Thirty years and more went by. Many voyages were made, and it became known for certain that Columbus had not reached the shores of India by sailing west, and that a great continent barred the way north as well as south of the Equator.
Then a famous map-maker gave the name of America to both continents.
But many Spaniards were jealous for the fame of Columbus, and they thought that the Northern Continent should be called Colonia or Columbiana. One, anxious that the part in the discovery taken by Ferdinand and Isabella should not be forgotten, even tried to make people call it Fer-Isabelica.
But all such efforts were in vain. America sounded well, people liked it, and soon every one used it.
Amerigo Vespucci himself had nothing to do with the choice, and yet because others gave his name to the New World many hard things have been said of him. He has been called in scorn a "land lubber, " a beef and biscuit contractor," and other contemptuous names. Even one of the greatest American writers has poured scorn on him. "Strange," he says, "that broad America must wear the name of a thief. Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle dealer of Seville . . . whose highest naval rank was a boatswain's mate in an expedition that never sailed, managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus and baptise half the earth with his own dishonest name."
But it was the people of his day, and not Vespucci, who brought the new name into use. Vespucci himself had never any intention of being a thief or of robbing Columbus of his glory. He and Columbus had always been friends, and little more than a year before he died Columbus wrote a letter to his son Diego which Vespucci delivered. In this letter Columbus says, "Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer of this letter . . . has always been wishful to please me. He is a very honest man. . . . He is very anxious to do something for me, if it is in his power."
It was only accident which gave the name of America to the New World, and perhaps also the ingratitude of the great leader's own generation.
Later generations, however, have not been so unmindful of Columbus and his deeds; Americans have not allowed his great name to be wholly forgotten. The district in which the capital of the United States is situated is called Columbia. In Canada too there is the great province of British Columbia, and in South America the 'United States of Colombia, besides many towns all named in honour of the great discoverer.
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