At last the great Genoese sails forth, and becomes a tangible figure in history. Often as his story may be told, familiar as it is to every schoolboy in the land, we can never hear it without a keen realization of its personal relations to ourselves. "It would be impossible," said Daniel Webster, "for us to read the discovery of our continent without being reminded how much it has affected our own fortunes and our own existence. It would be unnatural for us to contemplate with unaffected minds that most touching and pathetic scene when the great discoverer of America stood on the deck of his shattered bark, the shades of night falling on the sea, yet no man sleeping; tossed on the billows of an unknown ocean, yet the stronger billows of alternate hope and despair tossing his own troubled thoughts; extending forward his harassed frame, straining westward his anxious and eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted him a moment of rapture and ecstasy, in blessing his vision with the sight of an unknown world."
Intensely interesting are the narratives of the daring adventurers who followed Columbus—of the Cabots who landed and claimed the country for the English crown; of the Spaniards and Portuguese upon whom Pope Alexander the Sixth generously bestowed the world, giving to the Spaniards the western, and to the Portuguese the eastern part of it,[1] for in those days it was but necessary for any pirate or sea adventurer from either nation to land and erect a stone or stick on the coast, to constitute a valid claim to possession in the name of Spain or Portugal and a right to drive out or exterminate the ancient inhabitants and owners of the land.
But of all the early adventurers none is so interesting to us as Amerigo Vespucci, whose name we bear. He won for himself this honour simply and solely because of his literary ability, which enabled him to write an interesting narrative of his adventures. The historian is fortunate who has no one to contradict him. He may draw his pictures from imagination and make them as gorgeous as he pleases. There is no reason to believe that Vespucci failed to make liberal use of this privilege; but that did not in the least retard the success of his book. It has been repeatedly asserted that it was not through his fault that the name of this continent was given to him, rather than to the man who deserved that honour; that his German translator, Martin Waldsemüller, suggested it; that the idea was comical enough to catch the fancy of the Portuguese, who at once adopted it. The Spaniards, on the other hand, resented it, and complained bitterly that the honour was stolen from the rightful possessor. On the death of Columbus, Vespucci entered the service of Spain, and was stationed at Seville, with the title of pilot-major. Part of his duty was to mark out on charts the tracks to be followed by Spanish navigators, and he always distinguished the new world, first, by the words "Amerigo's Land," and presently, "America"! This settles his responsibility for a fraud which never did and never will deceive anybody. He was a skilful navigator,—a great man in his day and generation,—but no renown to him has gone with the name he strove to make immortal. Vespucci has ever been deemed a very inconsiderable person in comparison with Columbus, although it has come to pass that half the world bears his name.
The Spaniard, with fire and sword, swiftly followed Vespucci. He took possession of Florida, overthrew the temples and idols in Mexico, conquered Peru! The French were already here,—that did not signify,—the power of Spain was speedily established. Before the English flag "floated over so much as a log fort, Spain was mistress of Central America." Her ships crept along the coast, peered into Chesapeake Bay, and explored harbours and inlets with reference to future possession.
It was quite time for England to remember and confirm her claim. Spain was her enemy. Spain was growing rich from American gold, and powerful by reason of American possessions. Already four hundred vessels came annually from the harbours of Portugal and Spain (and some from France and England), to the shores of Newfoundland. Queen Elizabeth granted a liberal patent[2] to one of her bravest soldiers, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, with the right to establish a colony. With Sir Walter Raleigh's aid, he equipped a squadron of three ships, but misfortunes befell his little vessels, and he attempted to return to England with two ships, the Hind and the Squirrel. A great storm arose; the oldest mariner had "never seen a more outrageous sea," and in it the Squirrel perished. The Hind returned to tell the story of Sir Humphrey's devotion and courage; how out of the darkness a brave voice rang out—the voice of the good old knight to whom the Queen had given with her blessing a golden anchor set with pearls—"Be of good cheer, my friends! We are as near to Heaven by sea as by land," and how his ship went down in the night!
Such was the spirit of the few Englishmen who came hither before 1600 on fruitless voyages—sighting our shores only—like sea-birds which hover on restless wing near the coast for a moment, then wheel and return to their nests in some far-away island.
CHAPTER II
With Sir Walter Raleigh the history of the English colonies in America begins. He was a prime favourite with Queen Elizabeth, and she knew how to exalt and abase, to create and destroy. To Raleigh she gave viceregal powers over any and all of England's prospective colonies, with no limit to his control over territories, of which he could bestow grants according to his pleasure. He sent out an exploring expedition to the islands near North Carolina. The adventurers returned with glowing accounts of the country. The season was summer—seas were tranquil, skies clear; no storms ever gathered on those peaceful shores; all was repose. The gentle inhabitants were in harmony with the scene; flowers and fruit abounded, grapes were clustered close to the coast and cooled by the spray of a quiet sea; there was no winter, no cold. A hundred islands clustered along the shores, inhabited by "people the most gentle, loving, and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as lived after the manner of the golden age." No wonder a new expedition of one hundred and eight colonists was soon organized. Seven vessels were equipped, and sailed under the happiest auspices. But, alas! the "gentle people" living after the manner of the golden age proved thievish and deceitful; disasters, many and varied, followed; the adventurers forsook the "paradise of the world," and the enterprise came to naught.
