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nexion, and of morals. The axe and the ploughshare were unknown. The soil, which had been gathering fertility from the repose of centuries, was lavishing its strength in magnificent but useless vegetation. In the view of civilization the immense domain was a solitude.

It is the object of the present work to explain, how the change in the condition of our land has been accomplished; and, as the fortunes of a nation. are not controlled by blind destiny, to follow the steps, by which a favoring Providence, calling our institutions into being, has conducted the country to its present happiness and glory.

PART I.

COLONIAL

HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY VOYAGES. FRENCH SETTLEMENTS.

I.

THE enterprize of Columbus, the most memora- CHAP. ble maritime enterprize in the history of the world, 492. formed between Europe and America the communication which will never cease. The national pride of an Icelandic historian' has indeed claimed for his ancestors the glory of having discovered the western hemisphere. It is said, that they passed 1000, from their own island to Greenland, and were driven by adverse winds from Greenland to the 1003. shores of Labrador; that the voyage was often repeated; that the coasts of America were extensively

1 Thormoder Thorfæus, Historia Winlandiæ Antiquæ ; printed at Copenhagen, 1705. Compare Crantz's History of Greenland, b. iv. c. i. sec. 7. Robertson's History of America: Notes and Illustrations: Note xvii.

Of American authors, consult Wheaton's History of the Northmen, p. 22-28; Belknap's Am. Biography, v. i. p. 47-58; Yates and Moulton's History of the State

of New-York, Part i. p. 110-125;
Irving's Life of Columbus, first
edition, v. iii. p. 292–300.

These writers, with the excep-
tion of Irving, favor the opinion,
that the Icelanders reached Amer-
ica. Thorfæus has been consult-
ed quite as often as Sturleson,
the original historian, whose work
contains the tradition. Franklin's
opinion is given but casually in a
private letter. Works, v. vi. p. 102.

or

CHAP. explored,1 and colonies established on the shores of I. Nova Scotia or Newfoundland. It is even suggested, 1492. that these early adventurers anchored near the harbor

of Boston; or in the bays of New-Jersey. But this belief rests only on a narrative,5 traditional in its form and obscure in its meaning, although of undoubted antiquity. The geographical details are so vague, that they cannot even sustain a conjecture; the accounts of the mildness of the winter and the fertility of nature in the climes which were visited, are, on any hypothesis, fictitious or exaggerated; while the remark, which should define the length of the shortest winter's day, has received interpretations to suit every latitude from New-York to Cape Farewell. The first discoveries in Greenland were in a high northern latitude; Vinland was but another and more southern portion of the same extensive territory."

Imagination had conceived the idea, that vast inhabited regions lay unexplored in the west; and

1 Moulton's New-York, p. 115.
2 Belknap's American Biogra-
phy, v. i. p. 52-56.

3 Wheaton's History of the
Northmen, p. 24.

4 Moulton's New-York, p. 115, 116.

5 See the original Icelandic Saga itself, collated from several manuscripts, and printed with a translation into Danish and Latin, in Gerhard Schöning's edition of Historia Regum Norvegicorum, conscripta a Snorrio Sturla Filio, v. i. p. 304–325. Copenhagen, 1777, in folio.

6 On Snorre Sturleson, see Wheaton's Northmen, p.100-109. 7 Historia Reg. Norv. v. i. p. 309. Sól hafdi par eyktar stad oc dagmála stad, um skamm-degi.

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COLUMBUS.

I.

7

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

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

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

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

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

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

I.

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

1497.

June

In the new career of western adventure, the Amer24. ican continent was first discovered under the auspices of the English, and the coast of the United States by a native' of England. In the history of maritime enterprize in the New World, the achievements of John and Sebastian Cabot are, in boldness, success, and results, second only to those of Columbus.2 The wars of the houses of York and Lancaster had ceased; tranquillity and thrifty industry had been restored by the prudent severity of Henry VII.; the spirit of commercial activity began to be successfully fostered; and the marts of England were thronged with Lombard adventurers. The fisheries of the north had long tempted the merchants of Bristol to an intercourse with Iceland ;3 and the nau

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

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

Magnanimus nostra in regione Cabotus,

Proximus a magno ostendit sua vela Colombo.

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

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