SECT. A seaman answered, Esclavos-slaves, meaning I. the poor Indians. A person on shore, not far from 1525. the ship, mistaking the sound for Clavos-cloves, 1527. English discover a north sage. and setting off immediately for the Spanish court, reported there that Gomez had returned with a cargo of spice from Moluccas. When the mistake came to be discovered, the disappointment, as it generally happens when hopes are unreasonably elevated, produced on the contrary equally unreasonable ridicule and derision on his voyage. The mention of it here, however, serves to illustrate the more early discoveries of the continent of North America.* This delusion of a north-west passage to the attempt to East-Indies, which had thus in Spain prompted this expedition, was at the same time operating in other west pas- parts of Europe. As Henry the eighth of England, among other of his inordinate passions, was often actuated with the avidity of wealth, he was induced to listen to the advice of a Mr. Robert Thorne, an English merchant, who had long resided at Seville, in Spain, and had there acquired some knowledge of the East-India trade. This gentleman represented to Henry the advantages which his kingdom might derive from such a commerce, and proposed that endeavours should be made to find out a passage to the East-Indies, by the north-west parts of America. The king, on mature deliberation, gave orders for two ships to be fitted out for that purpose. They sailed on the 20th of May, 1527; but the voyage was productive of no discovery of import *Mod. Univ. Hist. Vol. 9, p. 388, 575. I. 1527. ance. One of the ships was lost in the Gulf of St. SECT. Lawrence, and the other returned in the month of October following, to England. One circumstance attending this voyage of discovery, is perhaps worth mentioning. The king ordered, that "several cunning men" should embark in the voyage. The writer, who mentions this,* explains them to mean,→→ 66 persons skilled in the mathematics; who, with the common sort of people, passed now, and long after, for cunning men and conjurers." By an uncommon association for those days, one of these cunning men, it seems, was a priest," a Canon of St. Paul's in London, who was a great mathematician, and a man indued with wealth."+ To return to the Spaniards:-Notwithstanding their disappointment in Vasquez's expedition before mentioned, they were not altogether discouraged from pursuing their discoveries in Florida. In about four years afterwards, (in 1528,) Pamphilo 1528. Pamphilo Narvez, the same commander, it would seem, who Narvez's a few years before had been ungenerously sent by grant. Velasquez, governour of Cuba, to supersede the great Cortez in his important conquest of Mexico, which he was just at that time completing, obtained from his catholic majesty, the emperor Charles V, a grant of "all the lands lying from the River of Palms to the cape of Florida." *Harris's Voyages, Vol. 2, p. 192. + Hackluyt's Voyages, cited in Holmes's Annals, Vol. 1, p. 75. The above description of Narvez's grant is taken from Holmes's Annals, Vol. 1, p. 75, who appears to have extracted it from the commission as in Purchas's Pilgrimage, which he there cites. The Rio de las Palmas, or River of Palms, SECT. I. 1528. 1539. Ferdinand de Soto's tion. Narvez, in pursuance of his grant, fitted out a powerful armament to conquer the country, with which he landed somewhere on the western side of the cape of Florida, in the month of April, 1528. It does not appear that he explored any part of the continent at any great distance from the coast bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. His expedition was entirely unsuccessful; and he and all his men perished miserably, except a very few, who, after undergoing inexpressible hardships, found their way to Mexico.* His grant, however, serves to recognize the Spanish claim at this early period of time, to a most extensive part of the southern coast of North America, comprehending a considerable portion of Louisiana, particularly the most valuable part of it to the United States-the territory of New Orleans. Before we quit our observations on the progress of the Spaniards in the southern part of North Ameexpedi- rica, we must trespass a little on the order of time, in briefly mentioning a subsequent expedition of that nation, in about ten years after that of Narvez, for making a conquest of Florida. Ferdinand de Soto, who was governour of Cuba, received from Charles V, the title of Marquis of Florida, with authority as we may suppose, to acquire that country by conquest. He accordingly, on the 12th of May, 1539, embarked three hundred and fifty horse, and nine hundred foot, on board of nine ships, at the empties itself into the Gulf of Mexico, in that part of the coast thereof now called, the New Kingdom of Leon. The mouth of the river is in about 25° of north latitude. Mod. Univ. Hist. Vol. 40, p. 380. 1. port of Havanna; the most formidable armament of SECT. Europeans, that till then had appeared in North America. Pursuing his course to Florida, he dis- 1539. embarked on the 25th of the same month, at the bay of Spiritu Sancto, which lies on the western side of the peninsula of East Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico. His route from thence seems to have been in various directions from one Indian tribe to another, as they were then scattered throughout that part of the continent now called the Floridas; and from the length of some of his marches, as mentioned in the account of his expedition, he must have penetrated also far into Georgia, and what is now called the Mississippi Territory, among the Creeks and Cherokees: who are probably the remains of those populous and flourishing tribes of the natives, who are so pompously described by the famous Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, one of the historians of this expedition, and who probably felt a partiality for those, whom he might consider as his countrymen, and consequently a natural indignation at the barbarous usage of them practised on this occasion by Soto. After a series of adventures, experienced by himself and his army, which have the appearance more of romance than reality, during a period of almost five years, and having lost the greater part of his armament, he died of a fever on the banks of the Mississippi; on which event, the officer next in command, prudently contrived to conduct the miserable remnant of them, by water, along the shores of the Gulf, to Panuco, in the kingdom of Mexico. "Thus," says the historian, "ended this expedition, in ruin and poverty to all who were E SECT. concerned in it; nor did they leave a Spaniard in all Florida."* I.. 1539. We may now attend to the proceedings of the French, in the northern parts of the American continent, when they first began to make serious attempts to form settlements in Canada. Although the loss of Verazzini had discouraged them, for a few years, from fitting out ships for discovery in America, yet, agreeably to the genius and charaċter of that nation, their accustomed activity and energy on such occasions, soon again revived. A certain Jacques Quartier, (called by the English, James Cartier,) a native and an experienced pilot of St. Malo, was prevailed upon by admiral Cabot to undertake another expedition. He accordingly, on 1534. the 20th of April, 1534, sailed from that port under Quartier's a commission from the French king; and on the Jacques voyage. 10th of May following, he arrived at cape Bonavista, in Newfoundland. Although in cruising along that coast to the southward, he found many commodious harbours, yet the land was so uninviting, and the climate so cold, that he directed his course to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and entered within a bay there, which he called, Le Baye des Chaleurs, on account of the sultry weather which he there experienced, and which has been sometimes since called Spanish Bay.† It may, perhaps, gratify the curiosity of those who are amused with the origin of names, to take Mod. Univ. Hist. Vol. 40, p. 381. + Harris's Voyages, Vol. 2, p. 349. Mod. Univ. Hist. Vol. 39, pa. 407. |