SECT. though these voyages were undertaken by indivi

duals, and not by the royal authority of Portugal, 1500. yet as these expeditions seem to have been fitted out openly, and probably must have come to the knowledge of the sovereign power of the Portuguese nation, and were not prohibited by them, they may therefore be considered as a national transgression of the interdicted limits prescribed by the pope. This short notice of them seemed necessary to be made, in order to illustrate more fully the early discoveries of the northern parts of the continent of America.

In England also, as little regard seems to have been paid to this celebrated papal partition, although that country was still under the ecclesiastical power of the Roman pontiff. Some schemes of further discovery and commercial enterprise having been formed about this time by some merchants of Brisfor disco- tol, in conjunction with some Portuguese gentletrade, to men, patents for that purpose were granted to them chants of by Henry VII, in the sixteenth and eighteenth years of his reign, without noticing the before men

1502. Patents

very and

some mer

Bristol.

have been designedly omitted in this last or second edition of that work. In Vol. 2, p. 401, (edit. 1748), where the northwest passage is treated of, there is this short remark, "One Cortéreal, a Portuguese, is also said to have passed this strait, and to have bestowed upon it his name; but how, when, or where, is not to be inquired, or at least to be resolved." The authors of the Modern Universal History, in many parts of their work, particularly in Vol. 11, p. 364, pass high encomiums on this last edition of Harris's Collection of Voyages, though they do not mention the editor's name except by description, as "the sensible author of the Present State of Europe."

I.

tioned line of division.* But these grants do not SECT. appear to have ever been productive of any effect; for which, some probable reasons may be suggest- 1502. ed. Henry was then engaged in a war with Scotland, and an insurrection in his own kingdom. He was also about forming an alliance with Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, by the marriage of his son to their daughter, which might induce him to discountenance undertakings necessarily disagreeable to them. To which may be added also, that agreeably to the characteristic genius of Henry, he was not so liberal as to give one penny towards the enterprise. Nothing further appears to have been done by the English nation, in pursuance of Cabot's discoveries, during the remainder of his reign.

Amidst the enthusiasm excited in Europe by the discovery of America, it was not to be expected that so great a nation as the French would remain totally inactive. It is said, indeed, that they pretend to a more early discovery of the northern part of America, than that of the English under Cabot. Though this appears to have but a slender foundation, yet it seems to be very well authenticated, that 1504. Voyages as early as the year 1504, some adventurous navi- and discogators from Biscay, Bretagne, and Normandy, in France, came in small vessels to fish on the banks French.

* See the later patent at large in Hazard's Collections, Vol. 1, p. 11, in which recital is made of the prior one, dated May 19th, 16 Hen. VII. In each of these patents a clause of domination was inserted to the three Portuguese gentlemen concerned, in order to prevent them from being considered as foreign merchants, liable to duties and disadvantages in trade from which English subjects were exempt.

veries of the

I.

1504.

1506.

SECT. of Newfoundland. They are alleged to be the first French vessels that appeared on the coasts of North America; and from their own account, their fishermen are said to have discovered at this time the grand bank of Newfoundland. In a year or two afterwards, (1506,) Jean Denys, a native of Rouen, sailed from Harfleur to Newfoundland, and published, on his return, a map of the gulf of St. Lawrence, and of the coast of the adjacent country. 1508. Also, in 1508, Thomas Aubert, in a ship belonging to his father, Jean Ango, Viscount of Dieppe, made a voyage from thence to Newfoundland; and proceeding thence to the river St. Lawrence, is said to be the first who sailed up that great river to the country of Canada, and on his return carried to Paris some of the natives.*

The same causes operating on the conduct of Henry VIII, for the first three or four years of his reign, as in that of his father, they would naturally in like manner paralyze any efforts on the part of the English nation in pursuance of Cabot's discoveries. In the mean-time, however, the Spaniards were going on rapidly in their discoveries and conquests in the islands and southern part of America. One incident of which, it may not, perhaps, be unnecessary to mention, as it bears some relation to our present inquiries:-a certain Juan Ponce de Leon, Ponce de being a Spanish officer of some note in the island of discovery Hispaniola, shortly after the conquest and settlement of Florida. of that island, had obtained leave to conquer the

1512.

Leon's

*Mod. Univ. Hist. Vol. 39, p. 406. Holmes's Annals, Vol. 1, p. 33, 35, 37.

the

I.

neighbouring island called Porto Rico. After per- SECT. forming this, he was for some cause displaced from his office of governor thereof. But, having thereby 1512. acquired considerable wealth, he was enabled to fit out some vessels, at his own expense for further discoveries. He was induced to this, not only by that chivalrous spirit of adventure, which appears to have been then, among the Spaniards, the fashion of the times; but also, as it is said, to gratify a romantic curiosity, in ascertaining the truth of a traditional report, which had long existed among aborigines of the island, relative to the extraordinary virtues of a certain river, rivulet, or fountain in the island of Bimini, one of the Lucayos, which had the property of renovating those who bathed in its waters, into their former youth and vigour. Whatever the motives of his voyage might have been, it seems, that in pursuance of his schemes, he fell upon that part of the coast of North America called by him Florida, and which has ever since retained that name.* But it does not appear that he explored that coast more northerly than the river formerly called St. Mattheo, now St. Juan's or St. John's in East Florida, and which is a little to the southward of what is now the boundary line between the United States and the Spanish territories.†

The reader will perceive, that at this period of time, (1512,) even after Ponce de Leon's voyage, there remained a vast space of the continent of

* Called so because it was first discovered by the Spaniards on Easter day, which they call Pasqua Florida, Mod. Univ. Hist. Vol. 39, p. 123, and Vol. 44, p. 41.

↑ Harris's Voyages, Vol. 2, p. 57.

SECT. North America along the Atlantic, (from the 30th

1.

1512.

to the 38th degree of North latitude, from Florida to the most southern part of the coast of Maryland,) which had never been visited by any European. Although the English court long afterwards, both at the time of granting the patent for Carolina, in 1663, and of their claim to Florida in 1762, pretended that Cabot's discoveries included both Carolina and Florida, by which, through right of prior discovery, they claimed to the gulf of Mexico,* yet as no authentic history can be found to show that Cabot ever descended so far to the south,† or indeed any lower than the 38th degree of north latitude, that right must remain unsupported, unless the discovery of a part of the continent of North America could be construed as giving right to the whole of it. But in such an extensive continent as this, such a right must appear at once futile and vain, and the right of prior occupation, or settlement, seems in such case to be the only rational right to be relied on.‡

The Spaniards did not, however, altogether neglect this discovery of Ponce de Leon. Being in want of labourers to work their mines in St. Domingo, they formed the project of kidnapping the natives on this coast for that purpose. Accordingly

* Mod. Univ. Hist. Vol. 40, p. 419. Oldmixon's British Empire in America, Vol. 1, p. 325.

†This assertion I find made by Oldmixon in the place just above cited from him, and as it seems to be well founded, it is here adopted. But see a further discussion of this subject În note (B) at the end of this volume.

See note (C) at the end of the volume.