This is sketched from the Harvard College copy. The map is repeated in the Seville edition of 1563,—the first edition (1545) having appeared at Valladolid. The Libro, etc., is also in Harvard College Library.
A map preserved in the British Museum belongs to this period. That library acquired it in 1790, and its Catalogue fixes it before 1536; but Harrisse, because it does not give the Saguenay, which Cartier explored in his third voyage, places it after October, 1546. Harrisse thinks it is based on Portuguese sources, with knowledge also of Cartier’s discoveries.[331]
Dr. Kohl, in his Washington Collection, has included a map by Joannes Freire, of which a sketch is annexed. It belonged to a manuscript portolano when Kohl copied it, in the possession of Santarem, which is described by Harrisse in his Cabots (p. 220). Freire was a Portuguese map-maker, who seems to have used Spanish and French sources, besides those of his own countrymen.
The New England coast belongs to a type well known at this time, and earlier; and if the position of the legend about Cortereal has any significance, it places his exploration farther south than is usually supposed. The names along the St. Lawrence are French, with a trace of Portuguese,—“Angoulesme,” for instance, becoming “Golesma.”
HENRI II. MAP, 1546.
The key is as follows: 1. Ochelaga. 2. R. du Saĝnay. 3. Assumption. 4. R. Cartier. 5. Bell isle. 6. Bacalliau. 7. C. de Raz. 8. C. aux Bretons. 9. Encorporada. 10. Ye du Breton. 11. Ye de Jhan estienne. 12. Sete citades. 13. C. des isles. 14. Arcipel de estienne Gomez.
Some of these names not in Ribero, nor in other earlier Spanish charts, indicate that Desceliers had access to maps not now known.
Kohl placed in the same Collection another map of this region from an undated portolano in the British Museum (no. 9,814), which in some parts closely resembles this of Freire; but it is in others so curious as to deserve record in the annexed sketch. Kohl argues, from the absence of the St. Lawrence Gulf, that it records the observations of Denys, of Honfleur, and the early fishermen.
The precise date of the so-called Nicolas Vallard map is not certain; for that name and the date, 1547, may be the designation and time of ownership, rather than of its making. The atlas containing it was once owned by Prince Talleyrand, and belongs to the Sir Thomas Phillipps Collection. Kohl has conjectured that it is of Portuguese origin,[332] and includes it in his Collection, now in the State Department at Washington.