Original sources on the Cortereal voyages.
Portuguese habit of concealing information.
It so happened that Pasqualigo, the Venetian ambassador in Lisbon, made record of the return of the first of these vessels, in a letter which he wrote from Lisbon, October 19, 1501; and it is from this, which made part of the well-known Paesi novamente retrovati (Vicenza, 1507), that we derive what little knowledge we have of these voyages. The reports have fortunately been supplemented by Harrisse in a dispatch dated October 17, 1501, which he has produced from the archives of Modena, in which one Alberto Cantino tells how he heard the captain of the vessel which arrived second tell the story to the king. This dispatch to the Duke of Ferrara was followed by a map showing the new discoveries. This cartographical record had been known for some years before it was reproduced by Harrisse on a large scale. It is apparent from this that the discoverers believed, or feigned to believe, that the new-found regions lay westward from Ireland half-way to the American coasts. The evidence that they feigned to believe rather than that they knew these lands to be east of their limitary line may not be found; but it was probably some such doubt of their honesty which induced Robert Thorne, of Bristol, to speak of the purpose which the Portuguese had in falsifying their maps. Nor were the frauds confined to maps. Translations were distorted and narratives perverted. Biddle, in his Life of Cabot, points out a marked instance of this, where the simple language of Pasqualigo is twisted so as to convey the impression of a long acquaintance of the natives with Italian commodities, as proving that the Italians had formerly visited the region,—a hint which Biddle supposed the Zeni narrative at a later date was contrived to sustain, so as to deceive many writers. We shall soon revert to this Cantino map.
1501. Miguel Cortereal.
The voyage which Miguel Cortereal is known to have undertaken in the summer of 1501, which has been connected with this series of northwest voyages, is held by Harrisse, in his revised opinions, not to have been to the New World at all, but to have been conducted against the Grand Turk, and Cortereal returned from it on November 4, 1501.
1502. Miguel Cortereal again.
To search for the missing Gaspar Cortereal, Miguel, on May 10, 1502, again sailed to the northwest with two or three ships. They found the same coast as before, searched it without success, and returned again without a leader; for Miguel's ship missed the others at a rendezvous and was never again heard of.
Terre des Cortereal.
Straits of Anian.