me to be perfectly correct in his view, that they reached at some time or other to 673° north latitude. That statement is made by Ramusius on the authority of Cabot himself, it is confirmed by three well-informed writers, Bacon, Gilbert, and Churchyard (the author of "A Praise and Report of Martin Frobisher's Voyage to Meta Incognita," London, 1578), and no counter-theory seems to rest on any good ground. A far more difficult question, and one that in my opinion admits of no final solution, is to say in which of his voyages Cabot accomplished this. It is evident that none of his historians clearly grasped the fact of his having made two voyages, and consequently it is impossible to say how far their accounts apply to each respectively. In fact, it seems to me pretty clear that each writer assumed that there was only one voyage, and attached to it all the incidents which he had heard of in connection with a voyage of Cabot to the northwest seas. Indeed, it does not seem certain that the voyage of 1517 has not been confused with the earlier ones. The mutiny referred to by Ramusius might very well be identical with the failure caused by the "faint heart" of Sir Thomas Pert; and if this be so, it may possibly have been in that voyage that Cabot reached 671°.

IV. The parts played by John and Sebastian Cabot respectively. On this part a good deal of confusion has arisen, chiefly owing to the substitution of John for Sebastian in Hakluyt's later account. Mr. Biddle has, I think, clearly traced the process of this change. There can be little doubt that he is right in supposing that between his first and second publication Hakluyt discovered the patent of 1498, and was led by it to substitute the name of John for that of Sebastian. At the same time Mr. Biddle attacks Hakluyt with an amusing degree of anger as though he had deliberately falsified evidence in order to rob Sebastian of his deserved glory. We must remember what Hakluyt's position and object were. He was not an antiquary devoting studious care to the elucidation of minute points. His object was not so much to produce a work of detailed exactness as to stimulate his countrymen by a vivid and comprehensive picture of those great discoveries which were transforming the face of the world. It is just possible that Hakluyt had some valid ground for inserting John's name where his original authority, Stow, had placed Sebastian, but it was far more probably, as Mr. Biddle supposes, a mistake. The only other writer who specially connects John Cabot with the discoveries is Pasqualigo. He may possibly have dwelt from choice on the success of the Venetian John rather than of the Englishman Sebastian, but it is more likely that he simply took him as, in modern phrase, the head of the firm. In all probability Fabian and the writers of the next generation were right in assigning the credit of the discovery to Sebastian. But even if John took part in the voyage of 1497, we may safely assume, from the consensus of all authorita

tive writers in the next generation, that the son held a conspicuous place and was at the very least an able assistant, not, as some later writers have thought, a mere lad suffered to accompany the expedition.

APPENDIX D.

The Contractation House at Seville, p. 33.

Hakluyt, in his fourth volume, gives a minute account of the Contractation House, taken in part from the statement of a Spanish prisoner. As I have said in the text, the functions of this body were twofold. It instructed, examined, and commissioned pilots, and it inspected ships. Any seaman who wished to become a pilot went in the first instance to the master-pilot of the kingdom, who, with the assistance of other licensed pilots, put him through a preliminary examination. If this was satisfactory, and if the candidate was a born Spaniard, he was allowed to attend a course of lectures on navigation. The class consisted of about fourteen, and studied for four hours a day, partly listening, partly discussing. After a two months' course the candidate was examined by a board of twenty-five pilots, who tested his skill in navigation and his special knowledge of some one portion of the American coast. The examination in the practical details of seamanship was a severe one. If the candidate passed he obtained a pilot's license.

The inspection of vessels was conducted by four visitors, appointed by the king, and the system of inspection was prescribed by the rules of the Contractation House. No vessel was allowed to sail independently, but a fleet went out together as an organized body, headed by an admiral. The lading, the provisions, the ordnance, and all the ship's furniture were minutely inspected, and the names of the crew all registered. Furthermore, a notary accompanied every ship to keep a minute account of all merchandise put on board. Such a method might, like all highly-organized systems, do something to weaken independence, energy, and self-reliance, but the evils which English navigation suffered from the total absence of any such control are written on every page of Hakluyt's writings.

APPENDIX E.

Captain John Smith, p. 101.

Public opinion as to the literary and personal character of Smith has undergone more than one change. In his own lifetime there

seems to have been a natural tendency to doubt whether such astounding episodes of active heroism and of endurance, and such a rapid series of romantic adventures could be compressed into the career of one man before he had reached middle life. But since the origin of anything like a school of indigenous literature in America down to recent times, Smith seems to have been taken at his own estimate. This was partly due, no doubt, to the firm belief in him entertained by Stith, and partly to reluctance to strip a somewhat dry and prosiac portion of history of the chief among its few romantic episodes. In our own day, however, more than one writer has exposed Smith's story to the full light of historical criticism, much to the detriment of its credibility if not to that of the hero's character. The writers who have dealt most severely with Smith are, Mr. Neill, in his "History of English Colonization," and the author of an article (commonly ascribed, I believe, to Mr. Charles Adams) in the North American Review" for January, 1867. On the other hand, the late Mr. Palfrey, in the introductory portion of his "History of New England," and Mr. Coit Tyler, in his "History of American Literature," take a more lenient view. Each of these writers, while admitting what, indeed, can hardly be questioned, the untruth and extravagance of many portions of Smith's story, have at the same time taken on the whole a favorable view of the writer's character. I may add that I had completed the greater part of this volume before Mr. Tyler's work appeared, and I was delighted to find my estimate of Smith's character confirmed by so judicious and able a writer.

Before discussing the truth of Smith's adventures as told by himself we must clearly distinguish between the two branches of the inquiry: 1. The credibility of certain portions of Smith's story. 2. The personal character of Smith himself. As to the first, I hardly imagine that any one will now endeavor to uphold the truth of the most striking and best remembered episode in Smith's own story, his captivity among the Indians and his rescue by Pocahontas. This matter has already been touched on in my narrative. Perhaps the case will be best understood if we place before us the three narratives bearing Smith's name. These are the "True Description," written in 1608; the "Map of Virginia," written in 1612, and the "History," written in 1624. For convenience I will call them A, B, C in order of time. A. is the only one of the three for which Smith is exclusively responsible. B. must be looked on as two distinct works: 1. A description of the country and people by Smith. 2. A series of narratives in the nature of depositions, written by colonists and other persons interested in Virginia, and tagged together without any care to harmonize them into a connected whole. In many places B. is a mere epitome of A. C., like B., consists partly of Smith's own statements, partly of depositions.

The two short expeditions made by Smith before that in which he was taken prisoner are told in all three without any substantial difference. The divergency begins when we come to the account of Smith's captivity. The account in A. is that given in my text. That in B. is an abridgment of A. This is signed by Thomas Studley. The account in C. is an independent story altogether, introducing for the first time the romantic episodes mentioned in p. 120. This account is signed by Thomas Studley, Robert Fenton, Edward Harrington, and John Smith.

The case then is simply this. Smith wrote two accounts of his captivity, the second a full one. In neither is a word said of his danger. In a third account published twelve years later, he introduces the romantic episode of his threatened execution and his rescue by Pocahontas. We cannot suppose that in the earlier accounts, either through haste or for brevity's sake, he suppressed these details. The whole account of his reception and treatment by Powhatan is inconsistent with the idea of his having ever been in any danger. Of course it is not absolutely impossible that the later and more romantic story may be the true one, but most readers will agree with me that such a hypothesis is most improbable. One of the two stories, either the earlier one or the later, is untrue. It is difficult to see any motive in the first instance either for the suppression of truth or the invention of falsehood. On the other hand, the motives for the later invention are obvious. Pocahontas had then become an accepted heroine in American history, the one personage in the annals of the Virginian colony to whom something of romance attached, and she served as a sort of ready-made centre around whom any picturesque legends might group themselves. It is clear, too, that Smith delighted in depicting himself, not, indeed, wholly without truth, as a modern knight-errant, the lover of high-born ladies, alternately the conqueror and the captive of giants and oppressors. As between the stories we can hardly doubt that the earlier is the plain unsophisticated statement of truth, and the latter a romance. It must be noticed, too, that the incident of Smith's execution, although the most conspicuous instance of discrepancy between his earlier and later stories, is not the only one, and that in every case the later version is the more romantic.

Thus the expedition described in p. 122 is told originally in the narrative of 1612, and signed by Nathaniel Powell and Annas Todkill. In the later work it appears, with various romantic episodes added, and signed by the same names, and in addition, by that of Anthony Bagnell. This tendency to amplify and embellish is specially noteworthy in all incidents where Pocahontas figures. Thus in describing a trading visit to Powhatan, B. tells us simply that the English became suspicious and made off by night. According to C.

they were warned by Pocahontas that some injury was intended. B., in describing a sort of ceremonial visit paid to Smith by a number of Indian women, says nothing of Pocahontas. C. assigns her the principal place.

There is also a passage in B. which I think has an important bearng on the question. Smith there says: "Some prophetical spirit calculated he had the savages in such subjection he could have made himself a king by marrying Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter. It is true that she was the very nonpareil of his kingdom. Very often she came to our fort with what she could get for Captain Smith that ever loved and used all the country well, but her especially he ever much respected, and she so well requited that, that when her father intended to have imprisoned him, she by stealth in the dark night, came through the wild woods and told him of it." Is it likely that, if the story of Smith's rescue were true, it should not have appeared here in what may be regarded as Smith's formal panegyric on the heroine of it?

After this it may seem almost a paradox to attempt to defend the personal character of Smith. Nevertheless, I believe that if we consider the circumstances of the case and the canons of the age as to historical truth, we shall find it possible to reject Smith's story without setting down its hero and author as an impostor. In the first place, some weight must be attached to Mr. Palfrey's plea that Smith was not wholly, perhaps not mainly, responsible for the work to which his name is appended. To some extent this is apparent on the face of the work. It may well be, as Mr. Palfrey thinks, that Sinith's adventures fell into the hands of hack writers who embellished them in accordance with the taste of the age. If this be so, the earlier and simpler story is Smith's own version, the later an invention to which he merely lent his name. Yet it must be remembered that Smith made himself responsible for the story of his rescue by accepting it in a letter addressed by him to Queen Anne, the substance of which appears in the "History," p. 121. But even if we reject Mr. Palfrey's explanation, it would be unfair to judge the culpability of Smith's inventions by the standard of a later age. one thinks Herodotus a liar because he relates in minute detail conversations which no man could have remembered. The latter half of the sixteenth century, and in a less degree the age that followed, was a time of intoxication and bewilderment. America and all that related to it were seen through an atmosphere of romance and enchantment. A man like Smith may well have approached the history of Virginia not in the sober attitude of an annalist, but in the frame of mind in which Shakespeare dealt with the chronicles of England, in which Scott embellished the exploits and glorified the heroes of the Forty-five. The other independent evidence of Smith's character has

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