USA > Virginia > A history of Virginia : from its discovery and settlement by Europeans to the present time. Vol. I > Part 2
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But even should it be acknowledged that the hardy seamen of the North, or the adventurer of Wales, did in fact reach the coasts of the new world, this will not in any manner detract from the merit of the Genoese navigator. The voyages of Biron and of Madoc were the result rather of acci- dent than of design; they were followed by no per- manent settlement, and their very memory would have been lost but for the industry of modern times. We have no reason to believe that Columbus had any knowledge either of their attempts, or of their alleged success,ª nor do we find in his notes pre- served by his son any reference to these prior ad- ventures. His soul was not kindled into flame by the breath of any mortal. His views were his own-conceived in solitude, matured by incessant study and profound thought-and when once they
ª Harris's Voyages, ii. 190.
b Belknap's Am. Biog., i. 137.
" Burk's History of Virginia, iii. can Biography, i. 134. 84-87. Belknap mentions this dis-
covery, and comments upon it with his accustomed good sense .- Ameri-
d Belknap's Am. Biog., i. 86.
26
VIEWS OF COLUMBUS.
[CHAP. I.
had taken full effect upon his mind, they prevailed to the exclusion of all inferior purposes. " He never spoke in doubt or hesitation, but with as much certainty as if his eyes had beheld the pro- mised land."ª His hopes were not the result of excited fancy, nor of that dreamy enthusiasm which peoples the air and fills all space with fairy beings, but were founded upon the intense labour of a powerful and philosophic intellect. He firmly believed that by sailing continuously westward from Europe, the adventurers must finally attain either to the extreme eastern projections of Asia, or to the shores of a fourth and hitherto unknown continent.b
He based this belief upon three grounds :- First, upon the nature of things: for the spherical form of the earth was now generally received; and though the laws of specific and of general gravity were but the conjectures of the learned few," yet a mind trained to habits of thought easily adopted the belief that some counterbalancing weight of land had been placed by the all-wise Architect in opposition to the immense continents known to antiquity. Secondly, upon the authority of learned
a Irving's Columbus, i. 25.
b Delaplaine's Repos. Disting. most probable that the great voyager Amer., i. 6. In the brief but well- written life of Columbus here found,
had not yet shaken off the fetters of the age in which he lived. Com- it is stated that he rejected the idea pare with Irving's Columbus, i. 25, generally received that India ex- Belknap's Am. Biog., i. 161-164, Robertson's Amer., i. 44.
tended greatly to the east, and be- lieved "the existence of a fourth continent washed by the waters of
the Atlantic Ocean;" but it seems
c Malte Brun's Univ. Geog., t. xiv., cited in Irving's Columbus, i. 25.
27
TRUE BASIS OF HIS GLORY.
1492.]
writers. Marco Polo had travelled into Asia; and, half a century after, Sir John Mandeville had fol- lowed; and both, in returning, had published ac- counts of their discoveries, in which, with much of truth, they had combined more of extravagant fic- tion.ª From these and others Columbus gathered nutriment for his faith in a western passage to the Indies. Thirdly, upon the reports of navigators. Some, who had stretched farthest into the expanse . west of Europe, had encountered timber artificially carved, and canes of enormous size floating upon the sea; even a canoe had been driven to them by easterly winds; and at one time the bodies of two men resembling neither the inhabitants of Europe nor of Africa were cast upon the coasts of the Azore Islands.b
But it is evident that the first of these grounds produced on the mind of Columbus the deepest im- pression, and that the others were only resorted to as confirming his favourite theory. His genius had already imparted to the land of the West all the freshness of reality ; and at a time when the vulgar mass would have listened with doubt-per- haps with horror-to his proposal, and when even the enlightened were confining their views to the East and the shores of Africa, he was willing to launch his bark upon the Atlantic, and to steer westward until either his cherished hopes were
a Robertson's America, i. 31, 32. b Delaplaine's Repos. Dist. Am., Irving's Columbus, ii. Appen. 298- i. 6; Robertson's Am., i. 44; Bel- 304. Marco Polo travelled in 1265, knap's Am. Biog., i. 165. and Mandeville in 1322.
28
TRUE BASIS OF HIS GLORY. [CHAP. I.
realized, or his body had found a tomb in the bosom of that ocean to which he had entrusted his fortunes. It is in this aspect that Columbus ap- pears among the greatest of the great. He was not misled by enthusiasm, or driven on by acci- dent: he was not the fortunate victim of winds and waves, whose fury he would willingly have avoided. His judgment was mature; his conduct was delibe- rate; he had estimated the hazard, and was ready to meet it. He was willing to encounter the scorn of the ignorant, the perfidy of the interested, the doubts of the learned, the delays of royalty,-all these he welcomed if they might conduct him to the threshold of an enterprise of danger beyond all that had gone before,-of inevitable ruin should he fail-but of unfading glory should success place a crown upon his brow.
He who would speak coldly of Columbus, and who, without thought, would ascribe to another the merit which is claimed for him alone, would do well to reflect upon the facts attending his disco- very. It is not merely because he crossed the At- lantic, and landed upon one of the Bahama Islands, that we would receive him as our benefactor. This might, by singular and fortunate accident, have been accomplished by one before his day, who would have merited little at the hands of posterity. But it is the profound, the reflecting, the firm, yet chastened and trusting spirit, that deserves our ad- miration-the mind that conceived, formed, exe- cuted the plan of his life.
Excited by hope, yet laden with care, he turned
29
ISABELLA.
1492.]
his ships to the setting of the sun, and perhaps might have gathered from the departing light pre- sages of darkness for his own high aspirations. He passed three thousand miles of water that had never before been disturbed by a keel; he knew not, with certainty, whither he tended; the very winds which blew with gentle force and wafted on the adventurers over a placid sea, seemed invested with a mysterious control; their breath might be the treacherous fanning of a power from which they could never escape, and which was finally to bear them to certain destruction.ª The superstitious minds over which the master soul presided threat- ened constant rebellion, and added to the solemn terrors of nature the fierce impulses of human pas- sions.
But the difficulties have been encountered and overcome, the dangers have fled before courage and genius; and the day on which Columbus cast him- self upon his knees on the beach of San Salvador, and then rising drew his sword and displayed the royal ensign of the Castilian monarchs,' has im- parted to his name a lustre which will brighten with its rays the history of all succeeding genera- tions.
If any thing could add to the interest of a disco- very so wonderful, achieved by a character so mag- nanimous, it might be found in the thought, that for this great success, Columbus, and all who have lived after him, are wholly indebted to the gene-
2 Irving's Columbus, i. 91.
b Irving's Columbus, i. 103; Delaplaine's Repos. Dist. Am., i. 10.
30
BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS.
[CHAP. I.
rous energy of a woman; and if that part of our country upon whose history we are about to enter bears a name given by a queen, and endeared by many associations of feminine grace, America her- self will never forget the ties which bind her to the fame of the noble, the virtuous, the self-sacrificing Isabella of Castile.ª
After the return of the great Genoese from his first voyage across the Atlantic, all astonishment at subsequent discoveries must be greatly diminished, if not entirely removed. There were indeed stormy seas, bleak and frozen coasts, treacherous rocks and quicksands yet to be encountered, but the myste- ries of the ocean had been revealed-the veil was removed-and future voyagers might securely open their sails to the breeze which bore them to the western continent.
To Spain undoubtedly belongs the honour of having equipped and sent forth the hero who was destined to give to religion and civilization a new world for their favoured home ; but another country must claim the merit of having planted in America the germ of that greatness which she derives from her prosperity and her free institutions. Had Bar- tholomew Columbus reached the court of Henry the Seventh of England in due season, even the avaricious caution of that monarch might have
a Prescott's Ferdinand and Isa- bella, ii. 128. Irving's Columbus, i. 71. "The king looked coldly on the affair, and the royal finances were absolutely drained by the war. With an enthusiasm worthy
of herself and of the cause, Isabella exclaimed - I undertake the enter- prise for my own crown of Castile, and will pledge my private jewels to raise the necessary funds.' "
31
BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS.
1492.]
been moved by his arguments, and under English auspices the great navigator might have set forth upon his voyage.ª But it was otherwise disposed ; and to the influence thus fairly gained by Spanish and papal power may be ascribed much of the op- pression, the inactivity, and the vice, which have checked the growth of colonies in the fairest part of the western world.
But though England thus lost the privilege of being first in the enterprise which had been so happily commenced, she was not blind to the ad- vantages that were to flow from the opening of this new field to European effort. She had not then indeed attained to that skill in navigation which has since distinguished her, and which has secured for her fleets the dominion of the seas, but her people were beginning to develope those uncon- querable energies which have ever impelled the Anglo-Saxon race.b In maritime attainments she was still inferior to the navigators of Italy, of Spain, or of Portugal; but in well-directed activity, and in resources from which to draw means for the equipment of voyagers, the wisdom of her monarch had rendered her their superior.
Europe had not recovered from the years of pleasing astonishment into which she was thrown by the return of Columbus, before Henry made diligent preparation to send forth a fleet upon a voyage of discovery to the new world thus opened to his view.
a Robertson's America, i. 46; Howe's Hist. Collec. Va., 13; Burk's Hist. Va., i. 36, in note. b Robertson's America, i. 389.
32
PATENT TO JOHN CABOT.
[CHAP. I.
But no Englishman was willing to lead in an adventure certainly hazardous, and requiring bold- ness and naval skill of the highest order.
Giovanni Gaboto, a Venetian merchant, whose name, when anglicized, may be known under the familiar form of John Cabot, was the man to whom England committed her dawning interests for the new world. He was a merchant of Bristol; and, in union with other enterprising spirits of that city, he fitted out four small barks, which, with one shipª furnished by the king, composed the frail fleet that prepared to buffet the waves of the northern ocean. On the 5th of March, 1496, Henry granted to John Cabot, and to his sons Lewis, Sebastian, and Sanc- tius, a patent;b and as this, " the most ancient Ame- rican state paper of England,"e will furnish to us an idea of the contracted views of colonization then entertained, it will be expedient to refer to its terms. Henry grants to the Cabot family power " to sail in all parts of east, west, and north, under the royal banners and ensigns; to discover countries of the heathen unknown to Christians; to set up the king's banners; to occupy and possess as his subjects such places as they could subdue; giving them the rule and jurisdiction of the same, to be holden on con- dition of paying to the king as often as they should arrive at Bristol, (at which place only they were
a Marshall's Amer. Col., 12.
i. 9, citing Chalmers' Polit. Annals,
b Marshall dates this patent in 7,8. Burk's Hist. Va., i. 37. 1495. Am. Col., 12. So does Dr. Robertson, America, i. 390, citing Hakluyt, iii. 4. See Bancroft's U. S.,
c Bancroft's U. S., i. 10, citing Chalmers, 9.
33
PATENT TO JOHN CABOT.
1496.]
permitted to arrive,) in wares and merchandise, one-fifth part of all their gains; with exemption from all customs and duties on such merchandise as should be brought from their discoveries.ª
Under this grant, it is clear that the Venetian and his family would acquire a complete title to all
. the lands they discovered, as well as full power to exercise over them such form of government as to them might seem best; while the unhappy colo- nists who might be induced to settle on their do- main would be bereft of all political rights, and consigned to the tender mercies of the Cabot dy- nasty and their duly appointed agents. This grant, so liberal to the leading adventurers, and so crush- ing to those upon whom alone a colony must de- pend, was only on condition of the due payment to the royal merchant of his reserved part of the gains !
The time was not yet come when men had learned their social rights, and when human beings resented the attempt of a crowned head to transfer or to settle them like beasts of the field. Many years were to pass away before England could learn the true policy for colonizing; but it was for- tunate that the gallant men to whom royalty com- mitted its patents had more liberal souls than their sovereigns, and were always willing to share with their colonists the burdens and the pleasures of their arduous enterprises.
a The patent in full may be found U. S., i. 10; Marshall's Colon. Hist. in Hazard's State Papers, i. 9. See Am., 12. also Burk's Va., i. 37; Bancroft's VOL. I. 3
34 DISCOVERY OF THE CONTINENT. [CHAP. I.
(1497, May.) Clothed with these powers, John Cabot and his heroic son Sebastiana launched boldly forth upon the western waters. Columbus had adopted the opinion that the islands he had disco- vered were contiguous to the coast of Asia, and the name of Indies might already be familiarly be- stowed on the groups which belonged to America. Visions of gold and gems upon the soil of Cathay were already floating in the brain of the elder Ca- bot; and, steering a northwest course, he hoped to reach the promised haven of exhaustless wealth. On the 24th June the cheering sight of land was obtained in a high latitude, and the Italian navi- gator welcomed it with a name expressive of grati- fied hope. He called it Prima Vista; but the sailors of his fleet soon bestowed a title, which, if less pleasing to the ear, has been of more enduring existence.b No gems or gold were found to sate their eager appetites ; but subsequent years have developed the true value of the treasure they had discovered, and the banks of Newfoundland will continue to be a source of wealth and prosperity to man when the artificial thirst for gold has been for- gotten.c
Continuing their voyage from Prima Vista and St. John, with no prize more valuable than three natives, they next encountered the great continent itself; and the world seems to have acknowledged
a Marshall says in May, 1496; but it was in 1497. Robertson's America, i. 390; Bancroft's U. S., i. 10.
b Robertson's America, i. 390.
" Raynal's Indies, v. 325-338; Smith's Hist. Va., ii. 246.
35
DISCOVERY OF THE CONTINENT.
1497.]
that to an expedition sent forth under English pa- tronage, Europe owes the discovery of the main land of the West.ª
Still seduced by the golden phantom, Cabot had steered north from Newfoundland, and he made the American coast in the latitude of fifty-six de- grees.
1236195
The cold and forbidding cliffs of Labrador could furnish neither invitations for colonizing, nor wealth for avarice, nor hopes of a northern passage to the much-sought Indies ; and Cabot was easily induced to turn his course to the more temperate seas of the south. He coasted along America, probably to the latitude of Virginia, and possibly even to that of Florida,' but returned to England without having attempted either conquest or settlement.
The success of this voyage rekindled the zeal of Henry, who had not yet become so far involved in the interests of Spain as to be willing to yield de- ference to the enormous claims of papal folly. Subsequently, indeed, the marriage of his son with Catharine of Arragon made him anxious to pre- serve peaceful relations with his Catholic majesty, even by sacrificing in appearance his well-founded claims to America. The Pope had granted to the Spanish monarchs absolute right to all the coun- tries discovered or discoverable west of a meridian line drawn from pole to pole one hundred leagues
a Bancroft's United States, i. 2; Am. Col., 13; Rees' Enc., art. Cabot. Grimshaw's United States, 19.
c Hume's England, ed. 1832, i. b Robertson's Am.,i.390; Marshall's 519, chap. xxvi.
36
SEBASTIAN CABOT.
[CHAP. I.
to the westward of the Azores,a and the period had not yet arrived when even the faithful subjects of his Holiness had learned to yield to him spiritual obedience so absolute as to bring their lips to his feet, and yet, when necessary, to bind his temporal hands.b
On the 3d February, 1498, Henry granted to John Cabot another patent, somewhat less ample than the first, and under its sanction another fleet of discovery was prepared. The direction of this enterprise was given to Sebastian Cabot, who was born at Bristol, and whose memory England should cherish with a love little inferior to that which she bestows upon the best of her native sons. Full of adventurous courage, yet calm in danger, deeply skilled in his favourite art, and devoted with enthusiasm to a life of discovery, his eighty years on earth were passed in almost ceaseless efforts for the advance of scientific knowledge, and he de- serves more from his race than a grave unknown even to the most diligent antiquary.d
In the voyage now commenced, Sebastian fol- lowed the course formerly pursued by his father, and stretched away first to the north, still intent upon finding a northwestern passage. On the 11th of June he had attained the very high latitude
a Robertson's America, i. 65.
e " Sebastian Cabot declares him-
b Voltaire Siècle de Louis XIV., self a native of Bristol." See the tome i. 23. La maxime est de le authorities in Bancroft, i. 8; Rees' Encylop., art. Cabot. regarder comme une personne sacrée mais entreprenante à laquelle il faut d Hayward's Life of S. Cabot, in Sparks' Am. Biog., vol. ix. 161. baiser les pieds et lier quelquefois les mains.
37
SEBASTIAN CABOT.
1498.]
of sixty-seven and a half degrees, and yet the fa- vourable season so acted with its genial heat upon the sea, that his passage was unobstructed by ice.2 But his crew, finding little to gratify in these barren regions, and not partaking of his zeal, mutinied and compelled him to return to the south, where for- mer voyages had induced them to believe, might be found a clime of unexampled charms, and a country filled with all that nature could lavish upon her lovers. He sailed along the coast of what was afterwards Virginia, and seems to have been tempted even to the flowery land upon which a name so appropriate was subsequently bestowed ;b but he was compelled to return to England by threatened famine in his ships.c
It would be a violation of the unity of plan de- sired in history, longer to dwell upon the succes- sive voyages undertaken by Europeans for the dis- covery and settlement of the new world. It will not be expedient to accompany the navigators of France' in their hardy attempts to draw wealth or fame from the frozen coasts of North America, nor to follow the Spaniard, Ferdinand De Soto, in his long-continued excursion through a country now
a Harris' Voyages, ii. 191-195. poetic than the desire to honour the There is some confusion of date as to this voyage. Harris places it in 1497; Bancroft refers it to 1498; Marshall and Robertson do not men- tion it at all.
" Pascua Florida," the Easter-day of the Roman Catholic church. Mur- ray's Encyc. Geog., iii. 543; Ban- croft, i. 33.
c Purchas' Pilgrims, iv. 1177; b Florida was discovered on Easter- Harris' Voyages, ii. 193.
d Viz., Cartier, Roberval, Poutrin-
day; and the Spaniards, in naming it, were moved by no sentiment more court, &c.
38
CAUSES OF DELAY.
[CHAP. I.
covered by some of the most flourishing states in our Union,a nor to trace the events which resulted in the settlement of St. Augustine in 1565, nearly half a century before the landing of Englishmen upon the shores of the Chesapeake. The voyages of the Cabots have been the more fully described, because they give to England a title by discovery to the fairest portion of North America, and the zeal she afterwards manifested in settling it com- pleted the equity of her claim. Had Spain or even France sent colonies to Virginia, her history would have been far less grateful to a mind intent upon the good of man than it has proved-there might, perchance, have been stirring incident, ardent pa- triotism, and even successful revolution; but there would not have been that clearness of political view, and that stern adherence to principle, the seeds of which are deeply implanted in English character. And if North America shall finally exercise an influence for unmeasured good upon the destinies of mankind, the world will owe this to the guidings of that Providence which sent the. superstitious Spaniard to "the climes of gold and silver, and reserved during more than a century, the soil of the north for the labour of English in- dustry.
It has been a subject of surprise, perhaps of re- gret to many, that England should so long have delayed to plant colonies in that inviting country which had been opened to her view by her fearless
a Purchas, iv. 1532-1556; Bancroft's U. S., i. 49-63; Belknap's Am. Biog., i. 260-269. b Bancroft's U. S., i. 74.
39
HENRY VIII.
1547.]
!
voyagers. Eighty-nine years passed away be- tween the success of the elder Cabot and the first feeble attempt to engraft upon the young tree of the virgin land a scion from the vigorous oak of Britain. But it may not be unprofitable to reflect, that during this intervening period the history of the mother country presents little else than a scene of profligacy and oppression in the conspicuous reigning monarchs, and of submissive stupor in the people, which promised no good thing for the only spirit desirable for colonization.
Henry VIII. was a tyrant by nature and by cul- ture, and added to the imposing traits of a despot the less respectable vices of an unscrupulous libertinism. His religion consisted in a bigotry which exceeded even that of Rome, and which condemned alike Papists and Protestants to the stake or the gibbet.2 His opposition to popery had no better basis than his relentless resolve to divorce a queen worthy of the best love that man could give; and the liturgy that he inflicted upon what he might truly have called "his church," was an embodiment of his own cruel inconsistencies. Under such a monarch, it is not wonderful that little was effected for colo- nies either by public spirit in government or by private adventure. Henry might rejoice in the welfare of a country which ministered food for his intense selfishness, and the people might be willing for a time to bear a yoke entailed upon them by the wars of an age of blood; but few could be found disposed to expatriate themselves and en-
ª Hume's England, ed. 1796, iii. 181.
.
40
EDWARD VI. - MARY.
[CHAP. I.
counter the toils of the sea and the wilderness, with the certain prospect of devoting all their strength to fill the coffers of the grasping Tudor. Per- haps these considerations will do more to ex- plain the indifference of England to colonization during his dominion, than his fierce struggles with the Pope, his general interference in European politics,a or his domestic cares in providing suc- cessive wives to share his throne and sink beneath his cruelty.
During the short reign of the amiable Edward, a prince who seems to have drawn from his mother all that was distinctive in his moral character, England was free from papal control, and might have ridiculed with impunity the preposterous grant which divided the new world between two favoured nations.b But a regency is a season not often benignant in its influence upon the foreign interests of a people, unless it be long continued, and be sustained by hands more skilful than those which directed the youthful king. In this reign no steady effort was made farther to develope the resources of the new world.
And when bigotry, in a female form, ascended the English throne in the person of Mary, the most sanguine heart could not have hoped for success- ful enterprise. Her time was wholly occupied in forcing popery again upon her unwilling people, in burning faithful subjects of her crown, and in sooth-
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