Mr. Murphy argues next that “the description of the people and productions of the land [were] not made from the personal observation of the writer of the letter. What distinctively belonged to the natives is unnoticed, and what is originally mentioned of them is untrue.”[65] He thinks that all the details given of Indian manners and customs may have been copied from well-known narratives of other visits to other parts of America, and instances a source whence they may have been drawn. Fault is found with Verrazano’s letter because it neglects to mention such peculiarities of the Indians as wampum, tobacco, and, “most remarkable omission of all,” the bark canoe. The falsity of the narrative, made probable by these omissions, is rendered certain by the positive statement of a radical difference in complexion between the tribes found in different parts of the country.[66] And, again, the condition in which plants and vegetation are described is equally absurd and preposterous. And so both in the case of the color of the natives and in that of the conditions of the grapes, Ramusio, says Mr. Murphy, is obliged to alter the text of the narrative to make these stories probable.
The extrinsic evidence in support of the Verrazano discovery is next considered. As Mr. Murphy knew this evidence, it consisted of two pieces,—the Verrazano map, and the discourse of the great French sea-captain. The map was known, at the time of the printing of Mr. Murphy’s essay, only by description and by two inadequate photographs. Our present information about this map is so much greater, that Mr. Murphy’s account of it may be passed over until the map itself is described, later. The French captain’s discourse is known only in the Italian translation printed by Ramusio, and placed in his third volume, immediately after the Verrazano letter. Mr. Murphy dismisses this piece of evidence with few words. Finding in the discourse a clause relating to Verrazano, he at once concludes that Ramusio interpolated it, to make this document consistent with the letter.
A skilled advocate, after proving to his own satisfaction the falsity of a document, likes to find some genuine story which may have served the concocters of the falsehood as a model and storehouse for their lies. He wants also to complete his case by showing the motive for the forgery. This motive Mr. Murphy finds in the civic pride of Florence. All the evidence in favor of the story is traceable, he says, to Florence. As for the model and source of the letter, he discovers these in an attempt “to appropriate to a Florentine the glory which belonged to Estévan Gomez, a Portuguese pilot ... in the service of the Emperor.” He gives the voyage of Gomez in pretty full details. The landfall occurred on the coast of South Carolina. Thence he ran the coast northwardly to Cape Breton, where he turned and retraced his track as far as Florida, returning to Spain by way of Cuba. Mr. Murphy brings forward the map of Ribero, made in 1529, which he claims as an official exhibition of the discoveries of Gomez, and which he thinks was used in the construction of the Verrazano letter, because the several courses and distances run, as described in the letter, agree with similar divisions on the map.[67]
Mr. Murphy adds a concluding chapter, in which he gives the true history of the life of Verrazano, as he gathers it from authentic sources. Beyond his birth and parentage nothing is perhaps certainly known, except his career as a French corsair, under the name of Juan Florin or Florentin. In this capacity he made several rich captures from the Spanish and Portuguese, notably the treasure sent home by Cortes in 1523. Mr. Murphy thinks that a passage in a letter of the Portuguese ambassador in France, which appears to refer to preparations for a voyage of discovery about this time, is really an allusion to the proposed raid, the other being used by the French as a cloak or cover. At all events, he says, Verrazano cannot have been in two places at once,—on the coast of America, or on his return from Newfoundland to France, and at the same time have taken a ship on her way from the Indies to Portugal. He cites, as authority for this alibi, a statement of the capture of a treasure ship brought by a courier from Portugal, and mentioned in a letter of Peter Martyr, dated August 3, 1524.[68] Mr. Murphy then closes with an account of the capture and execution of Florin, or Verrazano.
Mr. Murphy’s argument is an ingenious and able one; and the book, having never been published, is not within the reach of all.[69]
To the objections named in the first divisions of Mr. Murphy’s argument,—that the letter could not have been written by Verrazano, and that no such voyage or discovery was made for the King of France,—replies suggest themselves very easily. We have no originals of many important documents, and yet do not doubt their general accuracy,—the letters of Columbus and Vespucius, for instance; the original French of Ribault; and, to come closer to Mr. Murphy, where is the report of Gomez’ voyage? There is none; and its only supports are an occasional not too flattering reference in the historians, and a map made by another hand. The despised voyage of Verrazano rests upon both a personal narrative and a map, the work of a brother.[70]
Mr. Murphy himself furnishes corroborative testimony to the probable truth of Verrazano’s voyage. He cites a passage from Andrade’s Chronicle of John III., then King of Portugal. By this it appears that John learned that one “Joâo Varezano, a Florentine,” had offered to the King of France to “discover other kingdoms in the East which the Portuguese had not found, and that in the ports of Normandy a fleet was being made ready under the favor of the admirals of the coast and the dissimulation of Francis, to colonize the land of Santa Cruz, called Brazil,” etc. The Portuguese King lost no time in sending a special ambassador, João da Silveyra, to remonstrate; and Mr. Murphy prints a letter from him to his sovereign, dated April 25, 1523, in which he says: “By what I hear, Maestro Joâo Verazano, who is going on the discovery of Cathay, has not left up to this date for want of opportunity, and because of differences, I understand, between himself and men; and on this topic, though knowing nothing positively, I have written my doubts in accompanying letters. I shall continue to doubt, unless he take his departure.”[71]
His Appendix contains also the agreement made by Admiral Chabot with Verrazano and others to “equip, victual, and fit three vessels to make the voyage for spices to the Indies.” Of this expedition Verrazano was to be chief pilot. Chabot was created admiral in March, 1526, which settles the date of this agreement. All these documents Mr. Murphy is obliged to twist into attempts to cover attacks on Spanish or Portuguese commerce by pretended voyages to the West. Is it not easier to take the simple meaning which they carry on their face? This agreement with the Admiral is supported by two documents first printed by M. Harrisse.[72] In the first Giovanni appoints his brother Jerome his attorney during the voyage to the Indies; the second is an agreement with one Adam Godefroy, bourgeois of Rouen, in reference to some trading contemplated in the voyage.[73] Dr. De Costa brings forward also another document relating to Verrazano, dated “the last day of September, 1525,” found in the archives of Rouen; and M. Margry states that he has a letter written at Paris, Nov. 14, 1527, in which Verrazano is said to be preparing to visit America with five ships.[74] And here, too, a reference should be made to the visit of Verrazano to England with some map or globe, as mentioned more than once by Hakluyt.[75]
There is yet hope that the original of the Verrazano letter may be discovered. Dr. De Costa thinks that he has evidence of its probable existence at one time in Spain; and also that it was used by Allefonsce in 1545,—eleven years before the publication by Ramusio.[76] There certainly seems no greater improbability in the supposition of two independent translations, Carli’s and Ramusio’s, from a single original, now lost, than in the assumption that Ramusio rewrote the Carli text and omitted the cosmographical appendix. Indeed Mr. Murphy’s charge, renewed at intervals in his essay as his theory of the fabrication of the letter requires,—that Ramusio was guilty of almost fraudulent editing,—has no foundation. The reputation of the Italian editor stands too high to be easily assailed; and as he was not a Florentine, motive for the deceit is lacking. A careful collation of the verbal differences between the versions is said to support the theory that they are separate translations of one original.[77] And M. Desimoni, presumably an exact scholar of his own language, asserts that a philological examination of the two texts shows that, if either is a rimaneggiato (worked over) copy, it is Carli’s, and not Ramusio’s.[78]
As to the genuineness of Carli’s letter to his father, the epistle contains a reference to the expected arrival of the King at Lyons, fixing its date, and giving thereby internal evidence of its reality. There is really no improbability in the statement that Verrazano had sent a copy of his letter to the Lyons merchants, and it is very easy to suppose Carli in the employ, or enjoying the friendship, of one or more of these merchants. The government of France had not been extended over the seaports long enough to make it any breach of privilege to communicate the results of a voyage to others than the King. And, as Mr. Major observes, in regard to the great distance between Dieppe and Lyons, “it would be a poor courier who could not compass that distance in twenty-seven days.”[79]