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CHAPTER II.

THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

The discovery of America (1)— Christopher Columbus (2)—Sebastian Cabot (3)-conquest of Mexico (4)—conquest of Peru (5)— Spaniards on the northern coast (6)—the French in Florida (7) -character of the Spanish conquests (8)—the early English voyagers (9)—raids on the Spanish colonies (10)-Gilbert's vy age (11)-Raleigh's first colony (12)-Raleigh's second colony (13) -prospects of English colonization (14).

1. The Discovery of America.—In studying the discovery of America and the first attempts at settlement there, two things must always be borne in mind. In the first place, it is really not at all easy to understand how enormous a difference the discovery of America made to the world. We are so familiar with the world as it is, that it is difficult to imagine it as it seemed to those who lived in the fifteenth century. We must remember that not only was America then undiscovered, but other large parts of the world, as we know it, were either actually unknown, or known only in a hazy and uncertain fashion. We must remember too that only a few specially learned and far-sighted men had any idea that there were other lands beyond those that they knew. So that the discovery of America was not like the exploration of a new country which is believed to exist, but of whose nature men are ignorant; it was, as it is often called, the discovery of a New World, of a world whose existence was never suspected by most men. And we can best understand how great a change this must have seemed

by looking at a map of the world as it really is and at one of the world as it was then supposed to be.

In the second place, we must remember that, like many things of which we are apt to speak as if they had been done at a single stroke, the discovery of America was really a very gradual process. Columbus himself, the first discoverer, possibly never knew that he had found a new Continent; and many years passed before men fully understood how America stood to the rest of the world. This ignorance of what lay beyond had a great deal to do with the adventurous spirit in which the men of that age went to America. For the further they went the more wonderful the New World became; and even when the bounds of it had been reached, there was nothing to tell them that there were not things more marvellous beyond.

2. Christopher Columbus.-Before the end of the fifteenth century, the only nations of Europe that had made much progress in seamanship were the Portuguese and the Italians. The Portuguese were the most enterprising voyagers, and had sailed along the coast of Africa and to the Canary Islands. But the Italians seem to have been the most scientific geographers and the most far-seeing about the unknown portions of the world. There does not however seem to have been much zeal about voyages of discovery in Italy itself, and all the great Italian navigators of that age made their discoveries in the ships of other countries. Of these navigators Christopher Columbus was the first and greatest. Whether he hoped by sailing to the west to discover a new continent, or only to get a direct route to Eastern Asia, it is hard to say. Whatever his scheme may have been, he had no small trouble to get the means for trying it. For after spending some eight years in seeking to persuade various sovereigns and great men to employ him in a voyage of discovery, he at last with great difficulty

got what he wanted from the sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella. On the 4th of August, 1492, he sailed with three ships, and on the 12th of October landed on the island which the Spaniards afterwards called Hispaniola and we now St. Domingo. He there founded a town and named it St. Salvador, and Spanish settlements soon spread over the island. But it was about twenty years before they extended to the neighbouring islands or the mainland.

3. Sebastian Cabot.-The next great discovery was made four years later, and is one of special interest to Englishmen. In 1497, Sebastian Cabot, a Genoese by descent, but born and bred in England, set sail from Bristol with a ship manned by Englishmen, and discovered Newfoundland and all the coast north of Florida. Thus, though Columbus discovered the islands, Cabot was the first European who is known for certain to have sailed to the mainland of America. On the strength of his voyage, England for a long while after put forward a special claim to the land to which he had sailed. In that age it was customary for such adventurers to obtain a patent from the sovereign of the country from which they sailed. This patent was a document giving various privileges, such as the right of importing merchandise free of duty, and often granting some authority over any land that might be discovered. Cabot had obtained such a patent before his first voyage, and on his return he procured a fresh one, and made a second voyage, of which no details are known. In 1501 three Bristol merchants and three Portuguese obtained a patent from the English king, and it seems likely that some voyages were made about this time, but nothing certain is known about them. In any case, it did not seem as if England was likely to take a leading part in the settlement of America- for at that time she was quite She had no unfit for any great undertakings on the sea.

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