Gomez left Corunna in the winter of 1524-5, and reached the North-American coast somewhere about Florida. He probably only began to investigate closely after he passed into the broad gulf of Maine, between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia. Here he sighted from the sea the lofty mountains of New Hampshire, and steered for the mouth of the Penobscot River (which he named the River of Deer), a title which sticks to the locality—in Deer Island—at the present day. But this being no opening of a broad strait, he passed on into the Bay of Fundy (from Portuguese word, Fundo, the bottom of a sack or passage), explored its two terminal gulfs, then returned along the coast of Nova Scotia,[13] past Cape Sable, and so to the "gut" or Canal of Canso. Gomez realized that Cape Breton was an island (we now know that it is two islands separated by a narrow watercourse), but thought that Cabot Strait was a great bay, and guessed nothing of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the chance of securing for Spain the possession of this mighty waterway into the heart of North America.
From Cape North he crossed over to the south coast of Newfoundland, and followed this more or less till he came to Cape Race. Newfoundland was a "very cold and savage land", and Gomez decided it was no use prosecuting any farther his enquiry as to a water passage across North America, because, if it existed, it must lie in latitudes of frozen sea and be unnavigable.
At different places along the east coast of North America he kidnapped natives, and eventually returned to Spain (via Florida and Cuba) with a cargo of Amerindian slaves.
He had been preceded, by seven or eight months, in his explorations along the same coast by GIOVANNI DA VERRAZANO, a native of Florence, who as a navigator and explorer had visited the East, and had associated himself a good deal with the shipowners of Dieppe. Ever since the issue of Cabot's voyages was known—at any rate from 1504—ships from Brittany and Normandy had made their way to Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland for the cod fisheries. In 1508 a Norman named Aubert was sent out by Jean Ango—a great merchant of Dieppe of that day—to found a colony in Newfoundland. Aubert failed to do this, but he captured and brought away at least seven of the natives, no doubt of the Beothik tribe, from Newfoundland to Rouen, with their canoe, clothing, and weapons. A good many ships also went out from La Rochelle on the west coast of France, and took part in the fishing off the coast of Newfoundland: together with the ships of Brittany and Dieppe there may have been a French fishing fleet of seventy to eighty ships plying every summer season between France, Newfoundland, and Cape Breton. So that when "John from Verrazano" offered his services to Francis I to make discoveries across the ocean, which should become possessions of the French Crown, he was quickly provided with the requisite funds and ships.
Verrazano started on the 17th of January, 1524, for the coast of North America, but I shall say little about his expedition here, because it resulted chiefly in the discovery and mapping of what is now the east coast of the United States. He reached as far as the south coast of Newfoundland, it is true; he also gave the names of Nova Gallia and Francesca to the coast regions of eastern North America, and distinctly intended to take possession of these on behalf of the French Crown. But his work in this direction did not lead directly to the creation of the French colony of Canada, because, when he returned from America, Francis I was at war with Spain, and could pay no attention to Verrazano's projects. His voyage is worth recording in the present volume only for these two reasons: he certainly put it into the minds of French people that they might found an empire in North America; and he inspired geographers for another hundred years with the false idea that the great North American Continent had a very narrow waist, like the Isthmus of Panama, and that the Pacific Ocean covered the greater part of what is now called the United States. This mistake arose from his looking across the narrow belts or peninsulas of sand in North Carolina and Virginia, and seeing vast stretches of open water to the west. These were found, a hundred years afterwards, to be merely large shallow lagoons of sea water, but Verrazano thought they were an extension of the Pacific Ocean.
Nevertheless, Verrazano's voyage developed into the French colonization of Canada, just as Cabot drew the British to Newfoundland, Columbus the Spaniards to Central and South America, and Amerigo Vespucci showed the Portuguese the way to Brazil. The modern nations of western Europe owe the inception of their great colonies in America to four Italians.
[1] This is a convenient name for the race formerly called "American Indian". They are not Indians (i.e. natives of India), and they are not the only Americans, since there are now about 110,000,000 white Americans of European origin and 24,000,000 negroes and negroids. The total approximate "Amerindian" or aboriginal population of the New World at the present day is 16,000,000, of whom about 111,000 live in the Canadian Dominion, and 300,000 in the United States, the remainder in Central and South America.