The voyage of Verrazzano

by Henry Cruse Murphy

The discourse of the French captain does not, any more than the letter of Verrazzano, exist in the original; nor has any copy of it ever been produced, except in a printed translation by Ramusio in the same volume, as that in which his version of that letter appears, and immediately following it. Ramusio states that it was written in 1539, as may he inferred from the letter itself in its present form, and that he had translated it from the French, grieving much that he did not know the name of the author, because not giving it he seemed to do wrong to the memory of so valiant and noble a gentleman. It is evident, however, upon comparing the description, which it gives, of a voyage made from Dieppe to Sumatra, with the original journal, first brought to light and published a few years ago, of such a voyage made by Jean Parmentier in 1529, that this discourse was written by some one of the persons engaged in that expedition.[Footnote: Voyages et decouvertes des navigateurs Normands. Par L. Estancelin, p. 241. (Paris 1832.) M. Estancelin supposes that Pierre Mauclere the astronomer of one of the ships composing the expedition of Parmentier, was the author of this discourse (p. 45, note). But M. D'Avezac attributes it to Pierre Crignon, who also accompanied Parmentier, and who besides being the editor of a collection of poems by Parmentier, after his death, evinced his knowledge of nautical matters by writing a dissertation on the variation of the needle. Introduction to the Brief Recit of Jacques Cartier, p. VIL (Tross, Paris, 1868.) Brunet, sub Parmentier. Margry, Les navigateurs Francaises, p. 199. ] Its authenticity, in general, may therefore not be questioned. But as the original has never been produced and it is only known through this version of Ramusio, experience in regard to his practice as a compiler, of altering texts according to his judgment of their defects and errors, proves that we have by no means a reliable copy for our guidance. In fact, as given by Ramusio, its recognition of the Verrazzano discovery is only by way of parenthesis, and in such antagonism to the context, as to render it quite certain that this portion of it is by another hand.

The writer, after explaining the nature of latitude and longitude, and taking the meridian of no variation running through the eastern extremity of the Cape de Verde islands as the basis of his observations of longitude, proceeds to a description of Terra Nova; so much of which as is pertinent is here abstracted.

"The Terra Nova, the nearest cape of which is called the Cape de Ras, is situated west of our diametrical or meridional line whereon is fixed the first point of longitude according to the true meridian of the compass; and the said Cape de Ras is in west longitude 40 Degrees and 47 of North latitude. The Terra Nova extends towards the Arctic pole from 40 Degrees to 60, and from Cape de Ras going towards the pole, the coast almost always runs from south to north, and contains in all 350 leagues, and from said Cape de Ras to the cape of the Brettons, the coast runs east and west, for an hundred leagues, and the cape of the Brettons is in 47 Degrees west longitude and 46 north latitude. To go from Dieppe to the Terra Nova, the course is almost all east and west, and there are from Dieppe to said Cape de Ras 760 leagues.

"Between Cape de Ras and cape of the Brettons dwell an austere and cruel people with whom you cannot treat or converse. They are large of person, clad in skins of seals and other wild animals tied together, and are marked with certain lines, made with fire, on the face and as it were striped with color between black and red, (tra il nero & berrettino) and in many respects as to face and neck, are like those of our Barbary, the hair long like women, which they gather up on top of the head as we do with a horse's tail. Their arrows are bows with which they shoot very dexterously, and their arrows are pointed with black stones and fish bones. * * *

"This land was discovered 35 years ago, that is, the part that runs east and west, by the Brettons and Normands, for which reason the land is called the Cape of the Brettons. The other part that runs north and south was discovered by the Portuguese from Cape de Ras to Cape Buona-vista, which contains about 70 leagues, and the rest was discovered as far as the gulf of the Castles, and further on by said Brettons and Normands, and it is about 33 years since a ship from Honfleur of which Jean Denys (Giovanni Dionisio) was captain and Camart (Camarto) of Rouen, was pilot, first went there, and in the year 1508, a Dieppe vessel, called the Pensee, which was owned by Jean Ango, father of Monsignor, the captain and Viscount of Dieppe went thither, the master or the captain of said ship being Thomas Aubert, and he was the first who brought hither people of the said country.

"Following beyond the cape of the Brettons there is a land contiguous to the said cape, the coast whereof extends west by southwest as far as the land of Florida and it runs full 500 leagues, (WHICH COAST WAS DISCOVERED FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, BY MESSER GIOVANNI DA VERRAZZANO, IN THE NAME OF KING FRANCIS, AND MADAME THE REGENT,) and this land is called by many la Francese, and likewise by the Portuguese themselves and its end towards Florida is at 78 Degrees west longitude and 30 Degrees north latitude. The inhabitants of this land are tractable peoples, friendly and pleasant. The land is most abundant in all fruit. There grow oranges, almonds, wild grapes and many other kinds of odoriferous trees. The land is called by its people Nurumbega, and between this land and that of Brazil is a great gulf which extends westwardly to 92 Degrees west longitude, which is more than a quarter of the circuit of the globe; and in the gulf are the islands and West Indies discovered by the Spaniards." [Footnote: Ramusio, III. fol. 423-4 (ed. 1556).]

This account emphatically contradicts the Verrazzano letter which claims the discovery of the coast from Cape Breton in 46 Degrees N, as far east and north, as 50 Degrees N. latitude, embracing a distance of two hundred leagues, both according to the letter and the discourse. It distinctly affirms this long stretch of coast to have been discovered long before the Verrazzano voyage by the Portuguese and the Bretons and Normands, assigning to the Portuguese and French specific portions of it. This is in perfect harmony with the truth as established by the authorities to which occasion has already been had to refer. This account therefore unequivocally repudiates the Verrazzano claim to the discovery of that part of the country, and thus derogates from the pretensions of the letter instead of supporting them.

The letter contains a distinct and specific claim for the discovery of the coast as far north as 50 Degrees N. The writer of the discourse, if he had any knowledge on the subject, must have known of the extent of this claim. In attributing to others the discovery of that large portion of the coast, east and north of Cape Breton, he must have considered the claim to that extent as unfounded. It is difficult therefore to account for his admitting its validity as regards the country south of Cape Breton as he apparently does; as it is a manifest inconsistency to reject so important a part as false, and affirm the rest of it to be true, when the whole depends upon the same evidence.

Another circumstance to be remarked is, that the description, which follows, of the country said to have been discovered by Verrazzano, has not the slightest reference to the account given in the letter, but is evidently derived from other sources of discovery. Two names are attributed to it, Francese and Nurumbega, both of which owe their designation to other voyagers. Francese, or French land, appears for the first time in any publication, on two maps hereafter mentioned, printed in 1540, under the Latin form of Francisca. It is called in the manuscript cosmography and charts of Jean Alfonse, terre de la Franciscane. An earlier map by Baptista Agnese, described by Mr. Kohl, indicates that the name owes its origin, as will hereafter be pointed out, to the voyages of the French fishermen to the shores of Nova Scotia and New England. [Footnote: Discovery of Maine, p. 202, chart XIV.] Nurumbega, as the writer himself states, is an Indian name, which could not have been taken from the Verrazzano account, as that does not mention a single Indian word of any kind. The statement of the productions of the country includes oranges, which do not belong to any portion of the continent claimed to have been visited by Verrazzano, and plainly indicates an entirely different authority for that portion of the coast. It is therefore equally unaccountable why the author of the discourse should have acknowledged the discovery by Verrazzano and, at the same time, have passed over altogether the description in the letter, and sought his information in regard to the country elsewhere, when he had there such ample details, especially in connection with the great bay.

The solution of the whole difficulty is to be found in the fact that the clause relating to Verrazzano was not the work of the author of the discourse, but of another person. It is not difficult to understand how and by whom this interpolation came to be made. Ramusio had both the letter and the discourse in his hands at the same time, for the purpose of preparing them for publication, recomposing the one, as has already been shown, and translating the other from the French into the Italian, as he himself states. In the execution of the former of these tasks, he took the liberty of altering the letter, as has been proven, by substituting the phrase of, THE LAND DISCOVERED BY THE BRETONS, for that of, THE COUNTRY EXPLORED BY THE PORTUGUESE, as the northern limit of the voyage of Verrazzano; thereby removing the objection, to which the letter was obnoxious, of entirely ignoring the discoveries of the Bretons, which were distinctly asserted in the discourse. In order to conform to the Verrazzano letter, as it was thus modified, it was necessary to insert this clause in the discourse, which would else to contradict the letter entirely. The two alterations, however necessary they were to preserve some consistency between the two documents, are, nevertheless, both alike repugnant to the original letter.