HISTORY OF AMERICA.

CHAP. I.

Introduction. Importance of the Discovery of America. Mariner's Compass. The Portuguese the first Adventurers in pursuit of foreign Countries. Birth and Education of Columbus. Enters the Service of Portugal. His Marriage. Conceives Hopes of reaching the East Indies by holding a westerly Course. His Theory on the Subject. His Application to different Courts. His Plans acceded to by the King and Queen of Spain. His Voyage of Discovery. Difficulties.

Success.

Lands at Guanahani. Sails to Cuba after Gold. To Hispaniola. Leaves a Colony there, and returns to Spain. The Difficulties of his Voyage Home. Astonishment and Joy of Mankind on the Discovery of the New World. His Reception at Court. The Reason of the Name West Indies. His second Voyage. Finds the Colony all destroyed. Builds a Town. His Followers mutiny. Builds the Fort St. Thomas. Sets sail. Discovers Jamaica. His Distresses. Returns to Hispaniola. War with the Indians. Tax imposed on them. Desolation of the Indians.

Columbus returns to Spain. His Reception. Third Voyage. Discovers the Island Trinidad. Entangled in the River Orinoco. Discovers the Continent. Voyage of the Portuguese to the East

Indies

Indies by the Cape of Good Hope. The Reason of the Name America. Distresses of Columbus. Sails in Quest of the East Indies by a new Passage. Arrives at Hispaniola. His Treatment there. His Prediction of a Storm, The Consequences of neglecting it. His Distresses. Runs his Ship aground at Jamaica. Indians refuse him Assistance. Foretells an Eclipse of the Moon, and takes advantage of it. Returns to Spain. His Treatment and Death.

A

S individuals are protected in the enjoyment of their wealth and commerce by the power of the community, so the general body deduces equivalent advantages from the extensive trade and vast opulence of private persons. The grandeur of the state, and the happiness and security of its subjects, are, with respect to commerce, inseparable. That policy must ever be narrow and short-sighted which would aggrandize the state by the oppression of its members. Every thing is purchased by labour, which alone is infinitely more valuable than the richest mines of gold and silver. The possession of the latter has in many instances rendered nations poor and contemptible; but in no instance have affluence. and felicity failed to accompany industry guided by prudence. A superfluity of labour is a real treasure to society, which may at any time be employed like money in the public service. Hence arise the great advantages of foreign commerce, which, by augmenting the labour, in effect increases the grandeur of the state and the wealth of the subject. By its imports it furnishes the materials of industry; and by its exports it affords encouragement for exertion. Thus the mind acquires additional vigour; it enlarges its powers and facul

ties, and the spirit of improvement is, at length, seen in every art and science.

If commerce be considered as essential to industry, and labour necessary to the opulence and happiness of society, we cannot but regard the discovery of the vast continent of America, and the islands with which it is on all sides surrounded, as one of the most important consequences of the discovery of the mariner's compass, and the improvements in navigation. Without a knowledge of the West Indies the intercourse with the East Indies would be of little advantage to Europe; it might even be pernicious, by draining it of its gold and silver: whereas we now purchase the commodities of the latter not only with European manufactures, but with the silver dug out of the mines of Potosi. To her possessions in Chili, Peru, Mexico, and the Antilles, Spain owes all her opulence. Great Britain, by means of her colonies, on the continent of America raised herself to a great and envied height of grandeur and importance. Portugal almost owes her existence to her possessions in Brazil. In short, every nation in Europe, either immediately or circuitously, has derived considerable advantages from the discovery of the western world.

1302.

At the beginning of the fourteenth cenA. D. tury we date the discovery of the compass, which may, with great propriety, be said to have opened to man the dominion of the sea, and to have put him in full possession of the terrestrial globe, by enabling him to visit every part of it. The art of steering by this instrument was gradually acquired. Sailors, unaccustomed to quit sight of land, durst not launch out and commit themselves to unknown seas. The first appearance

of a bolder spirit may be dated from the A. D. of the Spaniards to the Canary or 1344. voyages Fortunate Islands. By what accident they were led to the discovery of those small isles, which lie 500 miles from the Spanish coast, and more than 150 miles from the coast of Africa, contemporary writers have not explained; and their subsequent voyages thither seem not to have been undertaken in consequence of any public or regular plan for extending navigation or of attempting new discoveries.

At length, however, the period arrived when Providence decreed that men were to pass the limits within which they had so long been confined, and open to themselves a more ample field, wherein to display their talents, their enterprise, and courage. The first efforts towards this were not made by any of the more powerful states of Europe, or by those who had applied to navigation with the greatest assiduity and success. The glory of leading the way in this new career was reserved for Portugal, one of the smallest and least powerful of the European kingdoms.

Among the foreigners whom the fame of the discoveries made by the Portuguese in Africa had allured into their service, was Christopher Colon or Columbus, a subject of the republic of Genoa, who discovered, at a very early period, a peculiar propensity for a seafaring life. His parents encouraged his wishes by the education which they gave him. At the age of fourteen he began his career on that element which conducted him to so much glory. With a near relation, who commanded a small squadron, Columbus continued several years, distinguished equally for talents and

true

true courage. At length, in an obstinate engagement off the coast of Portugal with some Venetian caravels, the vessel on board which he served took fire, together with one of the enemy's ships to which it was fast grappled. In this dreadful extremity he threw himself into the sea, laid hold of a floating oar; and by the support of that, and his own dexterity in swimming, he reached the shore, and saved a life reserved for great undertakings.

As soon as he had recovered his strength for the journey, he repaired to Lisbon, where he married a Portuguese lady. This alliance, instead of detaching him from a seafaring life, contributed to enlarge the sphere of his naval knowledge, and to excite a desire of extending it still farther. His wife was daughter of an experienced navigator, from whose journals and charts Columbus learned the course which the Portuguese had held in making their discoveries, as well as the various circumstances which guided or encouraged them in their attempts. The study of these soothed and inflamed his favourite passion; and while he contemplated the maps, and read the descriptions of the new countries seen by his father-in-law, his impatience to visit them became irresistible. He made a voyage to Madeira, and for several years continued to trade with that island, with the Canaries, the Azores, the settlements in Guinea, and all the other places which the Portuguese had discovered on the continent of Africa.

To find out a passage by sea to the East Indies was the great object in view at that period. From the time that the Portuguese doubled Cape de Verd, this was the point at which they aimed in all their navigations, and, in comparison with it, all their discoveries in Africa appeared as inconsider

B 3

able,