USA > Maine > A history of the discovery of Maine > Part 19
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Mr. Biddle, and the authorities quoted by him, and the authors who follow him, tell us that Cabot, after returning from his discovery of Hudson's Strait to England, found there no support for a renewed effort. The enterprise was consid- ered "a failure." The horrible " sweating-sickness " which
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raged in England from July to December, 1517, and "the attention which the king paid to the affairs of the conti- nent, left no time to think of the prosecution of a precarious enterprise."* They further say, that Cabot, " languishing in inactivity," went over again to Spain, cheered by the new and more auspicious aspect of affairs ; and that he was received there with open arms and made pilot major. t
I think that these suggestions contain more than one im- probability and contradiction.
That a discovery of Hudson's Strait and Hudson's Bay, if it had been made in 1517, should have been considered in England as " a failure," is so contrary to all probability, that it scarcely needs a reply. It is quite certain, that if the dis- covery had really been made, it would have been trumpeted through the country ; or at least have been communicated to the king's ear, as a most precious secret. Everybody would have said that the thing had been done, that the short route to Cathay liad really been found, that only one effort more was wanting to arrive on the " backside of the northern countries." Henry VIII. would certainly have found time to give attention to such a discovery, which, if true, might have made him a most powerful sovereign. And the " sweat- ing-sickness" which ended in December, 1517, about the time when Cabot must have returned, would certainly not have hindered him from fitting out another expedition in the spring of 1518.
To suppose that the expedition of 1517, with the dis- coveries ascribed to it, should have been considered as "a failure," is in plain contradiction to what is said in Ramusio of Cabot's own views, when he reached the above latitude; of his cheerfulness and hope ; his being " sanguine of success;"
* Biddle, 1. c. p. 120.
t Ibid.
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and his conviction that he " both could and would have gone to Cathay," if it had not been for the revolt of his crew, or, as Hakluyt and Biddle think, for the " faint-heartedness of Sir Thomas Pert." From these views of Cabot it might rea- sonably be inferred, that Henry VIII, a shrewd man, would have sent back the " sanguine " adventurer as soon as pos- sible to the same regions, to finish the business ; and would have kept at home his former "faint-hearted" companion, the often-mentioned Sir Thomas Pert.
If Hudson's Strait and Bay had been seen free and open by Cabot in 1517, Robert Thorne, in his letter to Henry VIII. in 1527, to encourage him in a north-western enter- prise, would certainly not have made use of such general and faint expressions regarding a " discovery of the Newfound- · land," as we have quoted above. He would, no doubt, have mentioned the names given by Cabot in Hudson's Strait ; his chart of the Strait ; and would have adopted a much more demonstrative and decisive tone.
As to this supposed invitation from the Emperor Charles to Cabot, and this alleged correspondence about his recall to Spain in 1517, we have not the slightest indication of it in the old authors ; though they speak in detail about such a correspondence, in which Ferdinand invites him to Spain, in 1512; while such negotiations would have been far more necessary now, when Cabot is supposed to have seen opened before him so great a thing as "the way to Cathay."
What we know for certain is, that Cabot, after having been nominated pilot major in 1518, was occupied in Spain with the quiet duties of his station ; that is to say, examining pilots, signing their patents and instructions, revising and arranging charts, and attending to the transactions regarding the boundary between Spain and Portugal. We find no evi- dence whatever that he was anxious to return to that region,
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where he is said to have " seen the way to Cathay openly . spread out before him;" or that the Emperor Charles invited or ordered him to make a new attempt in that direction ; as he certainly would have done, if, in 1517, Cabot had made the discovery ascribed to him by Mr. Biddle. When Cabot's personal friend, Gomez, is sent out in 1525, Cabot gives no advice that he should be sent to Hudson's Strait. And when he himself goes out again in 1526, we see him sail to the south of America, and not to Hudson's Strait in the north ; which, if he had seen it in 1517, he must have be- lieved to be at least as good a route as Magellan's Strait.
The events and proceedings here referred to are so con- trary to what we should expect from Cabot, after his supposed discoveries in 1517, that it is quite evident that these discove- ries could not have been made.
The results of these observations may be summed up in the following points :
There is no satisfactory proof that Cabot really left Spain in the year 1516 or 1517.
It seems to be inconceivable, that a dignified councillor of the Indies, having left his seat in Seville without any palpable reason, and having either actually shown to England, the rival of Spain, or at least attempted to show, the short ronte to Cathay, for which everybody was then searching, should have been rejected in England, and received back into Spain with open arms, with honor and reward.
It appears to be much more probable from all we know, to suppose that Cabot, after 1512, remained quietly in Spain, and continued his fortunate career, from one high station to another, in the offices of that country.
Against this opinion we have the single statement of Eden. incidentally made in the dedication of his book, where le speaks of an English voyage "set forth " in the year 1517.
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"under the governance of Sebastian Cabot." If Eden, a most worthy author, really wrote thus, he certainly must have believed, that Cabot had been engaged in this expedition. No attempt that we know of has been made, by diplomatic or bibliographical researches, to render it doubtful, whether Eden indeed wrote what he is said to have written.
It is proved by good evidence and admitted by all parties, that if any expedition was made in 1517, it cannot have been, as Hakluyt supposes, the expedition which the Span- iards saw off Porto Rico.
It is just as much out of the question to suppose, that, if an expedition was made, it could, on the 11th of June, have reached the waters in the vicinity of Hudson's Bay in 673º N., according to the representations of Mr. Biddle.
It would appear more probable, that, if an expedition sailed for the western regions in 1517, it must have reached some more southern part of the east coast. All the great expedi- tions for the west, made contemporaneously or subsequently, were directed to the coasts of the United States ; namely, the Spanish expeditions of Ayllon, in 1520-1526; the French expedition of Verrazano, 1524; of Gomez, 1525; and the English of 1527 ; of all which we shall treat in subsequent pages.
I do not pretend to have found the true explanation of the expedition, supposed to have been made in the year 1517. But the difficulties and questions suggested above with regard to the explanation of Mr. Biddle and others, are, I think, worthy of consideration ; and so long as they are not solved, we must put down this undertaking as at least doubtful.
[NOTE .- The very able arguments of Mr. Biddle and Dr. Kohl on oppo- site sides of the question, still leave us in doubt whether Cabot undertook a voyage to the North American coast in 1517, or not. It appears to us
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that the weight of argument inclines to the side of Dr. Kohl. It is strange that such contradictory statements should exist of important transactions occurring within fifty years from the time of the writers who reported them. The same obscurity hangs over the domestic concerns of the prin- cipal nations, as over their foreign voyages; which indicates great careless- ness or indifference in the preservation of facts. We find a document of the time of Edward VI, in the State Paper Office at London, which shows, that even during Cabot's life, in 1551, he was in danger of losing certain rights by the loss of evidence. It says: "Touching Sebastian Cabot's matter, concerning which the Venitian ambassador has also written, he has recommended the same to the Seignory, and in their presence deliv- ered to one of their Secretaries, Baptista Ramusio, whom Cabot put in trust, such evidences as came to his hands. The Seignory were well pleased that one of their subjects, by service and virtue, should deserve the council's good-will and favor; and although this matter is over fifty years old, and by the death of men, decaying of houses, and perishing of writings, as well as his own absence, it were hard to come to any assured knowledge thereof; they have commanded Ramusio to ensearch with dili- gence any way and knowledge possible, that may stand to the said Sebas- tian's profit, and obtaining of right."
The various reports we have of stirring events which occurred in the brilliant contemporaneous reigns of Francis I, Charles V, and Henry VIII, cease to make us wonder that Sir Walter Raleigh should burn his MS. history, seeing the contradictions which occurred under his own observa- tion; or that Sir Robert Walpole should have instructed his sons to "read anything but history, for that is sure to be false." - ED.]
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APPENDAGE TO CHAPTER VI.
CHARTS OF THE FIRST FRENCH DISCOVERIES IN "TERRE NEUVE."
1. ON MAP, NO. 11, OF NEW FRANCE, COMPOSED BY THE ITALIAN COSMOGRAPHER, JACOMO DI GASTALDI, IN 1550.
THE celebrated collector of early voyages, Giovanni Battista Ra- musio, has given in the third volume of his great work, besides a general map of the entire continent of North America (p. 455), some maps of particular parts of it; for example, of Brazil (p. 427) and of New France (p. 424). Of the latter we give a copy in our map, No. 11.
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On the history of these maps the following remarks are made by Ramusio, in the discourse prefixed to his third volume, addressed to his excellent and learned friend, Hieronimo Fracastoro .*
Fracastoro, he says, had urged him in a letter to compose four or five tables (tavoli), depicting " in imitation of Ptolemy," all the coun- tries and coasts of the new world, so far as they had become known, and in the manner in which the Spanish pilots and captains had traced them on their charts. He adds, that Fracastoro had sent to him at the same time all the necessary materials, which he had received from the illustrious imperial historiographer, Gonzalo Oviedo; and that, be- ing willing to comply with so reasonable a request, he had directed Master Jacomo di Gastaldi, an excellent cosmographer,t to make first a reduced map of the whole of the new world, and then to divide it into four parts. Gastaldi did this with the utmost care and diligence; so that now all industrious readers may see and learn how far, by the help of his Excellency Fracastoro, these things had become known to the world. " Because they know in Spain and also in France," Ramu- sio goes on to say to his friend, " the great pleasure and interest which you take in this new part of the world, of which you your-
* See this discourse in Ramusio, vol. 3, p. 2. seq. Venetia, 1556.
t Jacomo di Gastaldi (also called Jacopo Gastaldo) was a native of Villafranca in Piedmont. He had made maps and observations for an edition of the work of Ptole- my published in the year 1543 by Andrea Mattioli in Venice.
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N.º. XI.
TRAMONTANA
TERRA DE LABORADOR
PARTE INCOGNITA
ISOLA DE DEMDNI
Golfo di caffelle
LEVANTE
TERRA
NVOVA.
Mite de trigo
TERRA
DE NVR
VMBEGA
Port du Refuge
Cde bretonen
C Breton
C defpera:
Je Brittesi
Jiela didla rena
Vado allo Lerra
OSTRO
New France by the Italian Jacomo di Gaftaldi in about the year 15 50.
DO
PONENTE
LA NVOVA FRANCIA
Bonne uifte
Flora
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CHARTS OF THE FRENCH DISCOVERIES.
self repeatedly, with your own hands, have made designs; so all the literary men of those countries send every day to you some new discovery made there, and brought to them by pilots or captains com- ing from those parts. Amongst these, particularly, is the above-men- tioned illustrious Gonzalo Oviedo from the Island of Spagniola, who every year presents you with some new-made chart. The same is also done by some excellent Frenchmen, who have sent you from Paris re- ports of New France, together with several draughts, which will be put in this volume in their place."
Ramusio then says, that he had introduced these maps, such as they were, not because he thought them to be perfect and complete, but because he wished to satisfy the desire of Italian students, entertain- ing the hope that, in some time to come, they would be improved. He concludes his discourse with these words : " The benevolent readers may take the little which I have the great pleasure to present to them, and may be sure, that if something better had come to my hands, I should have felt a much greater pleasure in giving it to them. And this is all that I have to say about my newly constructed geographical maps."
The discourse of Ramusio is dated, "Venice, 20th June, 1553," at the time when he probably had collected all the materials for his third volume. As this would take him some time, we may put the date of the composition of these maps at about 1550, though they were not published by Ramusio until 1536, the date of the first edition of his third volume.
The general map of America, here given by Ramusio, is a very accu- rate production, the result of the study of Spanish original maps and reports of the time. It is one of the best, most complete, and correctly printed of the maps published near the middle of the sixteenth centu- ry. It has even the latest discoveries, made in 1542 by the expedition of Cabrillo to California, as high up as about 40º N. I have, however, not given a copy of this map, because it does not contain much that is connected with our subject.
The map of New France, of which I give here a reduced fac-simile, concerns us more nearly. It represents Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, a part of the St. Lawrence, and in the west a fragment of the coast of Maine. It has no indications of longitude and latitude, and no scale of miles. Ramusio gives this map, and also his other four special maps, as illustrative of a short description of the countries and coasts discovered by the French, to which he gives the title : "Dis- course of a great French sea-captain of Dieppe, on the navigations made to the West Indies, called New France, from the 40° to the 47º
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CHARTS OF THE FRENCH DISCOVERIES.
N." He does not mention the name of his " great French sea-captain ;" but it is for several reasons certain, that the famous Jean Parmentier of Dieppe, who in 1529 made a long voyage to Sumatra and other coun- tries, is meant; and it is pretty certain, that the discourse was written by Pierre Crignon, Parmentier's companion and eulogist .* We infer from the contents of the discourse, that it must have been written in 1539, though not printed until 1536. The author, Crignon, enumerates all the old French sea-captains known to have gone out on discoveries to New France before Cartier; namely, Jean Denys, Thomas Aubert, and Giovanni de Verrazano. He says, that thirty-five years ago the Bretons and Normans commenced their navigation to those parts; that about thirty-three years ago, Jean Denys made his voyage; and that fifteen years ago, Verrazano was on that coast. The Bretons and Normans commeneed their voyages to New France, as is generally thought, in 1504; Jean Denys sailed in 1506; Verrazano in 1524. Thus all these statements concur in fixing 1539 as the year in which the discourse was composed.
A short time before, in 1534 and 1535, Jean Cartier had made two of his remarkable expeditions to New France. But no mention whatever is made of these voyages by our author. This extraordinary omission of these most important French discoveries in a discourse, in which all the previous explorations are mentioned, is hard to account for. Was the discourse perhaps written in some distant part of the world, which the news from France had not reached ? Or did the author really write his discourse before Cartier's voyage in 1534, and soon after Parmen- tier's expedition of 1529? and did he, in a later year, 1539, when he wrote his discourse, alter the above-mentioned dates, forgetting then to include Cartier's discoveries ?
However this may have been, the appended map of New France agrees very well with the contents of the discourse. It gives the re- gions there deseribed, and in the manner in which they are described, and yet has no trace whatever of Cartier's discoveries. It appears de- cidedly to have been constructed npon materials and after originals which existed before the time of Cartier. Perhaps the chart of Ver- razano was in part used in its construction. But Verrazano saw all the coasts here depicted, only on a very rapid sail. He could not, for instance, have on his chart any trace of a great river in the interior of Canada. It seems evident, that the author of our map must have used some delineations still older than those of Verrazano; perhaps a copy
* See for this R. H. Major's Introduction to his work, "Early Voyages to Terra Australis," p. vi.
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CHARTS OF THE FRENCH DISCOVERIES.
of the map of the French captain. Jean Denys, said to have been made in the year 1506; in the same manner as he evidently used old Portu- guese maps for the country of Labrador and the higher latitudes. The map, upon the whole, appears to give us that chartographical picture of New France, which, having been collected from several early sources, was current in France before Cartier; from which circumstance the map has great interest for our subject. It may serve as a substitute for the lost maps of Denys, and some other old French navigators.
The map is all the more interesting, because the eminent cosmogra- pher Fracastoro, so often mentioned in the history of the discovery of America, had so much to do with it, and partly procured the materials for its construction. And, indeed, since Fracastoro employed himself in his old age in the country-seat near Verona, to which he had re- treated, in composing maps, and "used to lay down upon globes the new discoveries " as they came to his knowledge, and then liberally communicated all that he had collected to his protege Ramusio; we may conclude that all the maps contained in Ramusio are, to a certain extent, the productions of Fracastoro; * though they were completed and prepared for publication by Gastaldi.
I will now endeavor to give an analysis of this map.
In the north, the map shows a coast running for a long way east and west with the name " Terra de Labrador," and with the Portuguese arms. It is the same country which we have seen, on our former maps, with the same configuration ; and is, probably, our present Green- land.
On the south of this country, separated from it by a broad strait (Davis' Strait), there lies a large group of great and small islands. The northernmost of these, named " Isola de demoni" (the island of demons), is separated from the rest by a long narrow strait, on which, at the eastern entrance, is written " golfo di castelli " (the gulf of the castles),-the old name usually given to the Strait of Belle Isle, which separates Newfoundland from our present Labrador. From this it is evident, that the large "island of demons " is intended to repre- sent a portion of our present Labrador; and the group of smaller isl- ands at the south, our Newfoundland. The name "Terra nuova" is given to one of the larger of these islands. The "island of demons " is unmistakably designated by the small devils flying about it. This
* Fracastoro lived only a few weeks after the date of the above-mentioned dis- course, addressed to him by Ramusio on the 20th of June, 1553. Hle died on the 8th of August, 1553, at the age of seventy-one years. See Tiraboschi, Storia de la Literatura Italiana, tom. 7, pp. 1450, 1451.
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CHARTS OF THE FRENCH DISCOVERIES.
name is very often found on old maps, applied to a small island at the entrance of Davis' Strait.
Along the east coast of " Terra nuova," we find some names attached to it by the Portuguese navigators after the time of the Cortereals : " Monte de trigo,"* " Bonne viste," "Baccalaos," " C. de speranzo," and far south-west, the famous "C. de ras " (Cape Race).
The distance from Cape Race to the eastern entrance of the Strait of Belle Isle (Golfo de Castelli) is about six degrees of latitude, or about four hundred English miles in a direct line. This measure may supply the want in this map of a scale of miles and degrees.
West of Newfoundland we find on our map the Gulf of St. Lawrence; not broad and spacious enough at its mouth, but with a northern chan- nel far too long and large. This northern channel, running down from Davis and Hudson's Straits, is however very remarkable. It is an in- dication of our Ungava Bay, into which a Portuguese explorer had probably looked, without discovering that it was closed at the south.
Far to the west lies a large country, called " Parte incognite." From this region a large river runs in an eastern direction, which undoubt- edly represents the first notions which Bretons and Normans had gained respecting the great river of Canada. The river has two mouths, with a great island between them, perhaps the island of Anticosti. Several other rivers run into it. The whole of this river-system looks as if it had been drawn by an Indian on the sand for Denys, perhaps, or Aubert, or some other Frenchman, by whom it had been transferred to paper.
From Newfoundland, the southern coast of the continent runs east and west. A small part of it in the east, with the name of Cape Bre- ton attached to its southern headland, is cut off from the rest by an arm of the sea,-our island of Cape Breton and Gut of Canso. The country extending west is called "Terra de Nurumbega," which, by the shore line, is about five hundred miles long, and ends in a rectan- gular cape .- doubtless Nova Scotia and Cape Sable.
Nova Scotia is represented as having three large ports on its south coast; one at the west, filled with many small islands, called " Port du Refuge " (the harbor of retreat) ; another named "Port Royal; " and the easternmost, " Flora." It is difficult to identify these names with modern harbors. The deepest and largest bays on this south coast are: the harbor of Halifax, Margaret's Bay, and Malone Bay ; and pos-
* This name and its position at no great distance south of the " Golfo di Castelli " render it certain, that Kunstmann is wrong in charging the author of this map with a mistake in placing where he does the name "Golfo di Castelli." See Kunstmann, Die Entdeckung America's, p. 95. Compare our map of Homem, No. 21.
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CHARTS OF THE FRENCH DISCOVERIES.
sibly these were meant, having been often visited by the fishermen and coasters of Brittany and Normandy. They may, perhaps, have been surveyed by Verrazano, and drawn on his charts. Here the name, " La Nuova Francia," is written in very large letters, indicating probably that this name is meant for the entire country. The name, " Terra de Nurumbega," is written in smaller letters, and appears to be attached only to the peninsula of Nova Scotia. Crignon, however, the author of the discourse which this map is intended to illustrate, gives to this name a far greater extent. He says: "Going beyond the cape of the Bretons, there is a country contiguous to this cape, the coast of which trends to the west a quarter south-west to the country of Florida, and runs along for a good five hundred leagues; which coast was discov- ered fifteen years ago by Master Giovanni da Verrazano in the name of the king of France and of Madame la Regente; and this country is called by many "La Francese," and even by the Portuguese them- selves; and its end is toward Florida under 78° W., and 38º N. The inhabitants of this country are a very pleasant, tractable, and peace- ful people. The country is abounding with all sorts of fruit. There grow oranges, almonds, wild grapes, and many other fruits of odorife- rous trees. The country is named by the inhabitants, " Nurumbega;" and between it and Brazil is a great gulf, in which are the islands of the West Indies, discovered by the Spaniards."* From this it would ap- pear that, at the time of the discourse, the entire east coast of the Uni- ted States, as far as Florida, was designated by the name of Nurumbe- ga. Afterwards, this name was restricted to New England; and, at a later date, it was applied only to Maine, and still later to the region of the Penobscot.
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