mote, when I shall have it in my power to do all "that I wish in this respect. In the mean time, I

beg you to accept of one thousand dollars, which "I have remitted on your account; I hope this sum "will give you the means of continuing your useful "labours. I shall not suffer the minister of the in"terior to remain ignorant of the fact, that on the "American continent there is a Frenchman occupied in useful inquiries."

This pecuniary assistance was not repeated by reason of the disastrous event of his death. I had therefore, no further encouragement than the opinion of the interest which the commander in chief felt in my enterprise. His exhortation to me to continue my labours, held out to me positive and direct claims upon the gratitude of the government; and there was no need of any further inducement than that to make me redouble my zeal, activity and application, and to sacrifice every thing to the correctness, clearness and precision requisite in the painful task of collecting genuine information relative to those vast and highly favoured countries.

VOYAGE

TO THE

EASTERN PART OF TERRA FIRMA,

IN

SOUTH AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

Learning and enterprising spirit of Columbns.-Intrepidity of the conquerors of America.-Discovery of Terra Firma by Columbus.-Ojeda and Americus Vespucius pursue his steps.-Origin of the Missionaries.Two Missionaries go to exercise their ministry at Cumana.-Shocking occurrence which occasions their murder.-New Missionaries pass to Cumana, and are butchered there.-First military expedition to Cumana.-Second expedition.-The Audience of St Domingo send a Commissary to Coro.-Cession of the province of Venezuela to the Welsers.-Ferocity of their agents.-The Welsers are dispossessed of it-Encomiendas. Their object. Their utility.-Their regimen.-Their extinction-Causes which occasioned force to be employed at Venezuela, and conciliatory measures to be abandoned.-Foundation of the first cities, Barquisimeto, Palmes the same as Nirgua, Truxillo, Caraccas, Maracaibo, Carora, St Sebastian de los Reyes.

Learning and enterprising spirit of Columbus.

THE discovery of America justly appears to us, as it will continue to do to the remotest posterity, a phenomenon, and its conquest a prodigy. Christopher Columbus, being well versed in the knowledge of both Astronomy and Cosmography, had judged from the configuration of the earth, as well as from the theory of the Antipodes, which was still classed among the doctrines of heresy, that the existence of another hemisphere was indispensably necessary to maintain the equilibrium of the globe. The presentiment of the ancients opened a vast field VOL. I.

E

to his meditations; his astronomical and geographical knowledge supplied what was wanting. Plato, Aristotle Pliny and Strabo suggested to him the idea of the problem which his sagacity enabled him to solve, and the project which the love of glory impelled him to execute.

Envy, that gloomy rival of merit, has taken particular pains to detract from that of Columbus, by denying that great man such a portion of science and talents as would have enabled him to pursue the train of ideas which would have theoretically led him to suppose, that the old continent did not comprehend but one half of the lands which composed the globe, and that the other half remained to be discovered in the west. Malevolence has proclaimed that Columbus never had any other indications of the western regions, than some reeds, trunks of trees, and heaps of grass, which by the impulse of the winds and currents were driven into the latitudes of Madeira and the Azores, and that he had no certainty of their existence but what he derived from the journals of a pilot of Andalusia, named Alphonso Sanchez de Huelva, who having been cast by a storm on the American coast, where he was unable to victual, steered his course to Madeira, where Columbus was then settled. Hunger and all the other inconveniences inseparable from so fatiguing a voyage, rendered this pilot and four men, to which his crew were reduced, so many skeletons, which all the attentions of a generous hospitality could not rescue from the hand of death. Columbus is said to have got possession of the papers of the pilot, who died at his house, and to

have formed the project of his future fortune upon the misfortunes of this navigator.

Admitting as facts, what justice and impartiality consider but as doubtful allegations, is not the execution alone of so bold a project sufficient to immortalize the name of the great man who undertook it?— To commit his life and fortune to unknown seas, upon the faith of the compass as yet imperfect; to perceive without discouragement a variation which no person had hitherto observed in the magnetic needle; to brave the discontent, the murmurs, the menaces of the timid companions of his enterprise; to announce, at the very moment when it was most seasonable, lands, the existence of which had been always at least problematical, is the greatest effort of that genius and intrepidity which smiles at obstacles, and of that perseverance that inflexibly bears up against every reverse. A man of this character will never pass for an ordinary man; and a discovery of this description will ever bear the stamp of what is great and admirable in human conduct. Accordingly the year 1492, when the inhabitants of the two hemispheres held the first interview, will form one of the most memorable epochas in the annals of the world. If the invasion of the new world had been founded upon any just principles; if the horrors of a war waged against peaceful nations were not repugnant to reason and justice: if a yoke imposed upon free and inoffensive men, who had neither ambition nor power to excite fear, were not an outrage committed upon humanity, and a flagrant violation of the law of nations, the conquerers of America would merit the glory of

being enrolled amongst the demi-gods, with juster pretensions to support them than the heroes of antiquity could boast, even if fiction should have forborne to exercise the privilege which belongs to her of exaggerating both facts and virtues.

The day will certainly come, when the account will appear fabulous which states, that 120 Spaniards having embarked in three small vessels bound from Europe to America, a quarter of the world then unknown, landed in the island of St. Dmingo, inhabited by 1,500,000 Caribes; that they took possession of it inthe name of his Spanish majesty; that they constructed fortifications; that, without any considerable reinforcement, or even common expense, they succeeded not only in the establishment of the Spanish sovereignty, but even in the total extermination of the inhabitants.

Whatever may be the weight of historical testimony, yet when that becomes destitute of every support but that of a confused tradition, it will be difficult to persuade people, that Cortez, at the head of 508 soldiers and 109 mariners and workmen, of whom 13 only were armed with muskets, and 32 with arquebusses, had the courage to invade, and actually reduced a country defended by 6,000,000 of inhabitants, enjoying the advantages of an established government, and military discipline.

When a series of revolving ages shall have veiled in the obscurity of time the particulars of the conquest of America, will the credit, I do not say of truth, but of possibility, be,granted to the conquest of the great empire of Peru by 180 Spaniards commanded by Pizarro ?