Another contemporary account of this voyage of Gaspar Cortereal has lately been discovered. M. Harrisse has obtained from the archives of Modena a despatch sent to Hercules d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, by Alberto Cantino, his representative at Lisbon, in which the arrival of the second vessel (expected immediately in Pasqualigo’s letter) is reported. This despatch is dated Oct. 17, 1501. The vessel arrived on the 11th,—three days after the first one,—and brought the expected cargo of slaves. Cantino says that he saw, touched, and surveyed (li quali io ho visti, tochi et contemplati) these natives. He gives some account of the savages, and tells the story of the voyage as he heard the captain of the vessel relate it to the King, being present at their interview. The caravel had been a month on her return, and the distance was two thousand eight hundred miles,—“Questo naviglio è venuto di la a qua in un mese, et dicono esservi 2,800 milia de distantia.” Cantino makes no mention of the return of the first vessel, but speaks of a third, commanded by Cortereal in person, as having decided to remain in the new country, and to sail along its coast far enough to discover whether it were an island or terra firma,—“Laltro compagno ha deliberato andar tanto per quella costa, che vole intendere se quella è insula, o pur terra ferma.”
Harrisse prints this interesting letter of Cantino in his Jean et Sébastian Cabot (pp. 262-264). Cantino appears to have also sent his master a map showing the new discoveries. This map Harrisse has since reproduced with a commentary, in his work on the Cortereals, as explained in the second volume of the present history.
It should be noted that Harrisse counts three voyages of Gaspar Cortereal,—the first, without result, before May, 1500; the second, between May and December of that year; and a third, sailing in January, 1501,—the return of two of whose vessels in the following October is related by Pasqualigo and Cantino.[19]
The confusion of the voyages continued. The Spanish historians and those of Italy, knowing, perhaps, of only one, or getting their information from the Paesi and the maps, speak of but one expedition. Gomara, whose work was published at Saragossa in 1552-1553,[20] says that Cortereal was seeking a northwest passage, but failed to find it; that he gave his name to the islands at the mouth of the St. Lawrence in 50° N.; and that, dismayed at the snow and ice, he returned home with about sixty of the natives whom he had captured.[21] Herrera, who published his History early in the next century,[22] gets his information from Gomara. Peter Martyr does not mention the Cortereals. Turning to Italy, we find in Ramusio an account of Cortereal in the third volume of his great collection of voyages,[23] published in 1556, at fol. 417. Here, in an introductory discourse, written by Ramusio himself, “sopra la terra ferme dell’ Indie Occidentali,” it is stated that Gaspar Cortereal was the first captain who went to that part of the New World which “runs to the north,” in 1500, with two ships, in search of a shorter passage to the Spice Islands; that he penetrated so far north as to get into a region of great cold, discovering at 60° a river filled with snow, which was called the “Rio Nevado;” that he found inhabited islands to which he gave names, etc.
Even down to modern times the distinction between the voyages has not been recognized. Biddle, Humboldt, and others speak of only one expedition. The Portuguese authorities, however, are explicit in the matter. In 1563 there was published at Lisbon a volume of navigations and discoveries written by Antonio Galvano, who had died a few years before.[24] Galvano was born at Lisbon in 1503. He went, a young man, to India, and distinguished himself there, having command of the expedition which reduced the Moluccas to Portuguese rule, and becoming the governor of Ternate,—the largest of these islands. He was recalled home, and coldly received by the King. Becoming indigent, he was forced to take refuge in a hospital, where he finally died in 1557. His papers were bequeathed to a friend, Don Francisco y Sousa Tavares, who prepared the volume for the press. Galvano gives a good account of the expedition of Gaspar Cortereal, clearly dividing it into two voyages; and he tells also of Miguel Cortereal’s attempt to discover his brother’s fate. The original Portuguese text is very rare. Hakluyt published a translation of it in 1601,[25] and states in his Dedication of that book to Sir Robert Cecil that he could not succeed in finding a copy of the original. The translation was made, he says, “by some honest and well-affected marchant of our nation, whose name by no meanes I could attaine unto, and that, as it seemeth, many yeeres ago. For it hath lien by me above these twelve yeeres.” In 1862 the Hakluyt Society of London reprinted this translation under the editorial supervision of Vice-Admiral Bethune. In this edition corrections of the English version are noted, and the whole Portuguese text is given, page for page, from a copy of the original in the Carter-Brown Library. The passage relating to the Cortereals is found at pages 96, 97, of this Hakluyt Society’s volume.[26]
The Chronicle of King Emanuel, by Damiano de Goes, appeared at Lisbon in 1565-1567.[27] Goes was born in 1501, and died about 1573. He was employed in the diplomatic service of Portugal in Flanders, Denmark, and other countries, and travelled extensively. Galvano considered him, as a traveller, worthy of mention in his work, and says that he visited England, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Muscovy, and Norway. “He did see, speake, and was conuersant with all the kings, princes, nobles, and chiefe cities of all Christendome in the space of 22 yeeres (occupied in the work); so that by reason of the greatnes of his trauell I thought him a man woorthie to be here remembred.”[28] He became afterward historiographer of Portugal, and was placed in charge of the public archives. But he fell under the ban of the Inquisition, and died in obscurity. His account of the Cortereals, which is clear and of great value, from the learning of the writer and from his excellent opportunities to inform himself, is given in the sixty-seventh chapter of the first part of the Chronicle, at pp. 87, 88.[29]
Hieronymus Osorius (as his name is Latinized), the Bishop of Silves,—known sometimes as the Portuguese Cicero, from the elegance of his style,—published his De rebus Emmanuelis in 1571.[30] He was born in 1506, and lived until 1580. His writings include treatises on philosophy and theology, as well as works of history. In the Chronicle, under date of 1503, he gives a full account of the Cortereal voyages, including the search expedition sent out by the King that year, and the proposition of the eldest brother to equip a new exploration. The story may be found at p. 63 of the edition of 1586.
Oscar Peschel and Friedrich Kunstmann, in Germany, used these Portuguese authorities freely in their accounts of the Cortereals. Peschel’s book, an excellent one, Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, was published at Stuttgart in 1858, and went to a second edition in 1877. The discoveries of the Portuguese are treated in the ninth chapter of the second book.[31] Kunstmann’s work, of great learning and research, Die Entdeckung Amerikas, was published at Munich in 1859 by the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, as part of the centennial commemoration (March 28, 1859) of its foundation. In addition to the printed authorities, Kunstmann instituted searches among the manuscript archives at Lisbon. He had the pretended early voyage of Joâo Vaz Cortereal examined, and ascertained that there was no foundation for it.[32] He found the letter of Miguel Cortereal, written Aug. 6, 1501, to Christovâo Lopez, which has been used in the preceding narrative; and that brother’s agreement with the King, Jan. 15, 1502, by which the grant previously made to Gaspar was continued to Miguel.[33]
An excellent account of the Cortereal voyages, based largely upon Kunstmann’s researches, is given by Dr. Kohl in the fifth chapter of his Discovery of Maine.[34] At the first session of the International Congress of “Américanistes,” held at Nancy in July, 1875, M. Luciano Cordeiro, professor in the Institut at Coïmbre, presented, through M. Lucien Adam, an elaborate essay on the share of the Portuguese in the discovery of America. M. Cordeiro’s paper shows great industry and research, but it should be read with caution, as his patriotism sometimes exceeds his discretion. He looks at everything with the distorted vision of an enthusiastic lover of his native land.[35]
With Kunstmann’s Entdeckung, the Bavarian Academy published, under the care of that gentleman, Karl von Spruner, and Georg M. Thomas, an elegant atlas of thirteen maps in beautifully executed colored fac-similes. Portions of three of these maps relating to the Cortereals are given in a greatly reduced form, without the brilliant colors, by Dr. Kohl, in the Appendage to his chapter on these navigators. The first of these is a Portuguese chart, made about 1504 by an unknown hand. The southern part of Greenland is laid down upon it without a name; and farther to the west appears a considerable extent of country, answering, perhaps, to parts of our Labrador and Newfoundland, which bears the name “Terra de cortte Reall.”[36] The second chart, made by Pedro Reinel at about the same period, shows only Portuguese names and gives the Portuguese flag on that part of America visited by the Cortereals. Reinel was a Portuguese pilot of eminence, who afterward entered the Spanish service. The third map, also of Portuguese origin, of about the year 1520, although its exact date and its author’s name are unknown, contains at Labrador these words: “terram istam portugalenses viderunt atamen non intraverunt” (“The Portuguese saw this country, but did not enter it”); and again at a place farther west occurs the legend: “Terram istam gaspar corte Regalis portugalensis primo invenit, et secum tulit hōīes silvestres et ursos albos. In ea est maxiā multitudo animalium et avium necnon et pescium. qui anno sequenti naufragium perpessus nunquam rediit: sic et fratri ejus micaeli anno sequenti contigit” (“This country was first discovered by Gaspar Cortereal, a Portuguese, and he brought from there wild and barbarous men and white bears. There are to be found in it plenty of animals, birds, and fish. In the following year he was shipwrecked, and did not return: the same happened to his brother Michael in the next year”).[37]