COLONIAL HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY VOYAGES. FRENCH SETTLEMENTS.

THE enterprise of Columbus, the most memorable maritime enterprise in the history of the world, formed between Europe and America the communication which will never cease. The story of the colonization of America by Northmen rests on narratives, mythological in form, and obscure in meaning; ancient, yet not contemporary. The intrepid mariners who colonized Greenland could easily have extended their voyages to Labrador, and have explored the coasts to the south of it. No clear historic evidence establishes the natural probability that they accomplished the passage; and no vestige of their presence on our continent has been found.

Nearly three centuries before the Christian era, Aristotle, following the lessons of the Pythagoreans, had taught that the earth is a sphere, and that the water which bounds Europe on the west washes the eastern shores of Asia. Instructed by him, the Spaniard Seneca believed that a ship, with a fair wind, could sail from Spain to the Indies in the space of a very few days. The opinion was revived in the middle ages by Averroes, the Arab commentator of Aristotle. Science and observation assisted to confirm it; and poets of ancient and of more recent times had foretold that empires beyond the ocean would one day be revealed to the daring navigator. The genial country of Dante and Buonarotti gave birth to Christopher Columbus, by whom these lessons were so received and weighed that he gained the glory of fulfilling the prophecy. Accounts of the navigation from

the eastern coast of Africa to Arabia had reached the western kingdoms of Europe; and adventurous Venetians, returning from travels beyond the Ganges, had filled the world with dazzling descriptions of the wealth of China as well as marvellous reports of the outlying island empire of Japan. It began to be believed that the continent of Asia stretched over far more than a hemisphere, and that the remaining distance round the globe was comparatively inconsiderable. Yet from the early part of the fifteenth century the navigators of Portugal had confined their explorations to the coast of Africa; and, when they had ascertained that the torrid zone is habitable even under the equator, the discovery of the islands of Madeira and the Azores could not divert them from the purpose of turning the southern capes of that continent, and steering past them to the land of spices, which promised untold wealth to the merchants of Europe, new dominions to its princes, and heathen nations to the religion of the cross. Before the year 1474, and perhaps as early as 1470, Columbus was attracted to Lisbon, which was then the great centre of maritime adventure. He came to insist with immovable resoluteness that the shortest route to the Indies lay across the Atlantic. By letters from the venerable Toscanella, the illustrious astronomer of Florence, who had drawn a map of the world with eastern Asia rising over against Europe, he was riveted in his faith, and lived only in the idea of laying open the western path to the Indies.

After more than ten years of vain solicitations in Portugal, he left the banks of the Tagus, to seek the aid of' Ferdinand and Isabella, rich in nautical experience, having watched the stars at sea from the latitude of Iceland to near the equator at Elmina. Though yet longer baffled by the skepticism which knew not how to share his aspirations, he lost nothing of the grandeur of his conceptions, or the magnanimity of his character, or devotion to the sublime enterprise to which he held himself elected from his infancy by the promises of God; and when half resolved to withdraw from Spain, travelling on foot, he knocked at the gate of the monastery of La Rabida, at Palos, to crave the needed charity of food

and shelter for himself and his little son whom he led by the hand, the destitute and forsaken seaman, in his naked poverty, was still the promiser of kingdoms; holding firmly in his grasp "the keys of the ocean sea," claiming, as it were from Heaven, the Indies as his own, and "dividing them as he pleased." The increase of years did not impair his holy confidence; and in 1492, when he 1492. seemed to have outlived the possibility of success, he gave a New World to Castile and Leon, "the like of which was never done by any man in ancient or in later times."

The self-love of Ferdinand of Spain was offended at owing to a foreigner benefits too vast for requital; and the contemporaries of the great mariner persecuted the merit which they could not adequately reward. Nor had posterity been mindful to gather into a finished picture the memorials of his career, till Irving, with candor, liberality, and original research, made a record of his life, and in mild but enduring colors sketched his inflexibility of purpose, the trances of his mystic devotion, and the unfailing greatness of his soul.

1493.

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

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

The wars of the houses of York and Lancaster had terminated with the intermarriage of the heirs of the two families; the spirit of commercial activity began to be successfully fostered; and the marts of England were frequented by Lombard adventurers. The fisheries of the north had long tempted the merchants of Bristol to an intercourse with Iceland; and had matured the nautical skill that could buffet the worst storms of the Atlantic. Nor is it impossible that some uncertain traditions respecting the remote discoveries which Icelanders had made in Greenland towards the northwest, "where the lands nearest meet," should have excited "firm and pregnant conjectures." The achievement of Columbus, revealing the wonderful truth of which the germ may have existed in the imagination of every thoughtful mariner, won the admiration which belonged to genius that seemed more divine than human; and "there was great talk of it in all the court of Henry VII." A feeling of disappointment remained, that a series of disasters had defeated the wish of the illustrious Genoese to make his voyage of essay under the flag of England. It was, therefore, not difficult for John Cabot, a Venetian, then residing at Bristol, to

interest that politic king in plans for discovery. On 1496. the fifth of March, 1496, he obtained under the great

seal a commission, empowering himself and his three sons, or either of them, their heirs, or their deputies, to sail into the eastern, western, or northern sea, with a fleet of five ships, at their own expense, in search of islands, provinces, or regions, hitherto unseen by Christian people; to affix the banners of England on city, island, or continent; and, as vassals of the English crown, to possess and occupy the territories that might be found. It was further stipulated in this "most ancient American state paper of England," that the patentees should be strictly bound, on every return, to land at the port of Bristol, and to pay to the king one fifth part of their gains; while the exclusive right of frequenting all the countries that might be found was reserved to them and to their assigns, unconditionally and without limit of time.

Under this patent, which, at the first direction of English

1497.

enterprise towards America, embodied the worst features of monopoly and commercial restriction, John Cabot, taking with him his son Sebastian, embarked in quest of new islands and a passage to Asia by the north-west. After sailing prosperously, as he thought, for seven hundred leagues, on the twenty-fourth day of June, 1497, early in the morning, almost fourteen months before Columbus on his third voyage came in sight of the main, and more than two years before Amerigo Vespucci sailed west of the Canaries, he discovered the western continent, probably in the latitude of about fifty-six degrees, among the dismal cliffs of Labrador. He ran along the coast for many leagues, it is said even for three hundred, and landed on what he considered to be the territory of the Grand Cham. But he encountered no human being, although there were marks that the region was inhabited. He planted on the land a large cross with the flag of England, and, from affection for the republic of Venice, he added also the banner of St. Mark, which had never before been borne so far. On his homeward voyage he saw on his right hand two islands, which for want of provisions he could not stop to explore. After an absence of three months, the great discoverer re-entered Bristol harbor, where due honors awaited him. The king gave him money, and encouraged him to continue his career. The people called him the great admiral; he dressed in silk; and the English, and even Venetians who chanced to be at Bristol, ran after him with such zeal that he could enlist for a new voyage as many as he pleased.

A second time Columbus had brought back tidings from the isles which to the end of his life he steadfastly believed to be the outposts of India. It appeared to be demonstrated that ships might pass by the west into those rich eastern realms where, according to the popular belief, the earth teemed with spices, and imperial palaces glittered with pearls and rubies, with diamonds and gold. On the third day of the month of February next after his 1498. return, "John Kaboto, Venician," accordingly obtained a power to take up ships for another voyage, at the rates fixed for those employed in the service of the king,