printer in Florence, in the second Volume of the work entitled Ritratti ed Elogi degli TTomini Illustre della Toscana, 1768. The other was prepared by Giuseppe Pelli for the same work, but was for some reason, not accepted, and was printed separately by the author, with a preface men tioning the above facts, in 1769. It is signed G. P., but we learn the name of the author from Tiraboschi. Pelli also published 104 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Memoirs for the life of Dante^ a work of some value, and which was republished in 1823. The notice of Verrazano is entitled Elogio \ di Giovanni da Verrazano \ Fiorentino \ Scopritore delta Nuova Francia nel Secolo XVI. | iColophon.] In Firenze MDCCLXIX. | Nella Stamperia di Giuseppe Allegrini, e Comp. \ Square octavo, pp. xi. The copy we have consulted, perhaps the only one in this coun try, was purchased at the Kirkup sale, London, December, 1871, and was kindly loaned to us by the Hon. Henry C. Murphy. The family of Verrazano is considered by Pelli, to have come from Verrazan,* a place in the Val di Greve, a few miles South of Florence (which in the twelfth century belonged to the De Bertoldis e da Panzano), and at the time of his writing still held property there. The same writer says that the Gon- falonierate was twice held by members of the family, and the Priorate about forty times. He names Ludovico di Francesco di Baccio da Verrazano, as having distinguished himself when Governor of Leghorn and Commander of the galleys of San Stefano. His eulogist states that his parents names were Piero Andrea di Bernardo [di Bernardo] da Verrazano, and Fiametta Capella. Giovanni was certainly born after 1480, and had a brother, who was of the Priori in 1529, (possibly the Hieronimus who made the chart, now preserved in Rome, which Mons. Thomassy has described.) The biographer adds that he had seen, in the possession of the family, a copy of Ramusius with a MS. treatise on navigation added to the letter, which was no doubt a copy of the one seen in the Magliabechian Library, by Mr. Greene in 1837, and given in Vol. I of the Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, New Series, 1841. Besides the above, Pelli gives some * There is a place, whose modern name is very like that of our navi gator s, viz., Verraza, the ancient Voragina or Varagio, a few miles west of Cogoletto, one of the places which claims to be the birthplace of Colum bus. Verraza is on the Riviera de Ponente, some eighteen miles vvest of Genoa, a place where much shipbuilding is done, and the birthplace of Jacopo di Voragine, a Dominican, Archbishop of Genoa in 1292, and the compiler of the curious collection of stories known as the Golden Legend. FAMILY OF VERRAZANO. ]05 other details, not immediately relating to our Navigator, and notices in a brief manner the voyage of 1524, from the text of Ranmsius, without a suspicion that a copy of perhaps the origi nal letter was preserved close at hand, in the city where he was writing. No doubt the family history could be traced with greater cer tainty by a modern Italian scholar, versed in such studies. We can add one or two names to the family, that may assist investi gators. A fine Manuscript sermon, written in the neatest style of Italian script, signed at the end " Alexander Verrazamis escripsit MCCCCLXXXXI1II," was procured by us from the above mentioned sale of Baron Kirkup s library, lot No. 4035. This may have been an uncle of Giovanni s, who had taken holy orders. We find the same Christian name mentioned in Coronelli s Epitome Cosmographica, published in Cologne in 1693. At page 263 we read, after a short notice of the voyage of 1524, "that one of the same family, named Alessandro, was living at that date in Florence." In the letter of Annibale Caro, of October, 1537, the Verra- zano who is addressed as a Mapmaker and traveller, and as hav ing a brother also a navigator, was probably Hieronimus, author of the Mapamundi. Mr. Smith, however, in his Inquiry of 1864, treats this letter as a fiction and literary jeu d esprit, but we are of a contrary opinion. Mr. Greene says that the family became extinct in Florence by the death of the Cavaliere Andrea da Verrazano, who died there in 1819. Since the above was written we have seen the work first men tioned and find that it adds nothing to what was already known, concerning our navigator, though some details may be gleaned from it not contained in Pelli s Eulogy. The work in which this Eulogy appears is entitled, " Serie di Rittrati cV Ubmini Illustri Toscani con gli Elogi istorici del medesimi" &c. [title engraved,] Firenze, appresso Giuseppe Allegrini. In four large imp. folio vols. with engraved portraits, <fec. Many of these are engraved by Francesco Allegrini. The dates of the vols. are 1766-68-70 and 73. The Eulogy, with portrait of Verrazano, is under No. 30, in the second volume. It is signed A. C. N. and in the " avver- 14 106 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. timento" the author of it is not named, but is said to be a relative (agnato) of the jurist Antonio Maria Rosati. Pelli is here acknow ledged to be the chief editor of the work. The present Eulogy, as before said, was substituted for the one he had prepared, in consequence of some unexplained misunderstanding. The name is here spelt Verrazzano. On the authority of Cosimo della Rena, the family is said to be of Lombard origin, to have settled in the Val di Greve, and acquired citizenship in Florence in 1190. One of them in 1260 was a Guelf leader, another in 1428 was a general of the Duke of Milan, and Francesco, the Governor of Leghorn, is said to have been much honored by Philip the Fourth of Spain. His mother is farther identified as Fiametta (di J3arone, di Giovanni, di Filippo) Capelli. With Pelli, the author assumes that he was not born before 1480, as his name is not found on certain Registers ( Catasto) that close with that year. This Eulogist then speaks of the voyage to America, from the letter as given in Ramusius, referring to Charlevoix, &c., but adding nothing to what we already know except that he draws attention to the manuscript copy of the letter, with its cosmo- graphical appendix, in the Strozzi library. (Pelli saw this appen dix in MS. in the family copy of Ramusius.) It was therefore from this reference that Tiraboschi was probably enabled to refer to this version of the letter in its first form, which Mr. Greene copied for the New York Historical Society, who published it in 1841. In a closing note, the author speaks of a portrait of the navi gator, hanging in the Real Galleria Medicea, in the Series of Illustrious Men, and as among the famous Seamen, under No. 37. He also mentions a medal struck in his honor, as described in the " Tramoggia del Annale Secondo della Acade- mia Colombaria" under No. 139. The Portrait accompanying this Eulogy is probably of very doubtful authenticity. It represents a good looking man in armor, with a baton in his right hand. Under the portrait there is a coat of arms, which if it really represents the bearings of the family, is curiously suggestive of nautical pursuits. It has a large eight pointed star, gules, with a small shield on the dexter chief bearing a double fleur de Us, all on a field party per pale, or and CRIGNON, PARMENTIER, ESTANCELIN. 107 argent. This seems to be an attempt at a marine compass, and recalls the arms of Amalfi, where that instrument is said to have been invented or improved by Flavio Gioja. Under the Portrait is the following Inscription, GIOVANNI DI PIER ANDREA DI BERNARDO DA VERRAZZANO \ PATRIZIO FlOR GRAN CAPITA COMANDANTE IN MARE PER \ IL RK CRISTIANISSIMO FRANCESCO PRIMO, \ E DISCOPRITORE DELLA NUOVA FRANC I A. nato circa il MCDLXXXV morto nel MI) XXV. | Dedicate al merito sing dell Ill mo , e Rev Sig re Lodovico da Verrazano \ Patrizio,e Canonico FiorentinoAgnato del med \ Preso dal Quadro Originate in Tela esisente presso la sud a NoUl Famiglia. \ G. Zocchidel: F. Allegrini inci : 1767 | XXVL CRIGNON, PARMENTIER, ESTANCELIN. L. Estancelin published at Paris, in 1832, in 8, his " Recherches sur les Voyages et Deconvertes des Namgateurs Normands. He was the fortunate discoverer, among the papers of Mons. Tarbe of Sens, of an account of the voyage of Jean Parmentier, of Dieppe, to Sumatra, in 1529, which was prefaced by a cosmographical treatise. This last was given in Italian by Ramusius, in his collection, Vol. Ill, 1556, folios 423 to 431. Ramusius regrets not being able to give the name of the author of this " Discorso" and had apparently not seen the second part, which is the Voyage to Sumatra in 1529. The manuscript discovered by Estancelin, is considered by him to be of a contemporaneous hand. He gives it in full, adding the Italian part as found in Ramusius. The first part, however, alone interests us, as containing perhaps the first written evidence alluding to the voyage of Verrazano. Mons. Margry, in his Navigations Franaises, etc., pages 130, 199, considers Pierre Crignon, the companion of Parmentier, to have been the author of the Discourse and Narrative. Parmentier, the commander of the expedition, died December 3, 1529, in Ceylon. There is no evidence that Crignon was the author of the Discourse, although he was a good navigator, and wrote a treatise on the variation of the magnetic needle. JOS NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. This first part, or Discorso as Ramnsius well calls it, though a very brief one, gives the author s ideas of the coasts, and of the distances along them, of the known world. It is written in a clear and sketchy manner, and we should like to dwell upon it in greater detail, but shall confine ourselves to the passage in which he alludes to Verrazano. This discourse appears, from internal evidence (and is admitted by Mr. Margry), to have been written in 1539, and is interesting as presenting the first notice of the voyage of 1524, written by a person who perhaps had known its commander. " TJie land of Norumbega. Following the direction of Cape Breton [from E. to W.], one meets with a land contiguous to this cape, and whose coast extends westwardly, one quarter south-west [W. by S.], to the lands of Florida, embracing a space of about five hundred leagues. [Our author had clearly not been along this coast himself.] " This coast was discoverd, fifteen years since, by Messirc Jean de Verra zano, who took possession of it in the name of the King, Francis the First, and of Madame, the Regente. Many navigators, and even the Portuguese, call it the Terre FranQaise. It ends towards Florida, at the 78th degree of longitude West, and 30th degree of latitude North. The land is very fertile in all kinds of fruits; it grows orange trees, almond trees, wild grape-vines, and a great variety of odoriferous trees. This land is called Nurumbega by the natives." About the name Nurumbega, here first mentioned, much has been written without any satisfactory derivation having been suggested, except that it seems to be a native name with the termination eg or ek, sometimes found farther south as og, ok, or ogue, which is an adverbial addition, meaning the place where, or the place of. It is also a common Breton or Norman termination to the name of many places, and thus perhaps its origin may be traced to the early fishing expeditions to these coasts, about which so little is known. Another suggestion has been made, that the name may date back to the time of Ayllon, for Peter Martyr, in giving the details of the Licentiate s explorations, in the second book of his Seventh Decade of the New World, written in 1524, but not published till 1530, says, " The Spaniards travelled through many of the, great provinces of these little Kings, among which they named Arambe, G-uacaia, Quohathe, Tanzacca, Pahor, oil the natives of which are dusky" As no such name as Arambe or Arambec DESMA R q UETS. 1 09 appears on he Spanish maps of 1527 and 1529 by Colon and Ribero, which were made up from the very reports of Ay lion and Gomez, and as Peter Martyr s work was probably unknown to the author of the Memoir of 1539, it seems that we have here a mere verbal coincidence. One might as well make Powhattan and Tennessee out of two of the other names. On the copper globe of 1542, by Ulpianus, (preserved in the New York Historical Society), we find, in the position generally assigned to Norurnbega, an attempted latinized form of it as Normanvilla. This seems to be its first appearance on a map. The map of Hieronimus Verrazano shows, however, in the photo graphic copy of it before us, a trace of a name like Norurnbega. XXVIL DESMARQUETS. Jean Antoine Desmarquets, author of the Memoires Chronolo- yiques de Dieppe, etc., Paris, 2 vols., 12, 1785, (Vol. I, page 100,) gives to Thomas Aubert, on his voyage to Newfoundland in 1508, a companion named Jean Verassen. He pretends to have found this fact in the old archives of Dieppe, but from the tenor of a foot note on the subject, he does not consider this Verassen to be the same person as Verrazano, the Florentine. He adds that in the year 1508 these two captains, in two vessels, ascended the St. Lawrence River for more than 80 leagues (240 geographical miles), naming it thus because they began to ascend it on that saint s day, the 10th of August. This remarkable statement is entirely isolated, and has not since been verified and confirmed. As the archives of Dieppe were destroyed in the bombardment and conflagration of 1694, and the author of these memoirs had little else to consult but private records, his early history of Dieppe is not considered reliable. There is good evidence that Thomas Aubert did make such a voyage in that year, but the name of Verrassen is not elsewhere mentioned. The evident desire of Desmarquets to lessen the merit of Jacques C artier, of St. Malo, a rival seaport, as having discovered the St. Liwrence in 1534, has perhaps led him into putting faith 110 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. in some indications of such a previous discovery among the papers he consulted. Estancelin, a Dieppese himself, and a close student of what is left of the early history of his native place (and whose family papers were used by Desmarquets, as that author states in his preface), found no such name as Yerrassen associated with that of Aubert. Compare, op. cit., p. 43 and 222. XXVIII. RIBAULT. Ribault, who sailed for Florida from Havre de Grace on tbe 18th of February (O. S.), 1562, but did not leave the coast near Brest till the end of February, determined to cross the ocean in a direct line, supposing that he was the first one to attempt it, forgetting or not knowing that Verrazano had done it before. (See Hak. Soc.; Div. Voy., edited by F. Winter Jones, pp. 95-98.) He says: "I determined to prove a newe course which hath not beene yet attempted, etc., to make the furthest arte and traverse of the seas, that ever was made in our memorie or knowledge, in longitude from the East to the West." They sighted Florida on the last of April, having been delayed by storms, being, therefore, two months on the voyage, which is a fair run, considering the unfavorable season of the year, and the imperfect build of the vessels of those days. Verrazano was fifty days on the voyage from Madeira to Florida. XXIX. TAVANNES MEMOIRS, 1536. There is to be found in the Memoirs of Gaspard de Saulx, Seigneur de Tavannes, of 1536, a curious passage* (which we translated for the Historical Magazine, Vol. VI, 1862, p. 157), in which the author dwells on the rise of prices, caused by the * First privately printed; republished, 1657, and included in Petitot s col lection, Torn. 23, Ser. I, p. 238. TAVANNES* MEMOIRS, 1536. Ill influx of the precious metals from the new Indies, and the power conferred by gold on nations possessing it. He also anticipates the use of paper money by proposing the use of tokens of iron, coined "in such a way that it could not be imitated." He closes thus: "This conquest of the New World, proposed to the French and despised by them, is a proof of the little talent of their counsellors, who lost empires for their master, and let their enemies conquer them instead." There seems always to have been a vague tradition relating to the object of the stay of Bartholomew Columbus at the French court about 1 490, * and also of the undertaking of Verrazano, in 1524, circulating in France, but without positive evidence concerning the success of either. Montesquieu, for example, says (Esprit des Lois, book XXI, chap. XXII), "I have frequently heard people deplore the blind ness of the court of France, who repulsed Christopher Columbus when he made the proposal of discovering the Indies." The general rise in the prices of all the necessaries of life after the conquest of Peru, became so noticeable that it attracted the attention of the government. One of the reasons to which this advance in values was attributed was the exportation of such articles to the Indies. This forms the subject of several petitions to the Emperor, in 1548, with the prayer that such exportation may be stopped. The emperor s answer to one of them, praying that woolen, cotton and silk goods may not be exported to the Indies, is that he has referred the matter to the Royal Council and to the Council of the Indies jointly, and that he will act on their advice, f The result of this reference is not given, but such a prayer shows how little Spain understood the management of her colo nies. As mere producers of the precious metals, the value of these fell as they became more plenty, and no one was the gainer by such a trade. * See Noticias de D. Bartolome Colon, por D. E. F. de Navarrete, in the Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espana, Tomo XVI, 1850, pp. 485-574. f See Pragmaticas de Valladolid, Ano de 1548, petition 214; printed in that city by Fernandez de Cordova, 1549. 112 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. XXX. ANDRE THE VET, 1557. Thevet does not, in his " Singularitez de la France Antaretique" 1557, allude to Verrazano s voyage. This work is generally supposed to have appeared in Paris and at Antwerp, 1558, but we have a copy with the imprint Paris, 1557. In his " Gosmo- graphie Universelle" 1575, he speaks of him, but only from the published letter. Thevet, however, is a poor authority, for his statements are often false, and his omissions many. Jean de Lery does not hesitate to call him a superlatively impudent liar. XXXI. BELLEFOREST, 1570. Francois de Belleforest, in his " Histoire TIniverselle du Monde" 1570, writing, book 4, about the New Lands, gives details, taken from Ramusius, concerning Verrazan (as he calls him), but in a marginal note, gives the correct name, Loise, to the island off the coast, which Yerrazano said was named after the King s mother. It does not appear, however, that he had any map of the explora tions before him, while he expressly adds that he had not met with any other account, in books, concerning the Florentine, except in his Memoir -, meaning the letter to the King. He appears to have misunderstood Ramusius, for the death of Verra- zano is noted by him as having occurred about the year 1524. XXXII. ITALIAN VERSIONS OF THE HEADING TO THE LETTER. I. Extracted from Collections New York Historical Society, New Series, Vol. I, 1841, p. 55. Punctuated from Greene s quotation in North American Review, October, 1837, p. 294. II Capitano Giovanni da Verraznano, fiorentino di Normandia alia Serenissima corona di Francia dice: Da poi la fortuna passata nelle spiagge settentrionale, Ser mo Signore, non scrissi a vostra serenissima et cristianissima Maesta, COSMOGRAPHICAL PORTION OF THE LETTER. 113 quello che era seguito delli quattro legni, che quella mandd per lo oceano ad inscoprir nuove terre, pensando di tutto sia stata certificata come dalle impettiose forze de venti fummo constretti, con sola la nave Normanda e Dalfina affliti, ricorrere in brettagna, dove restaurati avra V. S. M. inteso il discorso facemmo con quelle armate in guerra per li lidi di Spagna, di poi la nuova disposizione con sola la dalfina in seguire la prima navigazione, dalla quale essendo ritornato, daro adviso a V. S. M. di quello abbiamo trovato. II. Extracted from Ramusius, Vol. Ill, 1556, fol. 420. Non scrissi a V. Maesta CHRISTIANAS. RE dopo la fortuna havuta nelle parti Settentrionali, di quanto era delle quattro Navi seguito, da V. M. mandate a discoprire nuove terre per 1 Oceano, credendo che di tal successo convenientemente la fosse stata informata. Hora per la presente le daro a quella notitia, come dall impeto de venti con le due Navi, Normanda, & Delfina, fummo constretti cosi mal conditionate come si ritrovavano scorrere nella Bretagna. dove poi che furono secondo il bisogno racconciate, & ben armegiatte, per i liti di Spagna ce nandammo in corso. il che V. M. havera inteso per il profitto che ne facemmo. Dipoi con la Delfina sola si fece deliberatione scoprir nuovi paesi, per non lasciar imperfetta la gia minciata navigatione: II che intendo hora a Yostra Maesta raccontare, accioche di tutto il successo sia consapevole. XXXIIL COSMOGRAPHICAL PORTION OF THE LETTER. [ 1.] It remains for me to narrate to your Majesty the order of the said navigation as regards cosmography. As above said, starting from the before mentioned rocks, which are placed on the bounds of the West as known to the ancients, and from the meridian drawn through the Fortunate Islands, in 32 degrees of latitude from the equator of our hemisphere, sailing to the West, unto the first land, we found 1,200 leagues, which contain 4,800 miles, counting four miles per league according to maritime usage. 15 1 I .I NOTKN ON THK VHHKAXANO MAI . | The following passages are obscure, HIM! we have paraphrased tin-in :is \\- understand them.) | *J. | The proportion Hj of the diameter to the circle, would make llx 1 above distance 92 4 SSi degrees, in lat. JM degrees, that of the land first discovered l>y us. The chord or diameter of a great circle [of ;{<>o| being 1 1 I, /, | ,",?], would make this l>5^i| de grees at the equator, in decrees of (V2j miles each, as fixed by many who have determined it. Thus we have 1 H7f>J)JM miles |in lat. ;<4| which, divi<led by W>0, makes each degree in hit. . M" equal to r ) 2,Kn" milcH. llesidcs this, we have reckoned that 1,200 leagues in a straight line from West to Kast, iVom I he meridian of those rocks, which are in lat. it 2" to lat. :M" would also ^ ivo those N 2 4 }Sii do^rcrs, and thus inucli inoi e have we sailed to the West than was known to the ancients. | ;{. | This distance was noted by us as to longitude with various instruments) sailing without lunar eclipses or other observation for the movement of the sun. Seeking always the height [of the sun | at the time that was proper, the ship was run geometrically [the distance estimated), by the diil d ence between the | midday] horizons, the interval from one meridian to the other being fully noted in a little book, together with the rise of the sea | current- 1 in every climate at dilleivnt times or hours, which, we think, will not prove useless to navigation. With the best wishes lor | advancing | learning, I present it to your Majesty. | l.| My intention was to reach [j90Tt?6n$V0] by this navigation to Cathay, in the extreme east of Asia, expecting |ho\\c\cr| to meet with new land such as was found as an obstacle, but I had reason to suppose that it was not hopeless to penetrate to the eastern ocean. This opinion was held by all the ancients, and it was positively believed ascertain that our ocean was one and the same as the eastern one of India, without any interposition of land. Aristotle affirms this, arguing by various comparisons, which opinion is much opposed to the modern one, and by expe rience proved false, because land is already found, unknown to those ancients, another world as regards the one known to them. It appears really to show itself to be larger than our Kurope, Africa, and even Asia, if we rightly judge of the si/e of it, as I will briefly show it in a short discourse to your Majesty. [5.] The Spaniards have sailed on a meridian 20S* degrees CoMMOOMArmCAL PORTION OF THE LKTTKR. \ \ f> \Vr st of the Fortunate Islands, towards the South, to 54 d*"_ rhj beyond the equator, where they fonnd the land without a termination; then taming North to the equinoctial, following the shore to 8 degrees from the equator, then [the land ran] more to the West, inclining to the North [N. W.J as the said meridian runs, the shore continuing to 2J degrees [N. lat.], finding no end to it. They have sailed 89^ degrees, which, added to the 2f/] [comp. ante], make 110jJ?S degrees, and so much they have sailed more to the West, from the said meridian of the Fortunate Islands, in the parallel of 21 degrees of latitude. This distance has not been verified by us, not having made this navigation. It may vary a little more or !<. We have calculated it geometri cally from the notices of many nautical men who are familiar with it, who affirm that it is 1,600 leagues, judging by the esti mate of the ran of the vessel according to the nature of the wind. In the succeeding voyage I hope that, in a short time, we shall have farther prool On the other hand, we in this our navigation made by your Majesty s order, besides the 92 degrees which we made from the said meridian towards the West, to the first land found in 34 degrees, sailed 300 leagues to the East and 400 league* to the North, the shore of the land continuing to the East, until we reached 50 degree*, [6.] We left the land which in past times was found by the \ uguese, which they followed farther to the north, reaching to the Arctic Circle, leaving its termination unknown. Therefore, pTitting the Northern with the Southern latitude, that is the 54 <-*es with the 66 degrees, they make 120 degrees, which is more than is contained in the latitude of Africa, and Europe. For measuring from the extreme of Europe, which are the limits of Norway standing in latitude 71 degrees [71 1STJ, to the extreme of Africa, which is the Cape of Good Hope in latitude 35 . rees [34* 51 , both nearly correct], it only makes 106 degrees. If the breadth of the said land corresponds in proportion with .aritime front, there can be no doubt but that it exceeds the of Asia. In such a shape we find the globe of the earth, much larger than it was held to be by the ancients, contradicting the mathematicians in regard to the sea being smaller, for we have seen the contrary by our own experience, and as to its land area, this i, we judge, not less than that of the water. As things ll(j NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. appear, I have better hope and with more reason to exhibit to youi Majesty all this new land or new world of which we have de scribed the size as above. We know that Asia joins Africa, and are certain that it is united with Europe by Norway and Russia, and thus know that it is false, according to the ancients, that they could have sailed from the promontory of the Cimbri to the the eastward along the whole north reaching to the Caspian Sea. They likewise [falsely] affirmed that it [the world] was enclosed between two seas only, situated to the East and West, and that these two did not meet each other, for beyond 54 degrees from the equator, towards the South [the land] extends to the east through a great space, and to the North, passing beyond 66 degrees, turning then towards the East till it reaches 70 degrees. I hope to have within a brief period more certainty about it, with the assistance of your Majesty, whom may the omnipotent God favor with lasting glory, in order that we may see the best results of this our cosmography accomplished in the holy words of the Evangel. On the ship Delfina in Normandy, in the port of Dieppe, the 8th of July, 1524. Humilis servitor, JANUS VERRAZANUS. XXXIV. NOTES ON THE COSMOGRAPHICAL PORTION OF THE LETTER. 1. This cosmographical appendix, if entirely the work of Yerrazano, shows him to have been well versed in the Cosmo- graphical knowledge of the time. He had probably acquired all the cotemporary information that was to be had from the imper fect treatises on the sphere by Ptolemy, Sacro Bosco, Apianus, Gemma Frisius and others, that were studied then. The first regular treatise on Navigation was that of Raymond Lullius of 1294. Pigafetta, the companion of Magellan, com posed a small one about 1530, and Francisco Falero wrote on the longitude; but the first works of general authority on this subject were Pedro de Medina s Arte de Ndvegar, of 1545, and Martin COSMOGRAPHICAL PORTION OF THE LETTER. \ \ 7 Cortes of 1551, which were eagerly translated into other lan guages. 2. The proportion of 114ft [11 4 9 6 ! misprint] to 360, which he seems to assume as the ratio of the diameter to the circumference, is a convenient but not very correct one, as it fails on the third decimal.* The curious proportion discovered by Metius of 113 to 355 [11, 33, 55; so easily remembered], is correct to the sixth decimal. However, he assumes an equatorial degree to be 62^ Italian miles, or 15.625 leagues, and thus finds that in latitude 34 it would measure about 5 2^ miles, which is nearly true, for it would be exactly 5l to 815. At 60 geographical miles to a degree, in latitude 39, the de gree of longitude is 46 m 63; in latitude 41 30 , 44 m 94, and in latitude 44, 43 m 16. It will be observed that he assumes to have sailed 92^ degrees from Madeira to the coast of America. On his estimate of 62^ miles to a degree at the equator, and that in latitude 34 a degree will contain 52.22 miles, he makes his voyage to have been 4,804 miles. This is a great overestimate, for there are only 46 36 great circle degrees from Madeira to Cape May. This equals 2,433 of his miles, or 2,796 nautical miles, for the true distance from Madeira to Cape May. He, of course, knew nothing of great circle sailing, f and steered as due west from Madeira as possible, and the storm, with deviations from his course, may have made his voyage perhaps one-third longer, say 3,244 of his miles, or 3,728 nautical miles. On the chart of 1529, the difference of longitude between Madeira and his landfall is only 63, therefore much less than this estimate, but no measurement is possible or charts of that pro jection. However, adopting as a scale the Spanish estimate of 750 leagues from the Canaries to the Windward Islands, the * Archimedes showed that the proportion was comprised between 3 10-70 and 3 10-71. Verrazano uses the first fraction. f Pedro Nunez, or Nonnius, the inventor of the scale for reading subdi visions of small lines and arcs, first proved in 1537 that oblique rhumb lines are spirals. Great circle or middle latitude sailing was first introduced in 1623. The log line invented by Bourne in 1577, was not generally used until long afterwards. 118 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. chart would make his voyage half as much more, say 1125 Spanish leagues of 17^- to a degree. Some correction, therefore, of his estimate was made by him self or by the mapmaker on the chart. This is proved by an inspection of it, for the difference of longitude between the Can aries and Guadalupe is given as 43, being very near the real difference, 41 11 . The difference of longitude between Ireland and Newfoundland is drawn as 31, the truth being 28 04. 3. He says that no eclipse occurred during his voyage. In 1523, there was an eclipse of the moon, March 1; total; 8 p. M., Paris time; but in 1524 the only one was February 19, f digits, at 11^ A. M. In the position he was then in, this slight obscura tion happened just before sunrise and could not be observed. In 1525 there was a total eclipse of the sun, at 3 p. M., Jan. 23, which he would have observed if the voyage had been made in that ye^r. His statement fixes the date of the voyage as of 1524. He estimated the longitude, as he says, by a reckoning from day to day. As he was, of course, not aware of the strong cur rent known as the Gulf stream, he was carried much more to the north than he expected. The little book he speaks of, which must have been a kind of log-book, is lost. 4. His intention, like that of Columbus, Cabot, Cortereal and others, was to discover a seaway to Asia, and he must have been keenly disappointed at his failure to find a strait leading in that direction. He appears to have heard of Ayllon s voyage in 1520, from his evident desire to make land in latitude 34, and was well informed concerning Terra Nova, but the unexplored gap offered a last hope for discovery, which was frustrated. This short passage about Cathay embodies a volume of thought which is left unrecorded. It was a fate that other noble adven turers before and since have bowed to, while the search for a seaway, even an impracticable one, is still a goal for ambitious spirits. The wonderful tales about the Grand Khan had led Columbus to the discovery of the western Indies, which turned out to be auriferous, and Cortes had lit upon a barbarous empire, whose riches were much exaggerated, making men think that the New World was perhaps the equal or perhaps a part of that fabled Cathay, first described by Carpini and Rubruquis. COSMOGRAPHICAL PORTION OF THE LETTER. It was natural, therefore, to suppose that other rich empires might be found in these regions, and this caused Hernando de Soto, in 1539-42, to seek for one in the vast and unknown land known as Florida. 5. The remarks on Magellan s voyage, if penned in 1524, prove that he was well informed on that subject. The first circumnavi gation of the globe was completed by the return of the Vittoria, under Sebastian El Cano, September 7, 1522. Peter Martyr at once prepared an account of the voyage, which was sent to the Pope, but it was lost at Rome in the riots of 1527, and no copy of it is now known. The first printed account of it, as prepared by Maximilian of Transylvania, secretary of the Emperor, in the form of a letter, addressed to the Archbishop of Salzburg, dated Valladolid, October 24, 1522, appeared in Rome, November, 1523, and again in February, 1524. Verrazano, in January, 1524, could hardly have seen this before sailing, but may have read it after his return. Among the various papers taken by him, before 1524, from Spanish prizes, he may have learned of the departure of Magellan, and had, perhaps, conversed with some of the companions of Gomez, and of El Cano. His expression, therefore, " that he had calculated the distances sailed by Magellan, from the observations of many navigators" proves him either to have been very well informed about that voyage, or else that the appendix was written some time after the date of the letter itself.* The 300 leagues run northwardly, and 400 eastwardly, along the coast, make up the 700 spoken of at the close of the letter. He does not mean that he sailed 700 leagues along the coast, but that by rhumbs he had estimated the coasts discovered to be 500 leagues, and that his latitudes and departures made up 700. By his own estimate, therefore, supposing his leagues to mean miles of about 60 to the degree, he had run five degrees of lati tude, and about eight degrees (of fifty miles each) of longitude. This is very near the probable extent of his range. 6. By the explorations as far as the Arctic Circle, made by the Portuguese, he alludes to the discovery of Greenland by them, * Compare, however, with Carlis letter, who, in 1524, refers to it. 120 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. a fact which is now admitted, for Gaspar Cortereal no doubt sighted it in 1500, and it was represented on the early Portuguese charts as Terra del laboratore, or Terra Corterealis, though this first name is now restricted in its application. We have good reason to believe that Newfoundland, under the name of Isla Verde and Man de /Satan, was known and visited by the Portu guese as early as 1445, and soon afterwards by the Bretons, but that question cannot be discussed here. Verrazano s speculations on the extent of the New World is the first one of its kind, and as an original suggestion is very remarkable. He does not distinctly aver his belief in the separa tion of Asia from America, but infers, from the fact that the three great divisions of the Old World are joined together, that America may be also joined to them. By the land of the South ern Hemisphere, he designates the land left to the south by Magellan, which, until the actual doubling of Cape Horn by Cornelison Schouten, of Horn in Holland, in 1619, was considered as a vast continental land, and was represented on maps as extending entirely around the Antarctic regions, in about latitude 50 to 60 deg. south. The Spaniards soon discovered the insular nature of the Terra del Fuego, but did not publish this fact, and Sir Francis Drake, in October, 1578, had done the same, calling its most southern cape Terra nunc bene cognita. Schouten s name, however, was the most widely published, and has thus remained attached to it. XXXV. EXAMINATION OF THE VOYAGE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. He was 25 days making the three-fifths of his voyage or 1200 leagues of the 2000 that he estimated the whole to be, and was sailing due West. This without allowance for currents or devia tions from his course would place him in long. 55 deg. on the llth of February. From this point he followed a rather more Northwardly course, doing so from a desire probably to avoid the coast explored by the Spaniards, which as he must have known, had reached to lat. VOYAGE ACKOSS THE ATLANTIC. 34 deg., for he connects them with his own on the Map. He was also forced, as we shall show, to follow such a course by the Gulf stream, of which he apparently knew nothing. From long. 55 deg. to the eastern edge of the Gulf stream, which in winter lies in long. 05, on the parallel of 33 deg. 30 min., he may not have drifted much out of his course, though he encountered a gale on the 14th of February that may have driven him to the South of it. But in crossing the Gulf stream from long. 65 deg. to 74 deg., he was exposed, for at least 12 days, out of the 25, which he occupied in running the latter two-fifths of his voyage, to its influence. Its greatest velocity is here about 1^ to 2 miles an hour, but allowing only 1 J miles as its average set, he would have drifted in these 12 days just 360 miles to the Northward. These six degrees would carry him North of lat. 33 deg. 30 min., the point where he probably first entered the stream, and place his landfall in 39 deg. 30 min., as we make it. He must therefore have passed the Bermudas in lat. 35 deg. (they lying in 32 deg. 20 min.) or 160 miles North of them. This is but a moderate allowance for his drift by the Gulf stream, and we do not see how he could have made our coast in a lower lati tude. This Northwesterly drift caused a vessel seeking our coast, with the Pilgrim fathers, a century later, to land far to the North of the point aimed at, and planted on the rocky shores of New England a colony designed to have been established very near the point where Verrazano sighted it in 1524. The voyage may therefore be summed up as follows. January 17 to February 11 25 days due West 1200 leagues by his estimate, or three-fifths of whole distance, in fact 1700 geog. miles of 60 to the degree. February 11, in long. 55 deg., lat. 32-J deg., steers a little N. of W. on the 14th encounters a storm, February 18th enters the Gulf Stream in lat. 33| deg., long. 65, leaving it March 4th in long. 74, lat. 39 deg. and making land March 7. The distance sailed since February 11, 25 days, being estimated by him as 800 leagues, probably 1150 geog. miles. The great circle distance, the shortest possible one between his point of departure and arrival, is 2796 nautical miles, as noted elsewhere, but by the courses he followed, his track, which is 16 122 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. much to the south of that, cannot therefore have been less than 2850 nautical miles, and was no doubt much longer. XXXVI. THOMASSY. Les Papes Geographes et la Cartographic du Vatican. Par M. R. Thomassy. Paris, 1852. 8vo., pp. 140. Extrait ttes Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 1852. After an interesting and carefully prepared essay on early chartography and the progress of Geographical knowledge during the middle age, the author describes the topographical frescoes on the walls of the galleries of the Vatican, and in an appendix notices a few of the most remarkable documents of the same kind, preserved in the Collegia de Propaganda Fide on the Piazza di Spagna. This College was founded in 1622 by Gregory XV, during his two years Papacy, for the purpose of educating foreign students as missionaries. Its printing office, established by his successor Urban VIII, (1623-44) who caused its present building to be erected, is able to produce books in every known written character. The geographical documents gathered here are from the col lection of Cardinal Stefano Borgia and are collectively known as the Museo Borgiana. Mons. Thomassy describes in the appendix to his essay, sixteen of these, including the great bronze enam elled planisphere of the first half of the fifteenth century, of unknown authorship, and of which an account was published by the Cardinal in 1797. The next article, pages 112-115, describing one of the drawn maps, is the one that interests us especially. We extract the chief points relating to it. "This planisphere is on a roll of parchment (three skins joined) 2 metres 60 centim. long, and 1 metre 30 centim. wide. " It is a marine chart, bearing on its back in a modern hand the meaning less title : Carta pecora di una gran parte del mondo " (a parchment map of a great part of the world). " On the upper part one reads Hieronimus de Verrazano faciebat." 4 The date may be deduced from the following inscriptions. Under the word Nova Gallui sive Jucatanet, is found: Verrazano sive Nova Gallia, quale discopri, 5 anni fa, Giovanni da Verrazano fiorentino, per wdine, e comman damento del cristianesimo re di Francia." DKNCK/PTJON OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF VEKKAZANO. Mr. ThomAMy adds that, "as the letter in Uamusius in dated 1523 or 1524 this would give to the Map the date of 1528." (The date of the letter is however, most distinctly 1524, which places the Map in the year 1529.) " The prime meridian passes near the Island of Ferro, which is in hit. 27 and some minutes." "The equator parses through the Island of Ht. Thomas, the straits of Sunda and the mouth of the Ama/on Jliver." "This Jerome, author of the map, must have been a relative and veiy probably the brother of Giovanni, who wrote th j letter to Francis I." lie quotes, to support this opinion, the hitter of Annihale (/arc, elsewhere mentioned, and says that Tintboschi speaks of this brother, otherwise unknown, not naming him, but as one well versed in geography. A copy of the scale is then given, and he proceeds to describe some features of the Map. "At c. de Bretton the shield and ermines of Brittany are seen, and North east of this, Terra labofCVtorit, Quanta terra fu dixcoperta da Inyldlexi, the most northern point in this direction." " In the East it ends with the Innule Meluco and Borneo. 1 (Burnei.) "On the meridian of the Moluccas is seen the Gulf of Canton, with the legend : In quento Golfo di Caitan, titan le navi eke vengono d 1 India, a quentc reyioiii, del (Jantaio." (Of Cathay.) After indicating some European and African points, he closes his description thus : "Terra del Fuego is vaguely drawn as the beginning of an extensive Australian continent. All the western shores of North America are want ing" (except about the Isthmus) "and are designated only with TRUHK INCOGNITK. Finally Greenland is not shown at all, in which point this Map difl ers from others of this date." XXXVII. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF HIEKONIMUS DE VEIUIAZANO. The interesting rnapamundi drawn by Ilieronirnus de Verra/ano, which is now preserved in the Museo Borgiana at the Collegio de Propaganda Fide in Rome, and to which attention was first drawn by MODS. Thornassy in 1852, is not accompanied by any 124 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. record of its history prior to its ownership by the late Cardinal Stephano Borgia. It is remarkable that the Cardinal himself should not have noticed its value as a document confirming the discovery of a portion of the American coast by an Italian, for he was an intelligent judge in such matters, and the owner of several other geographical monuments, of which two have been specially described. One of these was a Cufic celestial globe of copper, made in the year 622 of the Hegira (A. D. 1225), which was described by Simon Assernann in 1790. The other was a bronze circular table, twenty-seven inches in diameter, with a map of the world engraved in niello, made at the beginning of the 15th century.* The Cardinal, in 1794, corresponded with the learned De Murr, author of a life of Martin Behaim, on the subject of this map, and his nephew, Camillo, printed an account of it, for private circulation, with a full sized copy of it, in 1797. It was again described and copied by Heeren in 1808, and Santarem in 1852, and several treatises on it in manuscript are preserved in the Museum. As regards the time when the Cardinal became the owner of the Verrazano chart or whence he procured it, we can furnish, as above stated, no information. The first notice of it appears in a letter to De Murr, dated January 31st, 1795, in which the Cardinal informs him that besides the two geographical monu ments above mentioned, he had thirteen maps on parchment, most of them nautical charts, of which four were mapamundis. Among these he enumerates a few, one of which he speaks of in these words: "Altra porta il nome de Girolamo Verrazano, fratello di Giovanni, che scopri una parte dall America Setten- trionale, e cosi altre" The Cardinal here assumes that the two Yerrazanos were brothers, perhaps from the passage in the letter of Annibale Caro. He must have mentioned this map in another letter to De Murr, who, in giving a list of the Cardinal s maps, attaches the date 1528 to its title. The first notice of the existence of the Verrazano map was published at Gotha, in 1801, in De Murr s revised edition of his life of Martin Behaim, which was translated by Jansen and published at Paris in 1802. * See Santarem : Gosmographw du Moyen Age, III, 247. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF VERRAZANO. L25 The Cardinal was secretary of the Propaganda for eighteen years, from the year 1770, and became a cardinal in 1789, dying at Lyons in 1804 (while accompanying the Pope to Paris), at the age of 73. His palace atVelletri, on the Via Appia, a few miles south of Rome, was a complete museum, in which he had gathered together works of art of every description, which were freely exhibited to visitors and students. He bequeathed the collection to the Propaganda, but it does not appear to have been imme diately removed to Rome, for Lord Kingsborough refers to a valuable Mexican pictorial manuscript which he had copied, by Aglio, about 1828, for his great work, as being still in Velletri. We cannot here furnish farther biographical details concerning this amiable and accomplished prelate, which may be found in the eulogies of him published shortly after his decease.* Of these, one may be cited as containing a short description of his museum, in which there is a second mention of the map we are describing. This was penned by the learned Cancellieri, author of the Notizie di Colombo,] who, in 1802, was appointed director of the printing office of the Propaganda, and it was printed in several forms in 1805. We have not been able to consult this eulogy, nor one of the same date by the P. Paulino de S. Bartol- ommeo, his intimate companion for fourteen years, but it was doubtless the first of these that contains the notice in question. The next reference to it is to be found in Millin s Magazin O Encyclopedique (Vol.68) for March, J807. Mil lin, the learned archaeologist, corresponded with the Cardinal (who was a contri butor to his periodical), and published a short biography of him, chiefly made up from the above eulogies, at the close of which (page 25), he enumerates a few of the most precious articles contained in his museum. Among these, four maps are named, the third being " de Jerome de Verrazano Van 1528." These short references appear to have passed unnoticed, and the map was left in repose for another half century, until examined and briefly described by Mons. Thomassy in the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages for 1852. J The map is on three sheets of parchment, and according to * See also the Biographie Universelle. f Roma, 1809. See note page 187. {Lelewel. Geogr. du Moyen Age, 1852, Tom. I., 256, copies De Murr s notice of it. NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Mons. Thomassy is two metres 6 cent, long, and 1 metre 30 cent, wide, or 102^ by 51^ inches, that is, the length is twice the height. It is well preserved, being somewhat stained near both ends, but no part of it is indistinct. The drawing is sharp and clear, though the reduced photographs before us have not been taken with sufficient care to enable the smaller text to be deciphered. The larger photograph is * the size of the original chart, but is very indistinct; the smaller one is ^ and is in places as sharp and distinct as could be desired, but in others is quite illegible. On this account we cannot undertake a close analysis of this interesting document, in order to fix its date more positively, or to ascertain what materials were used in compiling it. We can, however, from the chart itself, determine some points that connect it with our navigator. It is the work of an Italian hydrographer of considerable skill, and is in many respects superior, as a work of art, to any Spanish or Portuguese chart of that time. The designer had before him materials such as no hydrographer up to that date had been favored with. His draught of the Spanish coasts of America appear, however, to be from a different pattern than those used by Diego Ribero in his chart of 1529, but in many other respects it is much in advance of it. His work seems to include and embody discoveries made by sea up to the year 1524, the date of Verrazano s voyage. No chart outside of Spain for many years after this date contains what is to be found here. The voyage of Magellan, the discover ies of Cortes, the opening of the East Indies by the Portuguese, are all laid down in a way that is surprisingly accurate, and lead to the conclusion that no one but Verrazano could have prepared it. He had captured charts from the Spaniards and Portuguese, had conversed with the sailors of the discovery vessels, and was thus better prepared than any navigator of his day to attempt a general resume of the state of cosmographical knowledge then existing in Europe. The projection of the map is the simple cylindrical square one, in which all the degrees of latitude are made equal to each other and to the equatorial ones. * This is the earliest marine projec- * For an interesting and careful analysis of the projection of geographical maps, see Davesac; Bulletin de Geographic, 5th series, Vol. V, 1863, p. 257. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF VERRAZANO. 127 tion of which we have any record, and was used by Mediterran ean sailors in the oldest known charts, which, however, do not reach back of the early part of the 13th century. Had the sim ple conic Ptolemaic projection been adopted by the constructors of such charts many nautical mistakes would have been avoided, and navigators would have made shorter voyages from point to point. Like most of the maps of the world at that time, it has the equator drawn below the middle of the map, and shows 90 of latitude north and 64 south of it. In breadth it represents about 320 of longitude. Its western, or left, side is 45 west of Temis- titan, or the city of Mexico, and its eastern, or right, side is 35 east of the peninsula of Malacca. There is no graduation for longitude, but the meridians that cross the centres and sides of the two great circles of windroses appear to be drawn seventy degrees apart. Until quite a recent date all nautical charts were covered with a net work of cross lines radiating from windroses, the centres of which were generally symmetrically arranged to suit the taste of the designer. On this map there is one great central rose in N. lat. 16 deg. in the western part of Africa. Two great circles of roses, 140 deg. in diameter, touch each other at this point, each circle bearing fifteen other and smaller roses, equally spaced around their circumference. From the centres of each great circle and of each rose there are drawn thirty two lines to each point of the compass, and these lines are prolonged to ttye mar gin of the Map. This construction was intended to facilitate the pricking out of a ship s course on the chart and save the use of a protractor. The lines that in this manner appear parallel and at right angles to the equator are not, as in modern charts, parallels and meridians. The tropic lines appear with their names on the map. The meridian that passes through the third roses from the great central one, on the left great circle, is divided into degrees of latitude of equal size, each one numbered. Close to the upper margin and to the left of this graduated meridian there is a small scale under which is a legend explaining that from point to point there are ten leagues, which are each of four miles. The scale which is equal to 18 deg. of latitude in length, is subdivided into 128 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. six parts, each part having four divisions or points. This gradu ated meridian lies about three degrees to the West of Iceland and of Africa, passing between the Canaries and Cape Yerd Islands. It is about twelve degrees east of Cape St. Augustine in South America. In Ribero s map of 1529, and the one believed to be by Hernando Colon of 1527, as also in others, it occupies the same position. Near the upper margin and above the coast explored by Verra- zano, there appears written in small Italian capitals HIERONIMUS DE VERRAZANO FACiEBAT, the last word being below the others. There is no date written anywhere, but it is assumed to be of 1529, from one of the legends on the coast mentioned below. Europe is well represented, excepting Scandinavia, which last is copied from the Ptolemies of that date. Africa is remarkably well drawn and its coast is fringed with closely set names and Portuguese shields. On Madagascar we read INSULA SANCTI LAVRENTII and a legend near Socotra. The Red Sea is nearly as large as the Mediterranean, but without a fork at its northern end. The Nile takes its source south of the equator from two lakes. The Persian gulf is nameless and Hindostan with Ceylon, are shown more correctly than on any map of the time drawn outside of Portugal. CAMBALV is on the west bank of the Indus, at the mouth of which there is a legend of four lines. At the base of the peninsula appears REGNO DI NARSINGA,* described at great length by Duarte Barbosa in 1516. Near the West side of the mouth of the Ganges appears Tarnasari (Tenasserim). Further south a church with a steeple, and on the point of the peninsula REGNO DI CALICUT. On the island is ZAILON INSULA, but a legend near it is illegible, as well as the coast names on the peninsula. The Maldive Is. are indicated, but without a name. There are no Portuguese shields on the coasts of India or Asia. The peninsula of Malacca is represented as broader and longer than the Indian one, ending close to the equator, and in longitude 150 E. of the above mentioned graduated meridian, or 180 deg. E. of the mouth of the Amazon river in Brazil. At its base is REGNO DI BONGALA, (Bengal, much displaced.) Further down a * Probably from Nahry Sankar, a province of Thibet, once supposed to be the place where many rivers of Hindostan had their source. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF VERRAZANO. 129 huge mountain under which is the legend, In questo montagna Se trovano e diamante, then REGNO DI PEGU, and qui se trovano JRubis in gran quantita, then a city and under it MALACCA and a long legend, of which we can only decipher the words conquista i portogesi * * * dispagloli. There are a few coast names on the west and some unnamed islands in the SINUS GANGETICUS. Southwest of Malacca is a very large Island with its western shore ill defined, on which is TAPRO- BANA INSULA sivE SAMATRA, with no coast names. The eastern coast is quite well represented. S. E. of Sumatra two smaller nameless islands appear, faintly traced, and a group of very small ones South of Malacca. East of the two unnamed islands, which are S. of the equator, there is a square island, smaller still, on which we read TIMOR, and there are two large banks with small islands E. and N. of it. N. E. of these, on the equator, is a group of seven small islands marked Inside maloques. East of these is a large and faintly defined island marked BURXEI. North of these last, and nearer to the coast, is an unnamed group intended perhaps for the Philippines. The East coast of Asia is from the Ptolemies of that date and it would be useless to give the names of the provinces indicated, except that of LACIXA and to observe that a legend of four lines appears in a gulf North of it, which according to Thomassy reads In questo golfo di caitan stan le navi che vengono d* India a queste regioni del Gastaio. These data show that the designer of the Map had drawn his information from the most recent Portuguese and Spanish sources, and circulated it in spite of a prohibition by these nations against its publication under penalty of death. The following dates will confirm the above statement. Lopez Sequeira reached Malacca in 1509, and Alfonso de Alboquerque took it July 5, 1511, and sent expeditions to Siam, Tenasserim, Cingapoura &c. Anton de Abren reached the Moluccas, Pegu was heard of, and Sumatra and Java were visited in the same year, but the southern coasts and general conformation of these last were not known for some years afterwards. Simon d Andrade in 1513, first visited the Maldives, and not until this same date did Portuguese vessels navigate the Red Sea and Persian gulfs. Borneo, already mentioned by Ludovico di Varthema as Bornei, 17 130 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. was first reached in 1513, but was not fully explored. On the Map it is placed east of the Moluccas. In 1516 Ferdinand Perez first visited China at Canton by sea, and sent an embassy to the Emperor. In the same year Portuguese vessels sailed to the Ganges and in 1518 entered Bengal. Luzon of the Philippines is spoken of in 1511,* but was proba bly not visited till later. Celebes, which must have been passed in going to the Moluccas, though known to Barbosa, was not officially examined until 1525 by Garcia Henriques. New Guinea was discovered by Don Jose de Menezes in 1526. The Spaniards soon began their explorations also, and Verrazano as we know, had heard of the return of El Cano, but the map contains notching in this portion of it which would appear to have resulted from them. Nor does it contain any discoveries made by the Portu guese after 1520. There is nothing in the Eastern portion of this Map to prove that Verrazano had been there in person, but we cannot affirm this positively. It seems however, in regard to this portion alone, to be a very remarkable document, and deserves close study on the part of those who can best appreciate its value. In many points it is not as full as Diego Ribero s mapamundi of 1529, as described by Sprengel in 1795. Both Verrazano and Ribero appear to have used Odoarte Barbosa s description of Southern Asia prepared in 1516, of which several manuscript copies seem to have been in circulation, though the partly incom plete Italian translation given by Ramusius in his first volume, was its first appearance in print. Barbosa had been to the Moluccas by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and accompanied his brother in law Magellan, on his voyage in the other direction. He was killed by the side of Magellan at Matan, being the first man who had actually circumnavigated the globe. Turning to the Western portion of the Map, that is the part west of the graduated meridian, there is much to interest an American, and were the photographs distinct, and the coast names at all legible, we might examine it in detail, and compare * Barbosa does not seem to have heard of the Philippines, though he mentions Chanfa, which corresponds to Formosa, and the Lequeos, or Lieu-choo Islands. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF VERRAZANO. 131 it with the well known chart of Diego Ribero of the same date. The coast lines vary sufficiently from the known Spanish charts of that date, to lead one to suppose that Verrazano copied from a pattern map unknown to us. In some parts it is more correct than Ribero s, but a fatal error, originating perhaps with Columbus, deforms the tropical portion of it and affects the parts adjoining these. This error arises from placing the Islands of Cuba, Espanola and Jamaica, north of the Tropic of Cancer. The whole of the Gulf of Mexico is thus displaced about six or seven degrees in latitude too far northwardly. The northern coast of Cuba is more than seven degrees north of the position assigned to it by Ribero, and by modern geographers. The northern coast of South America at Santa Marta is over five degrees out of place, but it declines thence rapidly to the Eastward, so that Trinidad is only two degrees from its true position. From this point the coast resembles Ribero s map, both of them being deficient in not exhibiting the prominence formed by the Guiana s. The mouth of the Amazon is directly under the equator. The Bahia de todos los Santos is placed, as it ought to be, at the bottom of a shallow but extended depression of the coast line, not indicated in Ribero s map. The mouth of the La Plata river is correctly shown under lat. 35 deg. The Strait of Magellan is indicated, but not with the same accuracy as in Ribero, and the south shore of it is faintly drawn out towards the East and South east, two thirds of the way towards the graduated meridian, as an Antarctic continent. The longitudes vary but little from Ribero s chart. There arc numerous coast names along the whole continent, beginning at the strait, where we read C. delta victoria, and so on, but many of them differ from those given on the Spanish maps. Four Portuguese shields are on the present Brazil, which ;s marked TERRA SANCTE CRVCIS and VERZINO. Four small, named Islands are in the ocean, to the east of it. A legend west of the La Plata reads HicIIispani gigant II * * y appearing incom plete. In the interior of the continent is a range of mountains, run ning east and west, and under them MUNDUS NOVUS. The north ern portion, west of the Maranon, has three Spanish shields. 132 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Under the coast of Caraccas is TERRA AMERICA, beneath it DABAIBA, and to the right under the Guiana s, and near the line, FARIAS. A curious feature of the map is a western coast line, completing the continent from the strait to the isthmus, along which appears TERRA INCOGNITA, the last word being repeated. There is no trace of Peru ; the name of which, with a long legend, is found in Ribero s but not on Colon s chart of 152*7.* Johann Schoner on his globe of 1520 had represented a Western coast to the Southern continent, which was also mere guess work. We cannot decipher the whole series of names along the coast, but have read enough of them to induce the belief that they were not taken from the same padron or pattern as Colon s and Ribero s maps of 1527 and 1529, which were prepared as standards for the use of Spanish sailors. The details of the coast line vary also from the above charts, and sometimes are more correct than either of them, but we cannot here compare them without occu pying too much space. IVCATANA is represented, as on many maps of the time, as an island, though its southern coast line is riot quite closed. In Colon s and Ribero s maps it is made completely insular, but in the last separated by a narrow strait only from the mainland. The isthmus of Darien is made too wide, and the Pacific out line of it seems to be a random draught, without names or legends, and the Mar del Sur bears no title. In the charts of 1527 and 1529 the names are numerous, the Pacific coast lines ending in both of them at the Sierras de Gil Gonzales Davila, the limit of the explorations of this gallant explorer in 1523, in N. lat. 16, being the present province and Sierras of Soconusco. Verrazano s coast line, however, is boldly continued West- wardly, Northwardly, and then Easterly, ending at his supposed isthmus north of Florida. A large crescent-like land is thus formed larger than Europe, and which bears the name NOVA HISPANIA. The parchment is damaged along the westerly part of this land, but the line can be traced, and TERRA INCOGNITA is twice inscribed along its shore. Seven Spanish shields are drawn * A province or rich Empire called Biru was described to the Spaniards in 1522. See Herrera III. V. XI. p. 169. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF VERRAZANO. 133 on this land near to and following the easterly coast line Cozw mella is shown, but not the Gnanasa Islands. Along the isthmus, beginning West of Yucatan, is the legend CULVACANA. Although partly misapplied, it is remarkable that this name should appear on a map made by a stranger, for it is not to be found on the two Spanish maps above mentioned. This, with other indications, show that Verrazano was thoroughly well informed about the movements of Cortes, having no doubt found charts and despatches in the prizes he captured, besides conversing with mer, on their way home from Mexico. The want of names along the shores of the Mar del Sur is explained by his want of informa tion touching the explorations of Balboa, Davila and others, accounts of which had not fallen into his hands. The coast of the Gulf, round to Florida, and to the isthmus north of it, is lined with names, which are almost all illegible. In the interior of New Spain, and in the same latitude as the north side of Cuba, a large city appears with the name TEMISTITAN, the earliest name by which the City of Mexico was known. A little below is GALATIA PROVINCIA, showing that Verrazano was better acquainted with his Bible than with the inland geography of Spain. The outlines of the Gulf are remarkably accurate for the time, far better than the tracing which accompanies Francisco de Garay s Cedula of 1521, as given in Navarrete s Collecion, Vol. III. They are even more correctly given than on Colon s or Ribero s maps. The greater and lesser Antilles, or the Leeward and Wind ward Islands as sailors call them, are very correctly drawn, though the first are placed much too far to the north. The last are entitled INSULE DI CAXIBALI, and the first ANTILIE INSULE. About twelve names appear on the lesser Antilles. On the greater ones we read ISABELLA SIVE CUBA INSULA, ISPAGNOLA SIVE SANCTO DOMENIGO, Jamaica, S. loannes, this last appearing very faint on the photographs. The Bahamas are nameless. The Bermudas are not shown, although known to the Spaniards before 1511, since they appear on the map in the first edition of Peter Martyr s first Decade of that date. The Peninsula of Florida bears the inscription TERRA FLORIDA, Verrazano restricting it to this only, while the Spaniards applied 134 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. this name to all the land north to Bacalaos. The outline of the peninsula is not like Ribero s, but is made square at the end, as found in some older charts, and its southern termination is in 33^ deg. N., of his scale. Ribero has it correctly in lat. 25 deg. N. This error, derived in part from the false position assigned to Cuba by Columbus, influenced and no doubt puzzled our chartog- rapher, who in the very portion of the Map most interesting to us, has been forced to alter the draughts supplied by Giovanni, and thus deformed the general bearings of the coasts explored in 1524. The coast names cease near the westerly base of the peninsula, and reappear at its easterly base. Here are seven coast names almost illegible, and then follows the isthmus, which no doubt marks the land fall of Giovanni in 1524. To the right of this we read Da questo mare \ orientate si vede \ il mare occidentals. \ Sono 6 miglia di terra \ infra Vuno a Taltro. \ . (From this ori ental sea is seen the western sea. There are 6 miles of land between one and the other.) This isthmus is about two degrees of latitude long, and its western shores decline respectively to the West and to the North. The southerly extension runs parallel with the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, some five degrees of -latitude distant from it joining the imaginary westerly boundary of Nova Hispania above men tioned, while the other shore curves to a due northerly course and terminates in lat. 65 N. This western sea is nameless, though it appears on many sub sequent charts as the Mar di Verrazano. As there is not a word about it in the letter of July 8th, 1524, all that relates to its appearance on the chart must be conjectural. Since there are none but Spanish names south of the isthmus, it is very probable that the new explorations of Giovanni begin at this point. Another feature on the Map confirms this view. Along the coast from this point North are drawn three square standards whose staffs rest on the coast, the first one resting on the north end of the Isthmus. The second one rests on the point where Verrazano made a fortnight s stay, and the third one pro bably indicates the point where he left the coast. These flags are almost black in the photographs before us, but there appears DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF VERRAZANO. 135 to be a circle of perhaps fleur de Us on them. In the original they are probably colored blue. This Isthmus, which Verrazano meant to be in lat. 34 deg., is in lat. 42 deg. according to the chart before us, and in restoring the true draught of Verrazano, the scale of latitudes must begin from this point as 34 deg. N. For the courses from this point to Bacalaos, we must refer to the enlarged sketch of the chart, copied as best we could from the photograph at our disposal. At first, after turning a cape near the Isthmus, the coast has a Northeasterly trend past one river, probably Barnegat inlet, to a river, which we believe is meant for the Hudson. Thence it runs E. N. E. returning sud denly North for a short distance. This is probably intended for Long Island. At this point there appears to be a deep indenture of the coast, left open, which is doubtless a representation of Long Island Sound and the Thames at New London. Beyond this the land again trends Easterly, and there appears a broad promontory, probably the result of considering Fishers Island and Point Judith as united, and then we find a deep curve inwards and northwards with three deep bays and a triangular Island off the coast in the bight of the curve, placed very like the I. of Rhodes, and west of the bays. The Island is distinctly named Luisia or Luisa, after the Mother of the King. The inden tures represent no doubt the three entrances of Narragansett Bay, where Verrazano made a stay of fifteen days. Here another flag is placed. East of this the coast drops a little to the Southward, and runs out in a long point represented by dots, and on which we read arenosa punta, signifying a sandy cape. This point is probably intended for Nantucket shoals and Cape Cod taken as a whole, and as a first attempt to represent this striking feature of our coast is most remarkable. Neither Estevan Gomez, who, in the following year, traced this coast from North to South, nor any subsequent navigator who has left any record of his voyage, describes this prominent peninsula so as to positively identify it, until Champlain s time. After turning Cape Cod the coast is represented with a general trend to the East-North-East, with no important projections or depressions, excepting one river with a wide mouth, and a bay just east of it, forming a rather wide 136 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. estuary, which may well represent the Kennebeck or Penobscot Rivers in the present State of Maine. The islands which charac terize the broken coast line of this State, and which number over three hundred, do not appear on the map, although Yerra- zano says in his letter that he counted thirty-two in the space of fifty leagues. This statement, with the account of the rugged shores seen here, identify the coast as that of Maine, and could hardly have been invented by one who had never sailed along these shores. A little East of this larger river appear two small ones entering a shallow bay, and just east of the second one we read distinctly monte. These features may be intended as a rough representa tion of the apparently double mouth of the Penobscot, with Mount Desert just east of it. On another river, further on, we read Vendome, and the fifth name east of it is either aranbega or very much like it, the initial a and final bega being quite distinct. There is no river near it, nor anything to distinguish it from the other coast names, and the mapmaker may have inserted it here, copying from some draught now lost. We have spoken of JSTorumbega in another note, but would remark that this seems to be its first appearance on a map, and that not until 1539 did Pierre Crignon describe this part of the coast under the name as last written. Back of these notices no mention of such a name for a land river or town has been found, except that Peter Martyr, in his seventh Decade, enumerates Arambe as one of the provinces visited by Ayllon in 1525, but he was speaking of places in Chicora (Cherokee), much to the south of this one. The resemblance of this name to the one of Crignon s deceived Hakluyt at a later date, who combined them to form the word Arambec, which he identifies with Norumbega As the seventh Decade of Martyr was not published until 1530, Crignon could not have derived it from that source. The third French flag is placed on the River Yendome, pro bably indicating the point of Yerrazano s departure from the coast, which would thus be near Mount Desert, or a few miles north of the parallel of 44 N. On his return he, no doubt, pro cured a chart of the coasts of the land of the Bretons, and of Terra Nova, and thus completed his tracing of our coast. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF VERRAZANO. 137 Over the three flags appears, in capital letters, the inscrip tion NOVA GALLIA | SITE IVCATANET | and the following legend: Verrazano sine noua gallla quote discopri \ 5 anni fa Giouanni di Verrazano fiorentino \ per ordine et comandameto dal Crys- tianissimo \ Re difrancia \ (Verrazano or new Gaul which was discovered 5 years ago by Giouanni di Verrazano the florentine by the order and command of the most Christian King of France.) This is the only clue to a date for the chart, which cannot have been drawn later than 1529. Verrazano, in his letter, does not propose the name New France, but no doubt, did thus apply it shortly after writing to the King. How the name IVCATANET came to be applied to it would be difficult to answer, and we cannot discuss that question here. The third name, Verrazano, was probably a suggestion by the draughtsman, the relative of the explorer. If Giovanni had died before 1529, the fact of his demise would most probably have been recorded in this legend. There is little to add to complete our notice of the map. There is no indication of the Bay of Fundy, or of the peninsular char acter of Acadia. The name of Cape Breton can be distinctly read, and there is a broad opening drawn between it and the land east of it. In this opening there is an island, and the words G. de S. loanni and I. de S. loanni, just above which appears the shield of Brittany. These names recall Cabot s Island of St. John, discovered by him on the 24th of June, 1497, and distinctly laid down on his Mapamundi of 1544, although he there seems to have raised it slightly in latitude, perhaps because he took Cartier s group of the Magdalen Islands, which he places just east of it, to be a part of his own Island. If laid down on the map before us from Cabot s data, it would be the first known indication of his dis coveries. If this were so, however, we ought to find the Gulf inside, in which he got imbayed on that voyage, and the ice- bearing Straits of Belleisle, by which he left it to return to Bristol.* It is not known who gave to this Gulf the name it here bears, nor that of Golfo Quadrado, by which it was known to Gomara in 1552. The southern entrance into the Gulf has no name at this day, and Cabot s Strait would be a very appropriate one for it. *See Hist. Mag., N. Y., Vol. Ill, Ser. II, p. 129. 18 138 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. East of this opening is a land entitled TERRA NOVA SIVE LE MOLVE, bearing along its easterly coast the usual well-known names, (7. raso, C. de spera, bachalaos, Ilia de San Luis, Monte de trigo, Ilia dos aves, etc., of Portuguese, Basque and Breton origin. The southerly coast bears no names. It is uncertain who first gave the name Terra Nova to this Island, which first appears nameless on a map made by Pedro Reinel,* without date, preserved in Munich. We confidently believe that this map, or the original of it, was drawn for Prince Henry the Navigator, who died in 1460, for it contains his possessions only, beginning with the newly found Cape Verd, in Africa. Back of the land meant for Terra Nova are painted two shields, one bearing the arms of Portugal, five white balls on a blue ground, and the other a red Maltese cross on a white ground. The Prince was the Grand Master of the Portuguese Order of Christ, which, in that kingdom, succeeded the Order of Knights Templar, after it had been uprooted elsewhere. This ascription of the land to the Prince, and the total absence of any trace of the Spanish dis coveries in the Atlantic after 1492, would seem to give a pre- Columbian character to this map, which entitles it to much more notice than it has hitherto received at the hands of Dr. J. A. Schmeller and F. Kunstmann, who have described it as not anterior to the supposed discoveries of the Cortereals, in 1500 and 1501. Kernel s map bears a trace of even an earlier know ledge of Newfoundland, for in the same parallel, but further eastward, there is drawn a large island, with a bank or shoal around it, which is named I verde. We cannot pursue this subject now, but a comparison of Verra- zano s with Reinel s map will prove that the former was copying the latter in this portion of the map. On the map of Juan de la Cosa of 1500, drawn before Gaspar Cortereal s return from his first voyage, we find an Y. Verde in a similar position, as shown on the copy of it as given by Humboldt,f though on Jomard s fac-simile it is named S. Grigor. From these and other indica- * Pedro and his son Jorge were in the service of Spain in 1519, as map- makers; Navarette Coll., Ill, 155. A Pedro Reinel is mentioned, in 1487, by Barros, Dec. I, liv. 3, cap. 12. \Examen Critique, Vol. V, and Ghillany s Behaim. The name, however, will probably be found on the orignal map, now in Madrid. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAPAMUNDI OF VERRAZANO. 130 tions we are led to believe that Newfoundland, under the name of Isla Verde or Bacalaos, and others, was known to fishermen, if not to geographers, long before Cabot s time. Bacalaos, the Iberian name for the codfish, would be translated by the French Molue* from the Latin Molva, and thus it appears on Verrazano s map. North of Terra Nova there is a broad but nameless estuary or opening of a strait, separating it from a great peninsular land, whose broad southern termination, in lat. 59^, is east of and opposite to the north end of this last, while its easterly outline runs towards the North, ending in lat. 76 N. On this land, the map being reversed, we read TERRA LABORATORIS, and with the map upright, the legend "questa terra fu discoperta da inyhilesi" and over all a shield bearing the cross of St. George. The Strait is no doubt meant for the Rio Nevada of the Portu guese maps, and is probably the representation of the ice loaded current separating North America from Greenland. One of the Cortereals appears to have sighted Greenland, not recognizing it as the Greenland of the Northmen, which perhaps they had never heard jf, and it has probably been added on Kernel s map after 1500, but without a name, just as Verrazano has it here. At that time Greenland was supposed to be connected with Europe, and this Terra laboratoris of our map is a Mapmaker s attempt, and perhaps a successful one, to locate the land from which Cor- tereal took his slaves in 1501. The true position of the coasts seen by the Cortereal s remains a problem, which can only be solved by the discovery of further documentary evidence. Jerome was not well informed when he attributes the discovery of this land to the English. He was perhaps endeavoring in this instance, to bring in the shadowy discoveries of Sebastian Cabot. This completes our sketch of the Verrazano map of the World, which we regret to have been unable to decipher more completely owing to the imperfect copies of it at our disposal. * The French MorrJiue has a different root, although it is synonymous with Molue.. 140 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. XXXVIII. CHARTS AFTER VERRAZANO. Dr. I. G. Kohl in the first part of his History of the discovery of the East Coast of North America, &c., published by the Maine Historical Society in 1869, Chapter VIII, treats of the voyage of Verrazano in much detail, and gives notes on several charts which seem, as respects the East coast of the United States, to have been based on one drawn by that navigator. He had not however been able to procure a copy of the one seen in Rome by Mons. Thomassy, which he regrets, while mentioning it in a note at page 290. His remarks on Maps which probably were in part con structed from it, are so full that we can add but little to them, although he had not the advantage of being able to consult the original. We must observe however that we cannot find one chart made after 1524, on which our coast is represented as on the one before us. The only feature which Mapmakers seem to have noticed and copied was the Western sea separated by an isthmus from the Atlantic. The coast however that he explored was always copied from Spanish charts containing the surveys of Gomez and others, which appear to have been spread over Europe shortly after they were prepared. The Spanish Maps remained the sole authority for the outlines of our coast from Florida to Nova Scotia until the English in 1583 began their settlements in Virginia. Jacques Carder and Jean Alfonse must have prepared charts, now lost, but the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland were represented correctly soon after their explorations. They were perhaps less ambitious than Verrazano, and did not construct a Map of the World in order to show their own limited explora tions. Had our navigator left a chart of his own discoveries only, it would have perhaps attracted more attention among geographers. * Most of the charts after 1524 which show the Western sea, call it Mar de Verrazano and the land is sometimes called Verra- zana, but after 1583 his name disappears from every chart. One of the last of this kind was made by Michael Locke in 1582. (See Hakluyt s Divers Voyages 1582. Rep. by Hakluyt Soc. 1850.) It is noteworthy that the narrow isthmus which is said, on the CHARTS AFTER VERRAZANO. J 4] chart before us to be only five leagues wide, was never sought for by any other explorer. It was a strait that was desired, one that all nations could navigate and that would shorten the way to Cathay and the Moluccas. The first published Map containing traces of Verrazano s explo rations 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. In Bordone s Isolario of 1528, fol. vi, verso, is seen a map with a sea west of Labrador, with a strait at the height of the Azores leading into it, probably all guess-work. Several geographers and chartographers such as Ruscelli and Agnese, show the Western sea on their Maps, and Dr. Kohl care fully enumerates those he has met with, but the most interesting document of the kind is probably the copper globe of Euphro- synus Ulpianus of 1542, found by the late Buckingham Smith in Italy, and now in the possession of .the New York Historical Society. It contains the only allusion to Verrazano s discovery recorded on a Map, previous to the publication of the letter in Ramusius of 1556. The earliest notice of the voyage as marked elsewhere, is in the account of Norumbega of 1539, supposed to have been written by Crignon. Mr. Smith in his Inquiry, &c., read before the New York His torical Society in October, 1864, mentions this globe, and givt ? s a copy of the part that contains the North American coast. An inspection of this portion of the globe will at once show that the author had seen neither the letter of 1524 nor the chart of 1529. He must have learned of the discovery elsewhere and from a source unknown to us. He represents the Western sea, name less, and North of it appears the legend " Verrazana sive Nova (iiillia a Verrazano, Florentine, comperta anne sal M. D." There is an unfilled blank after the date, proving that the author had not seen the letter of 1524. Of the names along the coast there are some which may date from Verrazano s voyage, but as the photographs before us contain no legible names we cannot venture to assert their identity. The names " Go de S. Germane and Lungavitta" (St. Germain and Longueville) on the globe, are decidedly French and we believe appear on no other Maps. 142 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Norman villa may be a translation of Norumbega, and if so is interesting as being its first mention on a map. The chart of 1529 was probably preserved in England or on the Continent for some years, and was then inspected by geog raphers, but no close copy of it appears to have been made. About the middle of the 16th century it seems to have disap peared, having probably been sent to Rome, where it has lain dormant and unnoticed for three centuries, until noticed by Mons. Thomassy in 1852. Had it remained open to public exam ination Verrazano s name would have not required our tardy recognition of his exploit as an explorer. We must however thank the preservers of this chart for having rescued it from the fate that has befallen so many charts, valueless when a few years old, but which would be almost priceless now. Perhaps the charts of Columbus may be stored somewhere in like manner and yet be discovered. XXXIX. NEW FRANCE, OF VERRAZANO. In the letter of 1524, Verrazano does not propose any name for the land he had discovered, but on the Mapamundi of 1529, by Hieronimus, we find it inscribed NOVA GALLIA sive IVCATANET, from Florida or the shore of the supposed Western sea to the Terra des Bretons. This name must have been, therefore, pro posed by Giovanni, and the name Yucatanet was, perhaps, added by the mapmaker, though without any apparent reason, for the land of Grijalva is represented as doubtfully insular, and with its right name, Yucatan. He also has Nueva Hispania properly placed. The Spaniards never recognized this name, but carried their Florida up to lat. 45, which was officially declared to be the limit of Spanish territory by Philip the Second. It will be remembered that the name America was also not recognized by them until a very recent date. Crignon, in 1539, had not seen Verrazano s chart, but says that many navigators, and even the Portuguese, call this Terra Fran- aise. Jean Alphonse, who coasted South to Massachusetts Bay JACOPO GASTALDI^ 1548. 143 about 1542, says, in his Rout-tier , that these lands may well be called New France. Ramusius, in 1553, calls it Nova Gallia, and Ribault, in 1562, called it New France. Father Biard, in 1614-16, is of the opinion that Verrazan was the godfather of this name. Rocols, in 1660, (Descript. du Monde, 3 me partie, Tom. V, p. 27,) explicitly says that Jean Verrazan gave this name to it. On many maps after 1530, it was designated as Verrazana, or as Nova Gallia and Francisca, the name New France being finally restricted to the lands first explored by Jacques Cartier, although he did not apply that name to them. The Mapmakers, who had followed the draughts of the discoverer, did not hesitate to place the name where it was first imposed, while historians, with the letter of 1524 only before them, were in doubt as to the origin and proper application of the name. XL. JACOPO GASTALD1, 1548. There was published at Venice in 1548 an octavo edition of Ptolemy, in Italian, containing modern additions, taken from Sebastian Minister, and newly designed maps prepared by Jacopo Gastaldi, the well-known mapmaker. Among these, the one entitled Tierra Nueva, representing the coast from Labrador to Florida, is from a draught entirely different from any previously published. The materials for it were probably derived from Ramusius, who had collected original maps to illustrate his col lection of voyages, but who published very few of them. In this particular map we find indication of Portuguese and French tracings, with but little from Spanish ones. Labrador, confounded with Greenland, stretches far to the East; Newfoundland is divided into Islands, as in the Map of Sebastian Cabot of 1544 (which, however, Gastaldi does not appear to have used), and from Cape Breton to C. de S. Maria, the tracing appears to be a combination of Thomas Aubert s and Verrazano s charts. We cannot here further analyze this map, which has been well described by Mr. Kohl (Maine, p. 225 and 233), though he copies 144 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. it from Ruscelli s Ptolemy of 1561, not having seen the earlier edition of 1548, which he, however, quotes in a foot note. The only point to which we wish here to draw attention is, that perhaps an attempt has been made to lay down Yerrazano s Luisia, which is misspelt J3risa, and is placed not far from Cape Breton. It is doubtful whether the other portions of the coast to the S. W. are from Verrazano s explorations. They appear rather to be from the sketches of Jean Alfonse. Had he seen Verrazano s chart he could not have omitted, as he does, all mention of him in his text. MERCATOK, 1569. Gerard Mercator (or Kremer), the great reformer of Chart o- graphy, in his Planisphere of 1569, first named the island off the coast Claudia, being confused in his historical data, and this error was copied by Hakluyt and others. Mercator also commits, in his legends, the mistake of making him sail from Dieppe March 17, 1524. Ribault led him into this error. XLI. RAMUSIUS. Extract from the 3d vol. of the collection of Voj ages by Ramusius. First edition. Venice, 1556. Fol. 417. Discourse on the mainland of the West Indies, called the land of Labrador, of Bacchalaos and of New France. There sailed also along the said land in the year 1524, a great Captain of the most Christian King France, called John da Ver- razano of Florence, and he ran the whole coast unto Florida, as by one of his letters written to the said King may be seen more particularly, the only one we could procure, because the others were destroyed during the sack of the poor City of Florence, and in the last voyage which he made, having landed with some companions, they were all killed by those people, and in the presence of those who remained on the ship, they were roasted and eaten. This unfortunate end befell this worthy gentleman, who if this death had not prevented, with the great knowledge and understanding which he had of marine matters, and of the art of navigation, combined and favored by the great liberality ADMIRAL CHABOT AND VERRAZANO. 145 of the King Francis, would have discovered and made known to the world, all that part of the earth unto the Arctic pole, and he would have not been satisfied with the sea only, but would have tried to penetrate farther into the land and as far as he could have gone, and many who knew him and conversed with him, have told me that he had determined to persuade the most Christian King to send to those parts a good number of people to settle in some points of the said coast, which are of a temper ate climate, and with a most fertile soil and very fine rivers, and harbors that can hold any fleets. Much good might be done to the inhabitants of these places such as turning these poor rough and ignorant people to the worship of God and to our most holy faith, and to show them how to cultivate the earth, taking the animals of our Europe to those spacious tracts, and lastly with time we shall have discovered the inland countries, and if among so many islands as there be there, whether any passage exists to the South sea, or if the mainland of the Florida of the West Indies continues unto the pole. This and many other things were said to have been alluded to by this valiant gentleman, of whose works and efforts we have wished to publish this little that has reached us, that the remembrance of him should not be buried or his name be forgotten. XLIL ADMIRAL CHABOT AND VERRAZANO. Fontette MS. XXI, 770, fol. (50. National Library, Paris. We translate the agreement given by Mons. Margry, with some abridgment. "Philippe Chabot, Baron d Apremont, Chevalier de 1 ordre du Roy, son Gouverneur et lieutenant General de Bourgoingue, Admiral de France et de Bretaine. " Has determined to fit out two french gallions now in Havre de Grace, together with a ship belonging to Jehan Ango of Dieppe of about seventy tons, for the voyage of the spices to the Indies. " Have concluded with those below to put in a sum of twenty thousand livres tournois, i. e., we, the Admiral, four thousand; 19 146 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Master Guillaume Preudhomme, general of Normandy, two thousand; Pierre Despinolles, one thousand; Jehan Ango, two thousand; Jacques Boursier, the same; Messire Jehan de Vare- sam, principal pilot, the same. The above sums amounting together to twenty thousand livres [which is not so, but perhaps the value of the ships made up the rest]. " The Admiral and Ango are to furnish the ships, with tackle and armament complete, and to have one-quarter of all merchan dise brought home in return. The moneys above to pay for victualling, venture and wages. " The said Messire Jehan, pilot, to furnish two other compe tent pilots for the other two ships, and to receive for himself and the two pilots, one-sixth of the merchandise brought in, after one-quarter has been taken out as above. " Should any of the above ships be lost or not be able to sail, the apportionment to hold good as above, and the ship not sail ing to participate at the rate of a mark to the livre. " And should any prize be made at sea from the Moors or other enemies of the Faith and of the King, Monsieur 1 Admi ral will take a prior part of said prize of one-tenth, and the rest of the proceeds of said prize will be divided like the other mer chandise, excepting such part of it as may be apportioned to the partners as agreed upon. " And the Sieur Admiral will procure letters patent to license and expedite the said voyage, and that no obstacle shall be put in the way by any allied friendly or confederate nation of the King our Lord." [Endorsed] " For the voyage of Messire Joan." XLIIL OVIEDO ON THE ENGLISH VOYAGE OF 1527. Oviedo. Historia general de las Indias. Sevilla, 1535. Book 19, cap. 13, fol. 161. Academy edition, Madrid, 1851, vol. 1, p. 611. Of certain stranger corsairs that have passed to those parts and the Indies, and what happened to them for their evil designs. In the year 1527* an English corsair, under the pretence that * Ramusius, Vol. Ill, fol. 204, has copied this date erroneously as 1517. HERRERA ON THE VOYAGK OF 1527. 147 he had gone out on discovery, came with a great ship, returning from Brazil* on the coast of Ticrra Firine, and from thence he crossed to this Island Espanola, and came near the mouth of the port of this City of Santo Domingo. He sent his boat full of mon and sought license to come in there, saying that he came with merchandise and for traffic. At this moment, the Alcalde, Francisco de Tapia,f ordered a blank charge to be fired from the Castle at the ship, which was coining right into port. When the English saw this they retired outside, and those in the boat embarked and went back to their ship. In truth the Alcalde committed an error in what he did, because if the ship had entered, it would not have gone out again against the will of the City and the Castle. Thus seeing the manner in which they were received, they took the direction of the Island of Sant Juan, and entering the bay of Sant Ger man, they spoke to the people of that city, &c. XLIV. HERRERA ON THE VOYAGE OF 1527. Herrera, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano. Madrid, 1601. Decada II, Libro V, Cap. III. (The following extract is placed in the Spanish work, under the year 1519, but in Navarro s own manuscript,^ as we were informed by the late Buckingham Smith, the date of the report is, St. Juan, November 19th, 1527. We know also, from Oviedo, that this is the correct one.) Cap. III. Of an English ship, which came to the Indies ; and of the state in which the Islands were. The ships which carried the gold, the pearls and the common merchandise having sailed, a caravel of Santo Domingo being in * The account in Herrera, that the ship had come from Newfoundland, seems to be the correct one. f Tapia died in January, 1533, and Oviedo himself was appointed as his successor, holding the appointment until 1554, though several times cross ing the Ocean to Spain. In 1549 he became also Regidor of St. Domingo City; resigned his office 155C, returned home and died in 1557, aged 79. \ Entitled " A copy of a letter authorized by Domo. Cavallero, escrivano of the Audiencia of Espanola," &c., &c. MS. in Seville. 148 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. the Island of San Juan, loading with Cacabi [Cassava], there came in a ship of three top sails of the burthen of two hundred and fifty tons. The master of the caravel went to her in his boat, believing that she was a Spanish ship. He discovered a pinnace with twenty-five men armed with breast-plates, cross-bows and bows, with two pieces of Artillery in the bow. They said they were English, and that the ship was from England, and that this and another one had been fitted out to go and seek for the land of the Great Khan,* and that they had been parted in a storm. That this ship, pursuing her voyage, they got into a frozen sea, and found great islands of ice. That having taken another course, they got into a different warm sea, that boiled like water in a caldron, and that to avoid having the pitch melted, they went to make the Bacallaos (Newfoundland), where they found fifty ships, Spanish, French and Portuguese, fishing, and that they wished to land, to speak to the Indians, and they killed the Pilot, who was a Piedmontese. That from thence they had coasted to the Rio de Chicora. That from that river they had crossed to the Island of St. John. And asking them what they sought in these Islands, they said that they desired to see them, to give an account of them to the King of England, and load up with Brazil wood. They requested the master of the Caravel, who was named Ginez Navarro, that he would come on board their ship, and that he would show them the route to Santo Domingo. He saw in the ship a quantity of wine, flour and other victuals and many cloths, linen, with many other articles for traffic. They carried much artillery, and a forge, and had ship-carpenters, and an oven to make bread, and there might be sixty men. The said Ginez Navarro said further that the Captain of this ship wanted to show him the Instructions he carried from the King of England, if he could have read them, and that at the Island of Mona, they put men ashore, and in the Island of St. John they trafficked some tin. This ship went to * When Gilbert was fitted out with two barks of forty and thirty tons each in 1603, to search for a passage, where Hudson, in 1610, discovered the Straits that bears his name, there is a charge in the outfit of 6 13s. 4d. to Mr. Seger for writing her Majesty s letter to the Emperor of China and Cathay. Columbus, as we know, was always provided with a similar letter, and died in the belief that he had reached Asia only. HERRERA ON THE VOYAGE OP 1527. 149 the port of Santo Domingo, and sent a boat ashore, saying that the traffic was desired, and it stayed there two days. The Alcalde of the Castle, sent on its arrival to ask the Auditors that they should give him orders what to do, and because they did not answer, he fired a piece of cannon against the ship ; after which it hastened to get its boat back, and soon went away, and returned to the Island of St. John, where it lingered a short time traffick ing with the people of the City of San German, and was not seen jigain. The Auditors, saying that the Alcalde ought to have waited their answer, arrested him, and informed the King of the case, and of the bad state of the fortress, in order that in its fortification some system should be followed, and that orders should be given to supply it with men, artillery and ammunition.* This English ship f led to much thought, because, until then, not one from that nation had been seen in those parts, and there fore the King, as well as those in the Island, were anxious about it. The King would have desired that another course had been followed in Santo Domingo, and that the ship ought to have been taken by force or by cunning, because it was held as a perilous matter that the French, who already caused so much damage in Spain, J should have begun to find the way to the Indies. On this account it was considered what remedy could be used against the inconvenience of having that nation learn the way of navi gating to the Indies. As for the imprisoned Alcalde, the King ordered the Auditors to release him, that he might assist in the fortress, and that in his case they should proceed by a trial and let him know what they determined. If other ships should come to the Island, they were always to have an interview with them, and keep them guarded so that they might not escape, as this one had done. At the very least, they should seize the crew, or a part of it, or make such demonstrations, even of the most severe kind, that they would take care not to come again. * Navarro s report ends here. The rest is by Hen-era from other sources. f Finding her way to the Islands. \ This is an allusion to Verrazano and the French corsairs. The Spaniards at that time feared the French more than the English. Within a quarter of a century they were to suffer in their own seas of the West Indies from Buccaneers of both nationalities. 150 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. Further, because of the number of French Corsairs who fre quented the coast of Andalusia, and it became necessary to guard it, the Count of Osorno Asistente de Se villa, was ordered to fit out a fleet of five or six ships, and that it should be arranged that the (Casa de) Contratacion should assist in the expense of it, as it was done for its protection. Artillery was to be borrowed to arm the ships from the Dukes of Medina Sidonia and Arcos, and from the Marquesses of Tarifa and Ajamonte. XLV. HAKLUYT ON RUT S VOYAGE OF 1527. Hakluyt (Divers Voy., 1582) says that Robert Thome s letter written from Seville in 1527,* to Henry the Eighth, led to the fitting out of two vessels on discovery westward, which sailed, according to the Chronicle of Hall and Grafton, May 20th of the same year from London, but this, as Mr. Biddle remarks, could hardly have been received in time to influence the despatch of this expedition. He adds nothing concerning the results obtained, but in his work of 1589, p. 517, he had gleaned from Sir Martin Frobisher and Richard Allen, a few facts, but could not learn the name of the commander, and that one of the ships was called the Dominus Vobiscum, which was not correct. He also heard that a learned Canon of St. Pauls, a mathematician, took part in fitting out the expedition and accompanied it, that one of the vessels was lost near Labrador, and that the other had coasted along Cape Breton and Norumbega and got home in the begin ning of October. In his great work, Vol. Ill, 1600, p. 129, the same statement is repeated, with the regret as before, that no writer had pre served a record of the voyage. Curiously enough, at page 499 of the same volume, he quotes Oviedo s account of the English voyage of 1527, from Ramusius, and assuming the erroneous date 1517 for it, supposes that this expedition was commanded by Sebastian Cabot. * From a note in Hakluyt, 1600, Vol. Ill, p. 500, we learn that he had a ledger, once belonging to Nicolas Thome the elder, in Bristol, and that he found evidence in it to show that in 1526, this Thorne had sent a certain Thomas Tison (Tyson) to reside and traffic in the West Indies. TIRABOSCHI GARLICS LETTER. 151 XL VI. TIRABOSCHI. The first edition of the " Storia della Letteratura Italiana, antica e moderna; del. Cav. Abate Girolamo Tiraboschi," appeared first at Mantua, 1771-82, in 13 vols. in 4 to - We could not verify our reference by consulting this edition, but have copied it from Vol. VII, part 1, p. 260, of the Florence edition of 1819. After speaking of Verrazano s earlier career, and referring to the notice in the " Elogi degi illustri Toscani. Tom. 2, No. 30," and giving a brief sketch of his voyage of 1524, he says : " Nella libreria Strozziana in Firenze, oltre la Relazione sopraccenata, con- servasi manoscritta una Narrazione cosmographica assai bene- distesa di tutti i paesi ch egli avea in quel viaggio osservati, e da essa raccogliesi ch egli ancora avea formate il disegno di ten- tar per quei mari il passagio all Indie orientali." He then mentions the uncertainty hanging over his fate, and gives the reference to the letter of Annibale Caro of 1539, which he first discovered. XL VII. CARLI S LETTER. Archive Storico Italiano ossia raccolta di opere e document! finora inediti o divemiti raris- simi risguardanti la Storia d Italia. Appendice. Tomo IX. Firenze. Gio. Pietro Vieus- seux, direttore-editore al suo Gabinetto Scieutifico Letterario, 1853. Letter of Fernando Carli to his Father. In the name of God. 4th day of August, 1524. HONORED FATHER. Remembering that when I was in the Barbary fleet at Garbieh,* the news which were daily given you from the illustrious Sig. Don Hugo de Moncada,f captain -general * Charles had been outbidding Francis for the Imperial Crown, and in order to signalize himself, he prepared in 1519, an expedition against the Barbary powers. f Hugo de Moncada, Viceroy of Sicily, sailed April 15, 1520, with 6,400 infantry, 320 light horsemen and 560 men-at-arms, besides officers and vol-. unteers, on 56 vessels for Garbieh, an Island bet\veen the Daniietta and Rosetta mouths of the Nile, and gained a signal victory there in June. See Documentos Ineditos para la Hist, de Esp. Vols. 23, 24. 152 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. of his Imperial Majesty in those barbarous parts, while pursuing and fighting the Moors of that Island, it appears pleased many of our patrons and friends, and that you were congratulated by them on the victory achieved; so, there are news again, recently received here of the arrival of the Captain Giovanni da Verraz- zano, our Florentine, at the port of Dieppe, in Normandy, with his ship, the Delfina, with which, at the end of January last, he went from the Canary Islands (Madeira) in search of new coun tries for this most serene crown of France, displaying great and very noble courage by engaging as he did in an unknown navi gation with a single sail, hardly a caravel of tons, having only fifty men, with the purpose, to the best of his ability, of discovering Cathay by taking the way through climates different from those in which the Portuguese are accustomed to make dis coveries toward Calicut; but going toward the Northwest and the North, holding on his way so as to find some country or other. Although Ptolemy, Aristotle and other cosmographers laid down, that no land was to be found in the direction of such climates; and thus by God has he been permitted to do, as he distinctly describes in a letter to this sacred Majesty, a copy of which is inclosed in this. After many months spent in naviga tion, he was obliged, as he states, for want of provisions, to return from that hemisphere to this, having been seven months on the voyage, indicating a very great and rapid passage made in the performance of an admirable and extraordinary feat, to the mind of those who understand the navigation of the globe. The commencement of that voyage was marked with disaster, and many thought that there never would be news of him, or of the ship; that it must be lost about the height of Norway, by reason of the huge ice in that Northern ocean; but, as that Moor said, the great God, to give us every day more evidences of his infinite power, and to show us how admirable in this earthly machine, has discovered to him an extent of land, as you will observe, so vast, that according to the good reasons and degrees by elevation of latitude, it appears and shows itself to be larger than Europe, Africa, and a part of Asia; ergo mundus novus : and this is without what the Spaniards have these many years found in the West; for it is hardly a year since Ferrando Magaghiana [Magalhaens] having discovered an immense conn- CARLES LETTER. 153 try, returned in one ship of five with which he went out, bring ing back cloves that are much better than common; and of his other ships in five years no news has been heard. They are sup posed to be lost. What our captain brought, he does not men tion in his letter, except a young man of those countries made captive, but it is believed that he has brought a specimen of gold, in that region of no value, of drugs and other aromatic liquors, to confer with many merchants here, after having been in the presence of his Most Serene Majesty, where he should be at this hour; and from there to come here soon, for he is much desired for his conversation, the more because he will see his Majesty, our Sire, who is expecting to arrive within three or four days;* and we hope that his Majesty will once more give him half a dozen good vessels to make the voyage again. And if our Francisco Carli shall have returned from Cairo, be assured he will adventure himself with him on said voyage, and I believe they knew each other at Cairo, where he was some years since and not only in Egypt and Soria [Syria] but nearly throughout the known world; and therefore on account of his merit, he is esteemed another Amerigo Vespucci, another Ferrando Magag- hiana and even more; and we hope that by providing himself with other good ships and vessels well built and victualled as requisite, he will find some profitable traffic and business; and he will do, our Lord sending him life, honor to our country by acquiring immortal fame and memory. And Alderotto Brunel- leschi, who went with him, and unfortunately turned back, unwilling to follow him farther, when he there hears of it will not be well pleased. Nothing else now occurs to me; since by others I have advised you of what is doing. I commend myself to you continually, praying you to mention me to our friends, not forgetting Pierfrancesco Dagaghiano,f who being a studious person does not idle much time, and to him recommend me; also to Rustichi, who will not be displeased (if he should take delight as formerly) in hearing of matters concerning cosmography. May God guard you from all evil. Your Son, FERNANDO CARLI, in Lyons. * See also, Doc. Ined, vol. 23. \ Perhaps Gugliano. 154 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. XL VIII. JEAN ALFONSE. Jean Alfonse de Saintonge, the pilot of Roberval, who was in Canada, 1542-1543, and who appears to have sailed along our Coast about that time, left a manuscript cosmography, completed in 1545, which is in the Nat. Library, Paris (MSB. f. fr. 676), in which no mention is made of Verrazano s voyage, ] 8 years before his own, nor does he appear to have had a knowledge of any early charts of the coast. The confused sketches of the coast which accompany the MS. are in detached sections (perhaps not of his own compiling), from Nova Scotia to Florida. Editions of his work, under the title of " Voyages avantureux du Capitaine Jean Alfonce, Saintongeois," appeared in 1559, about twelve years after his death, and again in 1578 and 1598. The published work, however, is not as full as the MS., which is deeply interesting to American students, in those parts that profess to describe our coasts. Although a portion of his printed work is given by Hak- luyt (Voyages, Vol. Ill, 1600, fol. 239), it seems never to have occurred to any one that he ought to be considered as an explorer of our coast, until Mons. Margry, in " Navigations Francaises," &c., Paris, 1867, p. 323, drew attention to the passage (also given by Hakluyt), in which he distinctly avers that he had entered a bay in lat. 42. The Rev. B. F. De Costa has treated this subject in detail in his "Northmen in Maine, 1870." We believe that neither Mess. Leon Guerin, Davesac or Margry, who have noticed this experienced navigator, were aware of the mode of his death. We may therefore be excused for drawing attention to the following account of it, and also because Verra zano s fate may have been somewhat similar, and perhaps now lies recorded in some document not hitherto consulted. The poet, Melin de Saint Gelais, in the verses which accom pany the first edition of the "Voyages avantureux," of 1559, refers vaguely to some passages in the life of this forgotten pilot and corsair, and says of his death : " La mort aussi n a point craint son effroy, Ses gros canons, ses darts, son feu, sa fouldre, Mais 1 assaillant 1 a mis en tel desroy Que rien de luy ne reste plus que poudre." JEAN ALFONSE. 155 We quote these lines from Harrisse s " Notes sur la Nouvelle France, Paris, 1872," p. 8, who adds that Alphonse appeared to have been killed in a naval combat, which must have taken place before the 7th of March, 1547, the date of the Imprimatur of the edition of 1550, which contains the verses of Saint Gelais. JBarcia, Ensayo cronologico para la Ilistoria General de la Florida. Madrid, 1723, fol. 58. " This and other like deeds brought him [Menendez] into such credit that in the following year he was ordered by the Emperor Maximilian,* who then governed in Spain, to go against Juan Alphonso, the Portuguese f (who was called the Frenchman by the Spaniards), a Corsair, who had taken, near Cape St. Vincent, 10 or 12 Biscayan vessels, loaded with iron, iron work and other valuable merchandise. He had hardly received the order, when he proceeded straight to the coast of Brittany and to LaRochelle, recaptured five of the vessels taken, and entering with one near the reef of La Rochelle, where he anchored, he fought with Juan Alphonso, and wounded him ; and when he wished to go out by the way he came in, he could not, having wind and tide against him. The magistrate of the Port ordered him to land; which he did, showing his commission, and giving the reasons for taking those prizes which they had made, breaking the peace. But the magistrate would not let them go ; placing them in deposit (depositolas), so that those interested would seek to recover them. Not being able to do otherwise, he obtained certificates, sending one to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who was in Flanders, and the other he took himself. Juan Alphonso died of his wounds, and his son, Antonio Alphonso, was so indignant about it, that, with his patrimony, he inherited the art of piracy of his father, and sent to defy Pedro Menendez, notifying him that he should put to sea after two months, and he did so, with three ships, very good ones. He sailed towards the Indies, where he learned that Menendez was *Barcia is mistaken here. This Maximilian was the eldest son of Ferdi nand of Austria, and his wife was the Princess Mary, daughter of the Emperor. The Emperor left Spain in 1540, and his son Philip left it in 1548. f He was certainly a Frenchman, from Saintonge, near Cognac, but had been in the Portuguese service, and AVRS familiar with the navigation to Brazil. Barcia, p. 24, mentions him as Alonzo (gallego o Portugues). 156 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. going. He went to await him at Teneriffe, and there attacked two ships to capture them, but a ball from the Spaniards cut him to pieces, sinking the ship afterwards ; and shortly after that Pedro Menendez took the two others." Pedro Menendez de Aviles was born 1519. Took to the sea when quite young, distinguished himself, was made Adelantado of Florida, and died aged 55, in Biscay, when just about to lead the Great Armada of three hundred sail, against the English. It is said that he had made over fifty voyages to the Indies. XLIX. BUCKINGHAM SMITH S NOTICES OF VERRA- ZANO S VOYAGE. The late Buckingham Smith of St. Augustine, Florida, was deeply interested in all that related to the early discovery, explo ration and settlement of his native State. He printed several documents from the Spanish Archives bearing on this subject, and also annotated the narratives of De Soto and Cabeza de Vaca, but in such limited editions that they are not generally known. He left some manuscripts, copied in Spain, a selection from which may at some future time be edited and published by those who have charge of them. Among these were some documents or notes relating to the supposed death of Verrazano at the hands of the Spaniards. Mr. Smith, in his zeal to establish the claims of the Spaniards to the discovery of our coasts, was wont to discredit all that interfered with them, and thus endeavored to prove that the voy age of 1524 by Verrazano, was a fiction. He first expressed this theory in a paper read before the New York Historical Society, October 4th, 1864, followed by a resume of it in the Historical Magazine for June, 1865. We met soon afterwards, when he was shown, as confirming the voyage of 1524, the almost cotemporary statement of Crig- non, as given by Estancelin, and the notice of the Mapamundi of 1529, discovered by M. Thomassy in Rome. He gave a trans lation of this last notice in the Historical Magazine for October, NOTICES OF VERRAZANO s VOYAGE. 157 1866, but mistook the sense of the Italian words carta pecora, supposing they meant small Map, and expressed no confidence in the Map as a document confirming the letter. Soon afterwards he read the agreement between Admiral Cha- bot and Verrazano, given by Mons. Margry in his Navigations Francaises, and gave it translated, in the Historical Magazine for January, 1869, with some prefatory remarks which we quote here. " The following draft for a Charter party, with promise of the approbation of Francis I., for a voyage to India, was discov ered in the Bibliotheque Imperiale, and first published last year, in the original, by M. Pierre Margry, in his work, Les Naviga tions Francaises du XI Ve au XVIe, Siecle. The enterprise contemplated, as may be seen by reference to the volumes of Francisco d And rade, Cronica do Muyto alto e muyto podiroso Hey destes Reynos de Portugal Don Jbas a III deste nome, printed at Lisbon, in 1613, was to form a settlement in Brazil, and w r as defeated in France by the Portuguese Minister, Silveyra, in whose time, we read, a period of nine years, from 1523, dur ing his continuance at Paris, no other attempt appears to have been made from France, at a voyage of like character. The author of Les Navigations observes that this Document could not have been drawn up earlier than 1526, the year in which Cabot received the office of Admiral and the Government of Burgundy, in recompense of his services in delivering the King from the prisons of Charles V. The date is subsequent to that of the Letter of Verrazzano, 1524, giving account of his discovery of the Northeast coast of America, and proves the assertion of some Spanish writers not to have been exact, that his execution took place in that year. B. S. " We cannot here attempt to refute or criticise Mr. Smith s doubts more fully than we have done, in the course of the above paper and notes. His opinions, when analyzing early Spanish narratives, are of great weight, but he paid little attention to the early French or English ones, which did not interest him. The following are his published notices on Verrazano: The globe of Euphrosynus Ulpianus, 1542. Historical Maga zine, 1862, p. 202. An Inquiry into the authenticity of documents concerning a 158 NOTES ON THE VERRAZANO MAP. discovery in North America, claimed to have been made by Yer- razano. Read before the New York Historical Society, Tuesday, October 4th, 1864. By Buckingham Smith, New York, 1864 (8 pp. 31, with copy of part of the globe of 1542). Contains quo tations from Caro s, and the whole of Carli s letter. Yerrazano as a discoverer. Hist. Mag., 1865, pp. 169, 175. (Contains a review of his Inquiry, &c.) Remarks on Mr. Smith s paper on Magallanes and Gomez. (By Mr. Smith.) Hist. Mag., 1866, p. 230. Map of the World, containing the discovery of Yerrazano, drawn by Hieronimus de Yerrazano. Hist. Mag., 1866, pp. 299-300. Contains only Thomassy s notice of the Map. Yerrazano. (Charter party for a voyage to India, &c., with prefatory remarks.) Hist. Mag., 1869, p. 28. L. J. G. KOHL ON YERRAZANO S YOYAGE. No critical examination of Yerrazano s voyage along our coast had been attempted by a geographer until Dr. J. G. Kohl, in his interesting "History of the Discovery of Maine," in 1869, gave it especial attention. He had not seen the chart by Hieronimus (see op. cit. p. 290, note), or his opinions would have been mate rially changed. The absence, in the letter, of any definite descrip tion of our coast (which description was probably minutely given in the " little book" alluded to), makes it impossible to trace Yerrazano s exploration with certainty. Dr. Kohl is also disposed to accept Yerrazano s claim to have coasted from lat. 34 deg. to 50 deg. We have shown that his landfall could not have been South of lat. 39 deg. 05 min., as he had been swept North by the Gulf stream (whose history Dr. Kohl has published), and that the chart shows no geographical features which could permit any other assumption. It must be remembered that no correct observation could be taken at that time on board ship, and his landings were too hurried to permit the setting up of his larger instruments, so that the only reliable observation was the one taken in Newport harbor, where he tarried for a fortnight. KOHL ON VERRAZANO* s VOYAGE. 159 Dr. Kohl, as others have done- before him, by assuming the landfall to have been in lat. 34 deg. has, of course, to make the landings of the explorer fall so much more to the South of the points where we place them. This has always prevented a proper understanding of the letter. We shall not, therefore, undertake to correct Dr. Kohl, who, with others, agrees upon Newport harbor as the place where Verrazano stayed two weeks. Dr. Kohl has not observed that in at least two places, that is in the paragraphs we have numbered as 9 and 14, the writer of the letter repeats himself, thus leading one to suppose that he had coasted more than was really the case. His observation that the people of the more northerly lands visited by Verrazano, were acquainted with the use of iron, and opposed to the landing of strangers, is ascribed to its true cause, the visits to their coasts by fishing vessels. The voyage of Gomez, in 1525, and Rut s expedition of 1527, are also carefully treated by Dr. Kohl, who deserves the thanks of all American students for the many geographical memoirs he has published. ADDITIONAL NOTES. .JK 78 Note VITI. The Emperor, in a despatch dated June 6th, 1523, directed Cortes to search for a Strait along the coasts of both oceans. 82 Add to foot-note Carlo Passi, in the Discorso to his Italian version of the Legatio Babylonica, entitled " Relation*, del S..Pietro Martire" &c., Venetia, 1564, speaks of the Somario as known to have been prepared by Ramusius. COREIGEISTDA. PAGK 21 Eighth line from below put comma after surrender. 33 Fourteenth line from below them read the papers. 33 Tenth line from below add for 1837. 59 Fitth line from below mouth read. jaws. 59 Fourth line from below Rut read himself. (53 Sixteenth line Jrorn top the author read its author. 80 Seventeenth line from top dele mark. S3 Seventh line from below 1532 read 1522 104 Tenth line from below Magliabechian read Magliabecchian. 107 Sixth line of note which was and a read not and the. \ \ 1 Eleventh line from below or read on. \ 17 Second line from below invented read described. 1 1!) Fifth line from top known as read of. 12H Second line from top for 6 read 60. 127 Twelfth and thirteenth lines from top dele commas after left and rig] it. 127 Second line from below ten read twelve and a half. 129 Sixth line from top dispagloli read dispagnoli. 129 Seventh line from below Abren read Abreu. 133 Sixteenth line from below Collecion read Coleccion. 137 Fourth, sixth, and fourteenth lines from top Verrazano read Verrazana. 141 Eighth line from below anne read anno, 142 Second and fourteenth lines from below Terra read Terre. 157 Fourth paragraph Cabot read Chabot. November . 1874.