AN AUTOGRAPH OF FRANCIS I.
A reason for the failure of the Verrazano letter to make any impression on the French King, or to influence his subsequent action in reference to American discoveries and colonization, is found in the peculiar circumstances of Francis at this time. Engaged in constant wars, almost from the date of his accession to the throne, he was, in the summer of 1524, hurrying south to defend Provence from the attack of the Constable de Bourbon and the Marquis of Pescara, who had obtained permission of Charles V. to invade it. Many towns, the capital, Aix, among them, soon submitted to the Imperial forces; Marseilles was hotly besieged, and only relieved by the close approach of Francis with his army. Now the Queen-Mother was renamed Regent of France, and the war transferred to Italy, where, at the battle of Pavia, Feb. 24, 1525, Francis was defeated and taken prisoner. The following year was spent in captivity in Spain. On his release he at once broke his plighted faith, to renew the bitter struggle with the Emperor. For the time there could be thought or plans for nothing but war. Verrazano and his discovery were entirely forgotten at Court.
To Mr. Murphy’s objections founded on the misrepresentations of the coast geography, and the mistakes and omissions in the description of the people, contained in the letter, it is sufficient to answer that that gentleman mistakes the character of the letter, and demands more from it than he has a right to expect. “We do not quite see,” says Mr. Major, “why the first description of a country should be the only one expected to be free from imperfections.”[80] All the accounts of the early visits to this country have mixed with the general truth of the narrative more or less absurd and improbable statements. Dr. Kohl says: “It is well known that the old navigators in these western countries very often saw what they wished to see.”[81] As for the omission to notice the Chesapeake Bay, and to describe wampum, tobacco, and the bark-canoe, others besides Verrazano have been guilty of the same offence.[82]
The Verrazano letter should be regarded, not as an exact, well-digested report of the voyage (such as a modern explorer might make), but rather as the first hasty announcement to the King of his return and of the success of the voyage. It should be remembered also that mention is made in it of a “little book,” called by Dr. Kohl “the most precious part of what Verrazano wrote respecting his voyage,”[83] wherein were noted the observations of longitude and latitude, of the currents, ebb and flood of the sea, and of other matters which he hoped might be serviceable to navigators. These and other notes were doubtless used by the brother, Hieronimo, in making his map, and the abundance of names displayed on that map is a reply to Mr. Murphy’s objection that the letter contains but one name,—the Island of Louise.
I shall enumerate the authorities for the voyage of Gomez later in this essay; but as Mr. Murphy finds in it the source of the forged Verrazano letter, something must be said of it here. First, it is to be noticed that while Mr. Murphy refuses the narrative of Verrazano’s voyage utterly, he finds no difficulty in accepting one of Gomez’ which is to a great degree of his own (Murphy’s) construction. Dr. Kohl and other scholars have found it impossible to decide with any certainty as to the extent and direction of this voyage. Mr. Murphy presents us with full details,—a landfall in South Carolina; a coasting voyage to the north as far as Cape Breton, a careful observation on the return of rivers, capes, and bays; a temporary belief that he had found the strait he was seeking in the Penobscot, or “Rio de los Gamos,” on account of the great tide issuing from it, and a return to Spain by way of Cuba. The authorities cited in support of these statements are Peter Martyr’s Decades, Herrera, and Cespedes’ Yslario general,—the last in manuscript. The extracts from Martyr and Herrera I have reserved for another part of this chapter.[84] They do not support Mr. Murphy’s details. The Cespedes manuscript was the subject of some remarks by Mr. Buckingham Smith before the New York Historical Society, briefly reported in the Historical Magazine.[85] Mr. Smith had not been able to find this manuscript, but understood that it contained a full account of the voyage of Gomez. Mr. Murphy’s note shows that he knew of its existence in the National Library at Madrid. The director of that library has examined this manuscript at the request of Harrisse, and has not found in it any report of the voyage of Gomez by the navigator, nor does it contain any detailed account of the expedition. There is a reference which shows, perhaps, that Cespedes had seen one of Gomez’ writings.[86]
The attempt to derive the Verrazano letter from the voyage of Gomez is called by Mr. Major the “climax of the series of Mr. Murphy’s constructive imputations.”[87] His elaborate comparison of the courses of Verrazano with similar divisions on Ribero’s map is open to serious question. There are no such divisions on the map. He argues from a knowledge of the two extreme terms of Verrazano’s voyage, and neglects the intermediate term, the latitude of the harbor where the explorers spent fifteen days, doubtless the most accurate latitude taken. And even at the close of his comparison he allows that the latitudes of Ribero’s map are wrong, and says that the map does not give a faithful representation of the voyage of Gomez. It does not give by name the “Rio de los Gamos” which Cespedes says Gomez discovered, although that estuary was already drawn, in the same form given to it by Ribero, on the earlier Weimar map of 1527, which map omits the name of Gomez altogether.[88]
The passage from one of Peter Martyr’s letters, which Mr. Murphy cites to prove that Verrazano was capturing a Portuguese vessel at the time when the letter claimed him as making discoveries, is not very conclusive. Mr. Major thinks that there was time for him to have run down from Dieppe, after his return to that port, to the coast of Portugal, attracted by so rich a game as one hundred and eighty thousand ducats. But Martyr’s statement is indefinite. There are no particulars of time or place, when or where the treasure was taken. It is not even certain that the news brought by the courier was more than a rumor. Martyr’s language is: “Ad aliud hac, iter fecit regis Portugalliæ cursor, quod Florinus pyrata Gallus nauim regi suo raptauerit ab Indis venientem, qua merces vehebãtur gemmarum et aromatum ad ducatorum centum octoginta millium summam conqueritur.”[89]
The map of Hieronimo da Verrazano is without doubt the strongest support of the letter and voyage of his brother Giovanni. That these persons were brothers appears from a document dated May 11, 1526, whereby the navigator constitutes “Jarosme de Varasenne, son frère et heritier,” his attorney to act for him during a proposed voyage to the Indies. This paper, first printed by M. Harrisse in 1876, is signed “Janus Verrazanus.” Dr. De Costa gives a fac-simile of this signature,—here reproduced,—the only known autograph of Verrazano.[90]