ica. For, if he had been driven out of his course, and had spent "several years in examining the American islands, and discovering the strait which bears the name of Magellan," and if one of those years was the year 1484, then he could not have spent twenty-six months preceding February, 1485, in the discovery of Congo; but of this we have full and satisfactory evidence; the discovery of America, therefore, must be given up. There is one thing farther in this memoir which deserves a particular remark, and that is the reason assigned by M. Otto, for which the King of Portugal declined the proposal of Columbus to sail to India by the West. "The refusal of John II. is a proof of the knowledge which that politic prince had already procured of the existence of a new Continent, which offered him only barren lands inhabited by unconquerable savages." This knowledge is supposed to have been de rived from the discoveries made by Behaim. But, not to urge again the chronological difficulty with which this conjecture is embarrassed, I will take notice of two circumstancès in the life of Columbus which militate with this idea. The first is, that when Co lumbus had proposed a Western voyage to King John, and he declined it, "The king, by the advice of one Doctor Calzadilla, resolved to send a caravel privately to attempt that which Columbus had proposed to him; because, in case those countries were so discovered, he thought himself not obliged to bestow any great reward. Having speedily equipped a caravel, which was to carry supplies to the islands of Cabo Verde, he sent it that way which the admiral proposed to go. But those whom he sent wanted the knowledge, constancy, and spirit of the admiral. After wandering many days upon the sea, they turned back to the islands of Cabo Verde, laughing at the undertaking, and saying it was impossible there should be any land in those seas.' Afterward "the king, being sensible how faulty they were whom he had sent with the caravel, had a mind to restore the admiral to his favour, and desired that he should renew the discourse of his enterprise; but, not being so diligent to put this in execution as the admiral was in getting away, he lost that good. opportunity; the admiral, about the end of the year 1484, stole away privately out of * Life of Columbus, ch. xí. Portugal for fear of being stopped by the king." This account does not agree with the supposition of a prior discovery. The other circumstance is an interview which Columbus had with the people of Lisbon and the King of Portugal on his return from his first voyage. For it so happened that Columbus, on his return, was by stress of weather obliged to take shelter in the port of Lisbon; and, as soon as it was known that he had come from the Indies, "the people thronged to see the natives whom he had brought and hear the news, so that the cara"vel would not contain them: some of them praising God for so great a happiness, others storming that they had lost the discovery through their king's incredulity." When the king sent for Columbus "he was doubtful what to do; but, to take off all suspicion that he came from his conquests, he consented." At the interview "the king offered him all that he stood in need of for the service of their Catholic majesties, though he thought that, forasmuch as he had been a captain in Portugal, that conquest belonged to him. To which the admiral answered that he knew of no such agreement, and that he had strictly observed his orders, which were not to go to the mines of Portugal [the Gold Coast], nor to Guinea."* Had John II. heard of Behaim's voyage to a Western Continent, would he not have claimed it by priority of discovery rather than by the commission which Columbus had formerly borne in his service? Had such a prior discovery been made, could it have been concealed from the people of Lisbon ? And would they have been angry that their king had lost it by his incredulity? These circumstances appear to me to carry sufficient evidence that no discovery of America prior to that of Columbus had come to the knowledge of the King of Portugal. In answer to the question, "Why are we searching the archives of an imperial city for the causes of an event which took place in the western extremity of Europe?" M. Otto gives us to understand that, "from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, the Germans were the best geographers, the best historians, and the most enlightened politicians." Not to detract from the merit of the German literati of those ages, I think we may give equal credit to a learned German, author of the present age, Dr. John Reinhold Forster, * Life, ch. xli. who appears to have a thorough understanding of the claims, not only of his own countrymen, but of others. In his indefatigable researches into the discoveries which have been made by all nations, though he has given due credit to the adventures of Behaim in Congo and Fayal, yet he has not said one word of his visiting America, which he certainly would have done if, in his opinion, there had been any foundation for it. LETTERS FROM PAUL, A PHYSICIAN OF FLORENCE, TO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, CONCERNING THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. LETTER I. To Christopher Columbus, Paul the Physician wisheth health. I PERCEIVE your noble and earnest desire to sail to those parts where the spice is produced, and therefore, in answer to a letter of yours, I send you another letter, which some days since I wrote to a friend of mine and servant to the King of Portugal, before the wars of Castile, in answer to another he wrote to me, by his highness's order, upon this same account; and I send you another sea chart like that I sent him, which will satisfy your demands. The copy of the letter is this: |