was regarded as a narrow strip of land; and as late as 1651 it was
estimated that it was only ten days’ journey on foot from
the headwaters of the James to the Pacific.[439] In 1609 the country
was called Nova Britannia. It would seem, therefore, according to
present indications, that Smith was entitled to the credit given him
by Rich. At all events the importance of Smith’s work in New England
cannot be questioned. Smith himself was not backward in asserting
the value of his services, declaring in one place that he “brought
New England to the Subjection of the Kingdom of Great Britain.”[440]
After the publication of his map, Norumbega well-nigh disappeared from
the pages of travellers,[441] and a new series of observation of the
territory was begun by the authors of works like those which chronicled
the doings of the Leyden Adventurers in New England.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
EDITORIAL NOTES.
=A.= EARLIEST ENGLISH PUBLICATIONS ON AMERICA.—The backwardness of
the English in all that related to the extension of American discovery
is distinctly apparent in the comparatively few publications from
the London press in the sixteenth century which conduced to spread
intelligence of the New World on the land and incite rivalry on the
ocean. The following list will show this:—
=1509.= When Alexander Barclay put Sebastian Brant’s _Ship of Fools_
into English verse and published it in folio in London, he disclosed
one of the earliest references to the Spanish discoveries which the
English people could have read. This book is very rare; a copy brought
£120 at the Perkins sale in London in 1873,—_Carter-Brown Catalogue_,
p. 245. This edition has of late been reprinted in England, edited by
Jamieson.
=1511.=(?) A book _Of the newe Lādes_, printed about this time at
Antwerp, but in English, is thought to have been the earliest original
treatise in the English tongue which makes any mention of America. The
New World is supposed to be meant by “Armenica.” Harrisse, however,
assigns 1522 as its date,—_Bibl. Amer. Vet._ p. 196. There is a copy
in the British Museum.
=1519=, though put by some as early as 1510. _A new Interlude of the
iiij. Elements._ This has been already described in Mr. Deane’s chapter.
=1517.= Wynkyn de Worde printed Watson’s English prose translation of
Brant’s _Ship of Fools_.
A half century and more slipped away without the English press taking
heed, except in such chance notices as these, of what was so closely
engaging the attention of the rest of Europe. But in
=1553= appeared the earliest book produced in England chiefly devoted
to the American discoveries, and this was Richard Eden’s _Treatyse of
the newe India_, which he had translated from the Latin of the fifth
book of Sebastian Munster’s _Cosmographia_, pp. 1099 to 1113. See
_Carter-Brown Cat._ p. 171, and further in the chapter on the Cabots.
Munster was one of the most popular cosmographers of his day. He had
begun his work in 1532 by supplying a map by Apianus to Gyrnæus’s
_Novus Orbis_ of that date, which was not very creditable, being much
behind the times; and he made amends by trying to give the latest
information in an issue of Ptolemy, which he edited in 1540, to which
he supplied a woodcut map that did service in a variety of publications
for nearly all the rest of the century. It was one of the earliest
maps, in which interstices were left in the block for the insertion
of type for the names, and in this way it was made to accompany both
German and Latin texts. It was also used in Sylvanus’s Ptolemy, the
names being in red. Kohl, _Disc. of Maine_, p. 296; _Harvard Coll. Lib.
Bull._ i. 270.
Munster’s _Cosmographia_, to which he transferred this map, was first
published in German, according to Harrisse, _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no.
258, quoting the _Labanoff Catalogue_, in 1541, and again in 1544, with
a new map. After this there were two German (1545 and 1550) and one
Latin (1550) edition, each published at Basle, and a French edition
(1552), all of which are generally noted, besides Eden’s version of
1552 (owned by Mr. Brevoort); cf. _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, 1865, p.
27, and an earlier one (1543), cited in Poggendorff’s _Biog.-lit.
Handwörterbuch_, ii. 234, which is not so generally recognized, if
indeed it exists at all. The statement is, however, enough to indicate
that Eden thus made a popular book the medium of his first presentation
to the English public.
[Illustration: TITLE OF EDEN’S MUNSTER.
The cut is taken from the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_. The Colophon reads:
“Thus endeth this fyfth boke of Sebastian Munster, of the lādes of Asia
the greater, and of the newefounde landes, and Ilandes. 1553.”]
=1555.= Richard Eden, who to his book-learning added the results
of converse with sailors, next published his _Decades of the Newe
Worlde, or West India_, derived in large part, as shown in Mr. Deane’s
chapter, from the Latin of Peter Martyr. This made to the English
public the first really collective presentation of the results of the
maritime enterprise of that time. (H. Stevens, _Bibl. Hist._ 1870,
no. 632; Field, _Indian Bibliog._ no. 484; _Carter-Brown Catalogue_,
p. 184, with fac-simile of title.) Among the supplemental matters was
a “Description of the two Viages made out of England into Guinea,”
in 1553-54, which were the earliest English voyages ever printed.
This 1555 edition, which fifty years ago was worth in good copies six
guineas (Rich’s _Catalogue_, 1832, no. 30), will now bring about £25.
The Editor has used the Harvard College and Mr. Charles Deane’s copies.
There was sold in the Brinley sale, no. 40, the 1533 edition of Peter
Martyr, which was the copy used by Eden in making this translation,
and it is enriched with his little marginal maps and annotations. See
Sabin’s _Dictionary_, i. 201, where it is said Bellero’s map, measuring
5 × 6½ inches, is found in some copies. The Lenox copy has a larger
map, 10½ × 7 inches, with a similar title.
=1559.= “A perticular Description of suche partes of America as are
by travaile founde out,” made the last chapter of a heavy folio, _The
Cosmographicalle Glasse_, which appeared in London, the work of a young
man, William Cunningham, twenty-eight years old, a doctor in physics
and astronomy. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 214, where a fac-simile
of the author’s portrait as it appeared in the book is given.
=1563.= _The whole and true discouerie of Terra Florida_, as set forth
in English, following Ribault’s narrative, was published in London on
the 30th of May. The book is so scarce that the Lenox and Carter-Brown
Libraries have been content with manuscript copies from the volume in
the British Museum. This may possibly indicate that the destruction of
the edition followed upon much reading and thumbing.
=1568.= _The New found Worlde, or Antarctike ... travailed and written
in the French tong by that excellent learned man, Master Andrewe
Thevet, and now newly translated into English. Imprinted at London
for Thomas Hacket._ This is a translation of Thevet’s well-known but
untrustworthy book. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 241; there is also
a copy in H. C. Murphy’s collection.
[Illustration: MUNSTER, 1532.]
[Illustration: MUNSTER, 1540.
This sketch-map needs the following key:—
1. India Superior.
2. Archipelagus 7448 Insularum.
3. Francisca.
4. C. Britonum.
5. Terra Florida.
6. Cortereali.
7. Hispaniola.
8. Cuba.
9. Iucatan.
10. Jamica.
11. Antillæ.
12. Dominica.
13. Zipangri.
14. Paria.
15. Regio Gigantum.
16. Fretum Magalini.
17. Insulæ Inforunatæ.
18. Oceanus Occidentalis.
19. Insulæ Hesperidum.
20. Insula Atlantica quam vocant Basilij et Americam.]
=1570.= Another English edition of Barclay’s version of the _Ship of
Fools_. The _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 243, gives the title and
portrait of Brant in fac-simile.
=1572.= Eden’s version of Munster again appeared under the title of _A
briefe Collection and Compendious Extract of Straunge and Memorable
Thinges, gathered out of the Cosmographeye of Sebastian Munster_. See
_Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 172.
=1574.= Eden’s _Briefe Collection_ was reissued. There was a copy in
the Heber sale, and one is now in the British Museum, according to
Sabin.
[Illustration: Title of Stultifera Nauis (1570)
[Stultifera Nauis,
qua omnium mortalium narratur stultitia, admodum
vtilis & necessaria ab omnibus ad suam salutem perlegenda,
è Latino sermone in nostrum vulgarem versa,& iam diligenter
impressa. An. Do. 1570.
The Ship of Fooles, wherin is shewed the folly
of all States, with diners other workes adioyned unto the same,
very profitable and fruitfull for all men.
Translated out of Latin into Englishe by Alexander
Barclay Priest.]]
[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.]
=1576.= In April appeared Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s _Discourse of a
Discoverie for a new passage to Cataia_, a Gothic-letter tract of
great rarity in these days. It is credited with giving a new impulse
to English explorations; and had exerted some influence in manuscript
copies before being printed. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 258;
_Brinley Catalogue_, no. 31, Heber’s copy, which brought $255. It is
also in the Lenox Library; and this and the Carter-Brown copy have
the rare map which in the Catalogue of the latter collection is given
slightly reduced, and it is in part reproduced herewith. See Fox
Bourne’s _English Seamen_, chs. 5 and 7. Gilbert in this had undertaken
to prove, both from reasoning and report, that there was a northwest
passage, and that America was an island, and he recounts traditions of
its being sailed through. See Mr. Deane’s chapter on “The Cabots.”
[Illustration: PART OF GILBERT’S MAP, 1576.]
=1577.= Settle published in London his _True Reporte of the laste
Voyage into the west and northwest regions_, the author having
accompanied Frobisher on his voyage in 1577. Its rarity—for besides
the Grenville copy in the British Museum, that in the _Carter-Brown
Catalogue_, p. 266, where its title is given in fac-simile, is the only
one we have noted—may signify the eagerness there was to read it, with
a consequent use great enough to destroy the edition, though there
are said to have been two issues the same year. A fac-simile reprint
(fifty copies) has been privately made from the Carter-Brown copy; and
it is also reprinted in Brydges’s _Restituta_, 1814, vol. ii. See _N.
E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1869, p. 363,—a notice by John Russell
Bartlett.
=1577.= Richard Willes brought out in London, with some augmentation,
an edition of Eden’s Peter Martyr, under the new title of _The History
of Trauvayle_, a stout volume, which in the known copies has stood wear
better. Willes’s preface tells the story of Eden’s labors, and adds,
“Many of his Englysche woordes cannot be excused in my opinion for
smellyng to much of the Latine.”
It would seem that the arrangement was still mostly the labor of Eden,
who did not die till 1576. Willes, however, suppressed Eden’s preface
of 1555.
This edition has likewise much appreciated in value. Rich, in his 1832
_Catalogue_, no. 57, priced a fine copy at £4 4_s._; now one is worth
£20 or more. There are copies in Harvard College, Carter-Brown (no.
312), Charles Deane’s and Boston Athenæum Libraries. See also _Brinley
Catalogue_, no. 41; _Sunderland Catalogue_, no. 4180; Field, _Ind.
Bibl._, no. 485; _Huth Catalogue_, p. 922.
[Illustration]
=1577.= John Frampton translated and published, under the title of
_Joyfull Newes out of the New founde Worlde_, a book of the Seville
Physician, Nicholas de Monardes. See _Brinley Catalogue_, no. 46;
Stevens’s _Nuggets_, 1924; _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, no. 313.
=1578.= Thomas Churchyard’s _Prayse and Report of Maister Martyne
Forboisher’s Voyage to Meta Incognita_, London. Bohn’s _Lowndes_, p.
450, reports a copy in the British Museum.
=1578.= George Best published his _True Discourse of the late voyage of
discoverie for the finding of a passage to Cathaya by the North-weast,
under the Conduct of Martin Frobisher, generall_. This is also very
rare. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, no. 319, which shows the two rare
maps, a portion of one of which is given in fac-simile in ch. iii. from
that in Collinson’s _Martin Frobisher_.
=1578.= Thomas Nicholas printed, under his initials only, an English
version of Gomara’s account of Cortes’ conquest of New Spain, called
_The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of the Weast Indies_. Fine
copies are worth about £10. There are copies in the Boston Athenæum,
Lenox Library, etc. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 275, for
fac-simile of title; Sabin’s _Dictionary_, vii. 311; W. C. Hazlitt’s
_Bibliog. Coll. and notes_, 2d ser. p. 265.
=1580.= A new edition of Frampton’s _Joyfull Newes_. This edition is
worth about £4. There is a copy in Harvard College Library. Rich,
_Catalogue_, 1832, no. 64.
=1580.= John Florio published a retranslation into English from
Ramusio’s Italian version of Cartier’s _Voyage to New France_ (1534),
which had appeared originally in French, but was not now apparently
accessible to Florio. _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, no. 331.
=1581.= T. Nicholas published an English translation, now very rare, of
Zarate’s account of the Conquest of Peru.
=1582.= Hakluyt began his active participation in furthering English
maritime exploration by his first publication, the little _Divers
Voyages_, dedicating it to Sir Philip Sidney; and in this he says: “I
marvaile not a little ... that we of England could never have the grace
to set fast footing in such fertill and temperate places as are left
as yet unpossessed.” Again he says: “In my public lectures I was the
first that produced and showed both the olde imperfectly composed and
the new lately reformed mappes, globes, and spheares, to the generall
contentment of my auditory.” See further in Mr. Deane’s chapter on “The
Cabots.” Cf. W. C. Hazlitt’s _Bibliog. Coll. and notes_, 1st ser. p.
101.
There is, unfortunately, no sufficiently extended account of Hakluyt,
and the most we know of him must be derived from his own publications.
The brief account in Anthony Wood’s _Athenæ Oxonienses_ is the source
of most of the notices. Mr. J. Payne Collier has added something in a
paper on “Richard Hakluyt and American Discovery” in the _Archæologia_,
xxxiii. 383; and Mr. Winter Jones in his Introduction to the reprint
of the _Divers Voyages_ has told about all that can be gleaned, and in
his Appendix he gives some papers before unprinted, including Hakluyt’s
will. The subject has had later treatment, with the advantage of some
recent information, in the Introduction to the _Westerne Planting_, by
Dr. Woods and Mr. Deane.
With the exception of the criticism of John Locke,—if he be the editor
of Churchill’s _Collection_,—who wished Hakluyt had condensed more,
and of Biddle, who accuses him of perversions in his account of the
Cabots (see Mr. Deane’s chapter), the general opinion of Hakluyt’s
labor has been very high. Locke’s explanatory catalogue of voyages,
which appeared in Churchill, is reprinted in Clarke’s _Maritime
Discovery_. Oldys in the _British Librarian_, p. 136, analyzes
Hakluyt’s books, and there is a list of them in Sabin’s _Dictionary_
and in the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 448. An account of the set in
the Lenox Library is printed in Norton’s _Literary Gazette_, i. 384.
Of the _Divers Voyages_, perfect copies are excessively rare, and the
two maps are almost always wanting. The two British Museum copies have
them, but the Bodleian has only the Lok map, and the same is true
of the Carter-Brown copy (_Catalogue_, p. 290). The other copies in
America belong to Harvard College (imperfect), Charles Deane, and Henry
C. Murphy. Of the maps, that by Lok is given in reduced fac-simile in
the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_ (as also in chapter i. of the present
volume), and both are given full size in the reprint of the Hakluyt
Society.
=1583.= Captain J. Carleill’s little _Discourse upon the entended
Voyage to the hethermoste Partes of America_, a tract of a few leaves
only, in Gothic letter, was probably printed about this time with the
aim to induce emigration and the fixing of commercial advantages.
Hakluyt thought it of enough importance to include it in his third
volume seventeen years later. _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 292.
=1583.= Sir George Peckham’s _True Report of the late Discoveries_,
etc. See further on this tract on a preceding page.
=1583.= M. M. S. published at London a small tract giving a
translation of Las Casas’ story of the Spanish deeds in the New World.
_Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 293.
=1588.= What is called the second original work published in England
on the New World is Hariot’s _New Foundland of Virginia_, a small
quarto of twenty-three leaves, imprinted at London. Heber had a copy;
and Brunet, the first to describe it, took the title from Heber’s
Catalogue. There are copies in the Lenox, Huth (_Catalogue_, ii.
652), Grenville (British Museum) and the Bodleian libraries. Sabin,
_Dictionary_, viii. 30377, who says this, adds that there was a copy
sold surprisingly low at Dublin in 1873, escaping the attention of
collectors. It was reprinted at Frankfort in 1590. See chapter iv.
=1588.= Appeared an English version of the Latin account of Drake’s
voyage.
=1589.= Hakluyt gave out the first edition of his _Principall
Navigations_. Copies are at present worth from £5 to £10, according to
condition; and we have noted the following: Harvard College, Brinley
(no. 33), Carter-Brown (no. 384), Charles Deane, Long Island Historical
Society, Field (_Ind. Bibliog._ no. 631), Crowninshield (_Catalogue_,
no. 487), etc. The catalogues usually note the six suppressed leaves of
Drake’s voyage when present.
Hakluyt, at the end of his preface, speaks of “The comming out of a
very large and most exact terestriall Globe, collected and reformed
according to the newest, secretest, and latest discoveries, ...
composed by Mr. Emmerie Mollineaux, of Lambeth, a rare gentleman in his
profession.”
In place of this Molineaux map, there sometimes appears, at p. 597,
what Hakluyt calls “One of the best general mappes of the world,”
which is a recut plate of one in Ortelius’s Atlas; and in other copies
instead we find another edition of the same, which is also found in the
English translation of Linschoten. Sabin says he has sometimes found a
woodcut of Gilbert’s map substituted. The Ortelius map is reproduced in
chapter i. of the present volume.
=1591.= Job Hortop’s _Rare Travales of an Englishman_, published in
London. Bohn’s _Lowndes_, p. 1124. There is a copy in the British
Museum. Hortop was one of Ingram’s companions, and after being captured
and confined in Mexico, reached England after very many years’ absence.
=1595.= John Davis published his _Worlde’s Hydrographical
Descriptions_, which in parts reiterates the views of Gilbert’s
_Discourse_. The only copies known are in the Grenville Library
(British Museum) and Lenox Library, New York. It is reprinted in the
Hakluyt Society’s edition of _Davis’s Voyages_, p. 191, and in the 1812
edition of Hakluyt’s _Principall Navigations_.
=1596.= A third edition of Frampton’s _Joyfull Newes_. A fine copy is
worth about three guineas. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, no. 497.
=1596.= Second edition of Nicholas’s translation of Gomara. _Brinley
Catalogue_, nos. 32 and 5309; Sabin, _Dictionary_, 27752; Field, _Ind.
Bibl._ no. 611; _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, no. 499.
[Illustration]
=1598.= Wolfe, of London, published an English translation, by William
Philip, of Linschoten’s _Discours of Voyages into y^e Easte and West
Indies, in foure Bookes_, with a dedication to Sir Julius Cæsar, Judge
of the High Court of Admiralty. The preface adds: “Which Booke being
commended by Maister Richard Hackluyt, a man that laboureth greatly
to advance our English Name and Nativity, the Printer thought good
to cause the same to bee translated into the English Tongue.” The
original became a very popular book on the Continent. The maps of
American interest are those of the World, of the Antilles, and of South
America. The description of America begins on p. 216. _Carter-Brown
Catalogue_, i. no. 527; _Crowninshield Catalogue_, no. 625; Rich
(1832), no. 84, prices a copy at £8 8_s._
[Illustration]
These are all, or nearly all, the publications brought out in English
and relating to America prior to the enlarged edition of Hakluyt’s
Collection, which was dedicated to Sir Robert Cecil, and of which the
third volume, bearing date 1600, was devoted to America. Compared
with the publications of the Continent for the same century, they are
strikingly fewer in number; and such as they are, it will be seen that
of the thirty-four separate issues enumerated above only fourteen are
of English origin, and of the whole number only twelve belong to the
first three quarters of the century.
[Illustration]
During this same century the literature of navigation took its origin.
The Continental nations had already preceded. It was not till 1528 that
the first sea-manual appeared in England, and no copy of it is now
known. This was a translation of the French _Le Routier de la Mer_,
the antetype of the later rutters. The English edition was called _The
Rutter of the Sea_, and other editions appeared in 1536, 1541, and 1560
(?); the second of these adding, “A rutter of the northe, compyled
by Rychard Proude.” None of these, however, recognized the American
discoveries.
In 1561, Eden, at the suggestion of the Arctic navigator, Stephen
Burrough (b. 1525, d. 1586), again tried to give some impulse
to English interest by his translation of Martin Cortes’ _Art
of Navigation_, which had appeared at Seville ten years before.
(_Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 151.) Cortes was the first to suggest a
magnetic pole. Frobisher, when he made his first voyage, fifteen years
later (1576), perhaps because Eden’s translation was out of print, took
with him a Spanish edition of Medina’s _Arte de Navegar_,—a work which
preceded Cortes’, but never became so popular in England.
In 1565 came a fifth edition of the _Rutter of the Sea_, and in 1573
William Bourne first issued his _Regiment of the Sea_, which long
remained the chief English book on navigation.[442]
Eden put forth, at what precise date is not known, but not later than
1576, _A very necessarie and profitable book concerning Navigation,
compiled in Latin by Joannes Taisnierus_, in which the translator
intimates that Cabot knew more of the ways of discovering longitude
than he had disclosed. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 262. _Davis’s
Voyages_ (Hakluyt Society) gives the date 1579.
Such books, as the interest in America became more general, increased
rapidly, and I note them in chronological order.
=1577.= Second edition, _Regiments of the Sea_.
=1578.= Edward Hellowes published in London, in a small tract, a
translation, _A booke of the Invention of Navigation_ of Antonio de
Gaevara, Bishop of Mondonedo, originally printed at Valladolid in 1539.
=1578.= Second edition, Eden’s Cortes.
=1580.= Sixth edition of _The Rutter of the Sea_.
=1580.= Third edition, Eden’s Cortes.
=1581.= _The Arte of Navigation. By Pedro de Medina. Translated out of
the Spanish by John Frampton._ Medina’s _Arte de Navegar_ originally
appeared at Valladolid in 1545.
=1584.= Fourth edition, Eden’s Cortes. See _Brinley Catalogue_, no. 19,
for a copy which has a folding woodcut map of the New World, which is
usually wanting in later editions.
=1585.= Robert Norman, hydrographer, published his _Newe Attractive_,
with rules for the art of navigation annexed.
=1587.= Robert Tanner’s _Mirror for Mathematiques, ... a sure safety
for Saylers_, etc.
=1587.= Seventh edition of _The Rutter of the Sea_.
=1588.= The first marine atlas ever made appeared at Leyden in 1583-84,
and this year in London as _The Mariner’s Mirrour, ... first made by
Luke Wagenaer, of Enchuisen, and now fitted with necessarie additions
by Anthony Ashley_.
=1588.= Fifth edition, Eden’s Cortes.
=1589.= Thomas Blundeville’s _Brief Description of Universal Mappes and
Cardes, and of their Use, and also the Use of Ptolemy his tables_.
=1589.= A sixth edition of Eden’s version of Martin Cortes’ _Arte of
Navigation_ appeared. Good copies of this small black-letter quarto are
worth about seven guineas. It is known that Hakluyt about this time was
endeavoring with the aid of Drake to found in London a public lecture
for the purpose of advancing the art of navigation.
=1590.= Robert Norman translated from the Dutch _The Safeguard of
Saylers, or Great Rutter_. Edward Wright corrected and enlarged this in
1612. Norman was the inventor of the dipping-needle, in 1576.
=1590.= Thomas Hood’s _Use of the Jacob’s Staffe; also a dialogue
touching the use of the Crosse Staffe_. These were instruments for
the taking of latitude. The astrolabe, an instrument of remote
antiquity, had been adapted to sea-use by Martin Behaim; but it was
soon found that it did not adapt itself to the automatic movement of
the observer’s body in a rolling sea, and in 1514 the cross-staff was
invented, or at least was first described.
=1592.= A third edition of Bourne’s _Regiment of the Sea_, corrected by
Thomas Hood.
=1592.= Thomas Hood’s _Use of both the Globes, celestiall and
terrestriall_, written to accompany the Molineaux globes.
=1592.= Thomas Hood’s _Marriner’s Guide_.
=1594.= John Davis published his _Seaman’s Secrets, wherein is taught
the three kindes of Sayling,—Horizontall, Paradoxall, and Sayling upon
a great Circle_. He held up the example of the Spaniards: “For what
hath made the Spaniard to be so great a Monarch, the Commander of both
Indies, to abound in wealth and all Nature’s benefites, but only the
painefull industrie of his Subjects by Navigation.” No copy of this
first edition is known. The second edition, 1607, is in the British
Museum, and from this copy the tract is reprinted in _Davis’s Voyages_
(Hakluyt Society ed.).
=1594.= _M. Blundevile, his Exercises_, with instruction in the art of
navigation. This proved a popular instruction book.
=1594.= Robert Hues printed in London a Latin treatise on the Molineaux
globes, _Tractatus de Globis, et eorum usu_. This includes a chapter by
Thomas Hariot on the rhumbs, or the lines which so perplexingly cover
the old maps.
=1596.= Another edition of Hood’s corrected issue of Bourne’s _Regiment
of the Sea_.
=1596.= Second edition of Norman’s _Newe Attractive_, etc.
=1596.= John Blagrave’s _Necessary and Pleasaunt Solace and recreation
for Navigators.... Whereunto ... he has anexed another invention
expressing on one face the whole globe terrestrial, with the two great
English voyages lately performed round the world_. This last is a map
by Hondius, reproduced in Drake’s _World Encompassed_ (Hakluyt Soc.
ed.).
=1596.= Thomas Hood’s _Use of the mathematicall Instruments, the Crosse
Staffe differing from that in common use, and the Jacob’s Staffe_.
=1596.= Seventh edition of Eden’s version of Cortes.
=1597.= Second edition of _Blundevile, his Exercises_.
=1597.= William Barlow’s _Navigator’s Supply, containing many things of
principal importance belonging to navigation_. Largely on compasses.
=1598.= John Wolfe translated and printed _A treatyse ... for all
seafaringe men, by Mathias Sijverts Lakeman, alias Sofridus_.
=1599.= Simon Stevin’s _De Haven-vinding_ appeared at Leyden, and
Edward Wright brought it out at once in English, as _The Haven-Finding
Art_.
=1599.= Edward Wright published his _Certain Errors in Navigation,
detected and corrected_. Wright was born in 1560, was lecturer on
navigation for the East India Company, was the verifier and improver of
Mercator’s projection, and is thought to have been the author of the
Molineaux map.
It will be observed that of this list of thirty-three publications for
twenty-five years about one half is of foreign origin.
=B.= HAKLUYT’S “WESTERNE PLANTING” AND THE MAINE HISTORICAL
SOCIETY.—The history of this manuscript, so far as known, is as
follows:—
The family of Sir Peter Thomson (who died in 1770) possessed it,
from whom Lord Valentia secured it, and this collector indorsed upon
it “unpublished” and “extremely curious.” It subsequently is found
in the hands of Mr. Henry Stevens, who put it into a public sale in
London, May, 1854; and in the Catalogue (lot 474) it is called “a
most important unpublished manuscript, 63 pages, closely and neatly
written, in the original calf binding.” It brought £44, and passed into
the Collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps. (Stevens’s _Hist. and Geog.
Notes_, 1869, p. 20.) This gentleman began in 1837 to print privately
a catalogue of his library, then kept at Middle Hill, Worcestershire,
and continued the printing, sheet by sheet, and under no. 14097 this
manuscript appears as “A Hakluyt Discourse.” In 1859 Sir Thomas bought
Thirlestane House, Cheltenham, the seat of Lord Northwick, and hither
he removed his vast collections of manuscripts and books, where they
now are, in the possession of his heirs, Sir Thomas having died in
1872. They are open to inquirers under restrictions. See _N. E. Hist.
and Geneal. Reg._, 1873, p. 429.
The manuscript of the _Westerne Planting_ is not thought to be in
Hakluyt’s hand, though in a contemporary script; and the writing of it
by Hakluyt seems to have been in progress during the summer of 1584,
while its author was thirty-two years old. There is evidence that it
existed in four or five copies,—of which the only one known at this
day is the Phillipps copy,—one of which was for the queen, and all
were made with the view of recommending the planting of Norumbega.
In 1867 Dr. Woods was commissioned by the Governor of Maine to
procure in Europe material for the early history of the State, and
the first fruit was the engaging of Dr. Kohl in the work, which
subsequently assumed shape in his _Discovery of Maine_, and the second
the procurement of this Hakluyt manuscript. Dr. Woods was engaged in
preparing it for the press, when his health declined, and the labor was
completed by Mr. Charles Deane, the book being published by the Maine
Historical Society in 1877.
* * * * *
Under the auspices of this Society some important historical work has
been done. Dr. Kohl’s book is the most elaborate summary yet made
of the early explorations on our New England coast. The labors of
Dr. Woods have been the subject of consideration in Dr. E. A. Park’s
_Life and Character of Leonard Woods_, Andover, 1880, 52 pp., and in
Dr. C. C. Everett’s notice in _Me. Hist. Coll._, viii. 481, and in
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xviii. 15. The late George Folsom opened
an important field of investigation in his _Catalogue of Original
Documents in the English Archives relating to the Early History of
Maine_, privately printed, New York, 1858, which covers the years
1601-1700, and is said to have been compiled for him by Mr. H. G.
Somerby. See _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._,1859, p. 262, and 1869, p.
481. Of the labors of William D. Williamson, the principal historian
of the State, there is due record in the _Historical Magazine_, xiii.
265, May, 1868, and in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, i. 90. The
Hon. William Willis, of whom there are accounts in the _Maine Hist.
Coll._, vii. 473, and in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1873,
p. 1, was for many years the president of the Society, and besides
furnishing many communications, he issued a bibliography of Maine in
_Norton’s Literary Letter_, no. 4, 1859, which was much enlarged in
the _Historical Magazine_, xvii. 145, March, 1870. In connection with
this subject the bibliography in Griffin’s _History of the Press in
Maine_, 1872, deserves notice. There is in the _Hist. Mag._, Jan.
1868, an account of the Maine Historical Society and the historical
investigations it has patronized.
A list of the charters and grants on the Maine coast is given in the
_Hist. Mag._, March, 1870, p. 154. See in this connection S. F. Haven’s
lecture in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Lowell Lectures_.
[Illustration: DR. JOHN G. KOHL.
We are indebted for the photograph used by the engraver to Dr.
Kohl’s successor in the librarianship of the Public Library at
Bremen, Dr. Heinrich Bulthaupt. No name ranks higher than Kohl’s
in the investigations of our early North American geography. “From
my childhood,” he says, “I was highly interested in geographical
researches in connection with history.” Having gathered much material
on the early cartographical history of America in the archives and
libraries of Europe, he came to this country, and receiving an
appropriation from Congress to enable him to make copies of his maps
for the Government, he undertook that work, the results of which are
now in the State Department at Washington. All that he desired to do
was not provided for by the order of Congress, and he returned to
Europe disappointed in his hopes, but leaving behind him, besides
the collections in Washington, a memoir with maps on the discovery
of the western coast of America, which is now in the library of the
American Antiquarian Society. In Europe he annotated and published at
Munich in fac-simile the two oldest general maps of America, those
known as Ribero’s and Ferdinando Columbus’s, and a treatise on the
history of the Gulf Stream, as well as a condensed popular history of
the discovery of America. In 1868 he undertook, what proved to be his
chief contribution to American historical geography, his _Discovery of
Maine_. He did not feel that he had accomplished all in this that he
would; but it still remains the most important essay since Humboldt in
that peculiar field. See Charles Deane’s notice of Kohl in _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._, Dec. 1878, and the memoir in the _Beilage zur Allgemeinen
Zeitung_, Augsburg, July 9, 1879.]
=C.= THE POPHAM COLONY.—It was unfortunate, as it was unnecessary,
that any theological color should have been given to the discussion
arising out of the claims made for this colony, since the merits of the
case concerned solely the historical significance of secular events,
upon which all were agreed in the main. The claim asserted by the
Maine Historical Society, or by those representing it, was this: That
the temporary settlement at Sabino, being made under the charter of
1606, was the first event to secure New England for the English crown,
and should therefore be deemed the beginning of the existence of its
colonies. The claim of those historical students who took issue was
this: That the granting in 1606 of a patent by the king to his subjects
concerned no further the question than that it simply formulated a
pre-existing claim, while the actual attempts at colonization by
Gosnold in 1602, whether authorized or not,—the latter alternative
having of late years been brought forward by Dr. De Costa,—were more
practically demonstrative of that claim, in accordance with the English
interpretation of rights in new countries, namely, actual possession.
Further, that the true historic beginning of New England was not in
the abortive attempts of Gosnold and Popham to effect a settlement,
however much, in connection with many other events, they helped in
preparing a way, but in the permanent colonization which was made at
Plymouth in 1620, which was the first founded upon family life, and
which under greater distress than befell either of the others, was
rendered permanent more by the spirit of religious independency, as
evinced by their Holland exile, than by the mercenary longing, which
was professedly the chief motive of the others. Strachey distinctly
says of the Popham Colony, that mining was “the main intended benefit
expected.”
It is susceptible of proof that the blood of the Pilgrims and of their
congeners runs through the veins of a large part of the population
of New England to-day. No genealogical tree has been produced which
connects our present life with a single one of the Sabino party.
How, then, was New England saved for the English race? The decisive
historical event is never those scattering forerunners which always
harbinger an epoch, but the fulfilment of the idea which comes in the
ripeness of time.
The controversy as it was waged was a reaction from the views with
which the Pilgrims had long been regarded for their devotion under
trial and for the pluck of their constancy in first making English
homes on this part of the continent. Maine writers like George Folsom
and William Willis had never questioned such established claims,
but had reasserted them. The leading spirit in this revocation of
judgment was Mr. John A. Poor, of Portland. This gentleman, having
done much to increase the material interests of his native State,
entered with pertinacity into a process of rendering, as he claimed,
the position of Maine in history more conspicuous. This required the
aggrandizement of the fame of Sir Ferdinando Gorges; and he began his
missionary work with a vindication of Gorges’ claims to be considered
the father of English colonization in America. It was no new idea,
for George Folsom had done Gorges justice in his _Discourse_ in 1846.
Mr. Poor’s lecture was printed, and was subsequently appended to the
_Popham Memorial_. To emphasize this claim, he secured the naming of
a new fort in Portland Harbor after Sir Ferdinando in 1860; and in
1862, when the General Government built a fortification on the old
peninsula of Sabino, his efforts caused it to be named Fort Popham,
and his zeal planned and directed a commemorative service in August of
that year on the spot, when a tablet recounting the claims of which
he was the champion was placed near its walls. The address which he
then delivered, which showed the intemperance, if not the perversity,
of an iconoclast, and which appeared with other papers and addresses
more or less pronounced in the same way in a _Popham Memorial_, opened
the controversy. See also _Historical Magazine_, Jan. 1863, and
Sept. 1866, and Mr. C. W. Tuttle’s account of Mr. Poor’s agency in a
“Memorial of J. A. Poor,” in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, Oct.
1872. The committee charged with the preparation of the _Memorial_
unwisely omitted a counter speech of the late J. Wingate Thornton, on
“The Colonial Schemes of Popham and Gorges,” which was accordingly
printed in the _Congregational Quarterly_, April, 1863, and separately,
and is examined favorably by Abner C. Goodell in the _Essex Institute
Collections_, Aug. 1863, p. 175. A similar unfavorable estimate of
Popham’s colonists had been taken by R. H. Gardiner in the _Maine
Historical Collections_, ii. 269; v. 226.
For some years the spirit was kept alive by recurrent commemorations.
Mr. Edward E. Bourne (see memoir of him in _N. E. Hist and Geneal.
Reg._, 1874, p. 9, and _Me. Hist. Coll._, viii. 386) answered the
detractors in an address, “The Character of the Colony founded by
George Popham,” Portland, 1864. The statements of Poor and Bourne led
to a review by S. F. Haven in the _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, April
26, 1865, and in the _Hist. Mag._ (Dec. 1865, p. 358; March, July,
Sept., Nov., 1867; Feb. and May, 1869). There was a dropping fire on
both sides for some time. Meanwhile the address in 1865 by James W.
Patterson, on _The Responsibilities of the Founders of Republics_, led
to a controversy between William F. Poole attacking, and Rev. Edward
Ballard and Frederick Kidder defending, the colonists; and their
papers were printed together as _The Popham Colony: a Discussion of
its Historic Claims_, to which Mr. Poole appended a bibliography of
the subject up to 1866. Poole also gave his view of Gorges and the
colony in his edition of Johnson’s _Wonder Working Providence_, and in
the _North American Review_, Oct. 1868. At the celebration in 1871 Mr.
Charles Deane reviewed the erroneous conclusions presented at earlier
anniversaries, in a paper on “Early Voyages to New England, and their
Influence on Colonization,” which was printed in the _Boston Daily
Advertiser_, Sept. 2, 1871. A paper by R. K. Sewall on “Popham’s Town
of Fort St. George,” which contains a summary of the arguments and
events on the side of its historic importance, is given in the _Me.
Hist. Coll._, vii., accompanied by a map of the region. The latest
statement of the claim, apart from the review in the Preface to _The
Voyage to Sagadahoc_, referred to on an earlier page, is in General
Chamberlain’s _Maine_: _her Place in History_, which is too moderate
to provoke any criticism. Thus a reaction that at one time claimed the
necessity of rewriting history, has in the end engaged few advocates,
and is almost lost sight of.
=D.= CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH’S PUBLICATIONS.—The _Description_ is now a
rare book, worth with the genuine map, should one be offered, fifty
pounds or upwards. There is some bibliographical detail regarding it
in the _Memorial History of Boston_, i. 50, 52, 53. Latin and German
versions of it were included in De Bry, part x. Michael Sparke, the
London printer, issuing Higginson’s _New England’s Plantation_ in 1630,
appended this recommendation:—
“But whosoever desireth to know as much as yet can be discovered, I
advise them to buy Captaine John Smith’s booke of the description of
New England in folio, and reade from fol. 203 to the end; and there
let the reader expect to have full content.”
Smith’s letter (1618) to Bacon, upon New England, is in the _Hist.
Mag._, July, 1861, and the annexed autograph is taken from the original
in the Public Record office. See Sainsbury’s _Calendar of Colonial
Papers_, no. 42, p. 21; _Popham Memorial_, App. p. 104; Palfrey, _New
England_, i. 97.
[Illustration]
A little tract of Smith’s, _New England’s Trials_ [_i. e._ Attempts at
Settlements], needs to be taken in connection with the _Description_.
Of this tract, of eight pages, published in 1620, there is no copy
known in America, and Mr. Deane describes it and reprints it in the
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ xii. 428, 449, from the Bodleian copy, which
differs in the names of the dedication from the British Museum copy.
In 1622 it was issued in a second edition, enlarged to fourteen pages,
which is also very rare, though copies are in the Deane Collection
and in that of John Carter-Brown, from the last of which a privately
printed reprint has been made. It was this text which Force used in his
_Tracts_, ii. See _Brinley Catalogue_, no. 363.
Smith had moved, April 12, 1621, in a meeting of the Virginia Company,
that its official sanction should be given to a compiled history of
“that country, from her first discovery to this day,” showing that
the purpose of his _Generall Historie_ was then in his mind. (Neill’s
_Virginia Company_, p. 210.) The first edition of it was issued in
1624, and in it he included, besides abstracts of various other
writings, substantially all his previous publications on America (see
the chapter on Virginia in the present volume), except his _True
Relation_, in the place of which he had put the _Map of Virginia_, a
tract covering the same transactions. When reissued in 1626 it was
from the same type, and again in 1627, and twice in 1632. An account
of the various editions in the Lenox Library, which differ only in the
front matter and plates, can be found in Norton’s _Literary Gazette_,
new ser. i. pp. 134 _a_, 218 _c_. Mr. Deane has printed a part of the
original prospectus. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, ix. 454.
The best opportunity for studying the slight diversities of the
different issues of this book may be found in the Lenox Library, which
has ten copies, showing all the varieties. Among other copies, the
following are noted:—
1624., Charles Deane. A large paper dedication copy of this edition,
bound for Smith’s patron, the Duchess of Richmond and Lenox, was
bought, at the Brinley Sale in 1879, no. 364, for the Lenox Library,
$1,800. The Menzies and Barlow copies are also called large paper
ones. See _Griswold Catalogue_, no. 778; Field’s _Ind. Bibliog._ no.
1435. The _Huth Catalogue_, p. 1367, gives a copy of this edition in
the original rich binding, showing the arms of the Duke of Norfolk
quartered with those of his wife, the daughter of the Duchess of
Richmond and Lenox.
1626., Harvard College Library. Sparks’s Collection, now at Cornell
University, no. 2424.
1627., Prince Library in Boston Public Library. Massachusetts
Historical Society. See the _Crowninshield Catalogue_, no. 992.
1631., The _Huth Catalogue_, p. 1367, gives, perhaps by error, an
edition of this date. I have noted no other copy.
1632., Harvard College Library.
The two portraits of the Duchess of Richmond and of Matoaka are usually
wanting. See the note to chapter v. Average copies without the genuine
portraits, which in Rich’s day (1832) were worth five guineas, are now
valued at more than three times that sum. The portrait of Smith, which
is shown reduced on the map of New England already given, has been
similarly reproduced full size in the _Memorial History of Boston_, i.,
and is engraved in the Richmond edition of the _Generall Historie_, in
Bancroft, Drake’s _Boston_, Hillard’s _Life of Smith, N. E. Hist. and
Geneal. Reg._, Jan. 1858, etc.
The _Generall Historie_, in conjunction with the _True Travels_, was
carelessly reprinted at Richmond, in 1819, at the cost of the Rev. John
Holt Rice, D.D., who lost by the speculation. (_N. E. Hist. and Geneal.
Reg._, 1877, p. 114.) A large part appeared in Purchas’s _Pilgrims_,
iv. 1838. It is given entire in Pinkerton’s _Collections of Voyages_,
xiii.
It is the sixth book of this _Generall Historie_ which relates to
New England, and in this Smith supplements his own experience, and
brings the details down beyond the limits of this present chapter,
by borrowing from _Mourt’s Relation_ and reporting upon other
accounts, as he did in his still later publication, the tract called
_Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New England_, which
brings the story down to 1630.
Dr. Palfrey has a note on the confidence to be reposed in Smith’s
books, in his _History of New England_, i. 89.
Smith was born in 1579 at Willoughby, as the parish records show.
(_Hist. Mag._, i. 313; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, ix. 451.) He died
June 21, 1631, signing his will the same day (_Ibid._ ix. 452), and
was buried in St. Sepulchre’s, London, where the inscription above
his grave is said to be now illegible. A committee of the American
Antiquarian Society was appointed in 1874 to see to its restoration,
but were prevented from acting by the demand of a fee for the privilege
from the vestry of the church. (_N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1874,
p. 222.) In Sparks’s _American Biography_ is a memoir of him by George
S. Hillard; another, by W. Gilmore Simms, was printed in 1846; and a
recent study of his life and writings has been made by C. D. Warner,
who says that the inscription, with the three (Turks’?) heads in St.
Sepulchre’s, long supposed to mark the grave of Smith, is proved to
commemorate some one who died in September, aged 66, while Smith died
June, 1631, aged 51. Stow’s _Survey of London_, 1633, gives the long
epitaph which could be read on the walls of the church previous to its
destruction in the great London fire in 1666. Cf. Deane in _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._, Jan. 1867, p. 454.
[Illustration: NEW WORLD FROM THE LENOX GLOBE.]
Simon Passe, whose Latinized name we see on the engraving of Smith’s
map, was ten years in England, and engraved many of the chief people
of the time; and as he was his own draughtsman, it is probable the
portrait of Smith was drawn by Passe from life, though Robert Clerke is
credited with draughting the map.
=E.= EARLY GLOBES.—The Molineaux globe referred to in the text was
constructed at the instance of that great patron of navigation, William
Sanderson. (_Davis’s Voyages_, Introduction by Markham, pp. xii. 211.)
It is said to be the earliest ever made in England. (_Ibid._ p. lix.)
It is two feet in diameter, and was completed in 1592. (Asher’s _Henry
Hudson_, p. 274.) The oldest globe known antedates it more than a
century, and of those intervening which are known, the following, with
the prototype, deserve mention:—
1. Martin Behaim’s, 1492, preserved in the library at Nuremberg. It
presents an open ocean between Europe and Asia. The first meridian runs
through Madeira. There is a copy in fac-simile in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, at Paris. There have been engraved delineations of it
by Doppelmayr at Nuremberg in 1730; by Dr. Ghillany, in connection
with his _Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim_, 1853; by
Jomard in his _Monuments de la Géographie_, 1854-56, pl. 15. There are
sections and reductions in Cladera’s _Investigaciones Historicas_,
Madrid, 1794; in Lelewel’s _Moyen Age_; in the _Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society_, xviii.; in Kohl’s _Discovery of Maine_; in some
of the editions of Irving’s _Columbus_; in Bryant and Gay’s _United
States_, i. 103; and in Maury’s paper in _Harper’s Monthly_, xlii.
(February, 1871).
2. Acquired from a friend in Laon in 1860 by M. Leroux, of the
Administration de la Marine at Paris, and represents the geographical
knowledge current at Lisbon, 1486-87, according to D’Avezac, who gives
a projection of it in the _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de
Paris_, 4th series, viii. (1860). It is dated 1493. The first meridian
runs through Madeira.
3. A small copper globe in the Lenox Library, in New York, which is
said to be the earliest globe to show the American coast, and its date
is fixed at about 1510-12, but by some as early as 1506-7.
[Illustration: FROM THE MOLINEAUX GLOBE.
This extract is from a tracing by Dr. De Costa. The legends on it are
marked as follows: A, Nova Francia; B, Canada; C, Norumbega; D, India;
E, Virginia, primum lustrata et Culta ab Anglis inpensis D. Gualteri de
Ralegh Equitis Aurati, etc., annuente Elizabetha sev. Angliæ Regina.
1. Hochelaga. 18. S. Cruz. 34. Claudia.
2. Mont Royal. 19. De Breton. 35. Rio Grande.
3. Estade. 20. Aredona. 36. De Lagus.
4. Stadin flu. 21. C. de Breton. 37. Montagna.
5. Saguinay. 22. S. Miguel. 38. B. S. Johan.
6. I. de Orleans. 23. C. Real. 39. Buena Vista.
7. R. Dulce. 24. C. S. Joan. 40. S. Samson.
8. R. S. Laurens. 25. Sinus Laureti. 41. Chesapicke.
9. S. Nicolas. 26. C. d’Esperance. 42. R. de Buelta.
10. C. Tienot. 27. G. de Chalue. 43. C. de Arenas.
11. Chasteaux. 28. Hunedo. 44. S. Christovall.
12. Belle Ysle. 29. I. S. Joan. 45. Chiapanak.
13. C. Blanco. 30. R. de la Pelaijo. 46. Trinitie Harbour.
14. Isle des Oiseaux. 31. R. Vista. 47. P. Hatorack.
15. C. de Bona Vista. 32. R. de Montagnas. 48. C. Hatoras.
16. The Bacailo. 33. Rio Honda. 49. Ye C. of Fear.
17. C. de Razo.]
It was bought in Paris about twenty-five years ago by R. M. Hunt, the
architect, and was given by him to Mr. Lenox. It is about five inches
in diameter. Dr. De Costa has described it and given a draught of
its geography in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Sept. 1879. This paper,
translated by M. Gravier, appeared in the _Bulletin de la Société
normande de Géographie_, 1880. A projection of it is said to have
been made in the Coast Survey Bureau in 1869, at the instance of Mr.
Henry Stevens, and a reduction of this is given in the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, 9th edition, x. 681, of which the Western Hemisphere is
herewith reproduced. The globe opens on the line of the equator, and
was probably used as a pyx. It may be said to be the oldest globe
showing any part of the New World.
4. Brought to light in a _Catalogue de Livres rares appartenant à M. H.
Tross, année 1881_, no. xiv. 4924, where a fac-simile by S. Pilinski is
given. The gores composing it are found in a copy of the _Cosmographiæ
Introductio_, supposed to have been printed at Lugduni, 1514. This is
the claim of the _Catalogue_; but if it belonged to the tract it could
hardly have been earlier than 1518. It is understood that the book has
been added to an American collection. The plate is styled _Universalis
Cosmographie Descriptio tam in solido quem_ [sic] _plano_, and is given
in twelve sections. The delineation of South America is marked “America
noviter reperta.” It is claimed that this gives this copperplate,
“essentiellement française,” the honor of being the earliest to bear
the name of America,—that credit having been claimed for the woodcut
map in Camer’s edition of Solinus, 1520. The manuscript delineation by
Leonardo da Vinci, also giving the name, and preserved at Windsor in
the Queen’s collection, probably antedates it.
5. Made by Johann Schoner at Bamberg in 1520, preserved in the library
at Nuremberg, and thought, until the discovery of the Lenox globe,
to be the earliest showing the discoveries in America. The northern
section is still broken up into islands large and small; but South
America is delineated with approximate correctness. Dr. Ghillany gave
a representation of the American hemisphere in the _Jahresbericht der
technischen Anstalten in Nürnberg für 1842_; also see his _Erdglobus
von Behaim vom Jahre 1492, und der des Joh. Schoner von 1520_,
Nürnberg, 1842, p. 18, two plates. Humboldt examines this Schoner
globe in his _Examen critique_, and in his Appendix to Ghillany’s
_Ritter Behaim_, where a reproduction is given. There are also
delineations or sections in Lelewel’s _Moyen Age_; in Kohl’s _Discovery
of Maine_; in Santarem’s _Atlas_; and in Maury’s paper in _Harper’s
Monthly_, February, 1871. Schoner published, in 1515, a _Terræ totius
descriptio_, without a map, of which there are copies in Harvard
College Library and the Carter-Brown Collection at Providence.
6. Preserved at Frankfort-on-the-Main; of unknown origin. It is figured
in Jomard’s _Monuments de la Géographie_. See also the _Journal of
the Royal Geographical Society_, xviii. 45. It resembles Schoner’s,
and Wieser ascribes it to that maker, and dates it 1515. It is 10½
inches in diameter, and by some the date is fixed at 1520.
7. Given by Duke Charles V. of Lorraine to the church at Nancy, and
opening in the middle, long used there as a pyx, is now preserved in
the Public Library in that town, and was described (with an engraving)
by M. Blau in the _Mémoires de la Société royale de Nancy_, in 1836,
and again in the _Compte-Rendu, Congrès des Américanistes_, 1877, p.
359, and from a photograph by Dr. DeCosta, in the _Magazine of American
History_, March, 1881. It makes North America the eastern part of Asia,
and transforms Norumbega into Anorombega. It is made of silver, gilt,
and is six inches in diameter.
8. Supposed to be of Spanish origin; preserved in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, at Paris, and formerly belonged to the brothers De Bure. It
bears a close resemblance to the Frankfort globe.
9. In the custody of the successors of Canon L’Ecuy of Prémontré. It is
without date, and D’Avezac fixed it before 1524; others put it about
1540. It is the first globe to show North America disconnected from
Asia. It is said to be now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, at Paris. Cf.
Raemdonck, _Les Sphères de Mercator_, p. 28.
10. What was thought to be the only copy known of one of Gerard
Mercator’s engraved globes was bought at the sale of M. Benoni-Verelst,
at Ghent, in May, 1868, by the Royal Library at Brussels. In 1875 it
was reproduced in twelve plane gores at Brussels, in folio, as a part
of _Sphère terrestre et sphère céleste de Gerard Mercator, éditées
à Louvain en 1541 et 1551_, and one of the sections is inscribed,
“EDEBAT GERARDUS MERCATOR RUPELMUNDANUS CUM PRIVILEGIO CES: MAIESTATIS
AD AN SEX LOVANII AN 1541.” Only two hundred copies of the fac-simile
were printed. There are copies in the Library of the State Department
at Washington, of Harvard College, and of the American Geographical
Society, New York. The outline of the eastern coast of America is
shown with tolerable accuracy, though there is no indication of the
discoveries of Cartier in the St. Lawrence Gulf and River, made a few
years earlier. In 1875 a second original was discovered in the Imperial
Court Library at Vienna; and a third is said to exist at Weimar.
11. Of copper, made apparently in Italy,—at Rome, or Venice,—by
Euphrosynus Ulpius in 1542, is fifteen and one half inches in
diameter, was bought in 1859 out of a collection of a dealer in
Spain by Buckingham Smith, and is now in the Cabinet of the New York
Historical Society. The first meridian runs through the Canaries, and
it shows the demarcation line of Pope Alexander VI. It is described in
the _Historical Magazine_, 1862, p. 302, and the American parts are
engraved in B. Smith’s _Inquiry into the Authenticity of Verrazano’s
Claims_, and Henry C. Murphy’s _Verrazzano_, p. 114. See Harrisse,
_Notes sur la Nouvelle France_, no. 291. The fullest description,
accompanied by engravings of it, is given by B. F. De Costa in the
_Magazine of American History_, January, 1879; and in his _Verrazano
the Explorer_, New York, 1881, p. 64.
[Illustration: SKETCH FROM THE FRANKFORT GLOBE.
The Legends of this Globe are these: 1. Parias. 2. C. San til. 3.
Isabelle. 4. Jamaica. 5. Spagnolla. 6. Lit. incognita [The Baccalaos
region]. The passage to the west by the Central America isthmus will be
observed.]
Mr. C. H. Coote, in his paper on “Globes” in the new edition of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, x. 680, mentions two other globes of the
sixteenth century, which may antedate that of Molineaux, both by A.
F. van Langren,—one in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and the
other, discovered in 1855, in the Bibliothèque de Grenoble.
The globe-makers immediately succeeding Molineaux were W. J. Blaeu
(1571-1638) and his son John Blaeu, and their work is rare at this day.
Mr. P. J. H. Baudet, in his _Leven en werken van W. J. Blaeu_, Utrecht,
1871, reports finding but two pair of his (Blaeu’s) globes (terrestrial
and celestial) in Holland. His first editions bore date 1599, but he
constantly corrected the copper plates, from which he struck the gores.
Muller, of Amsterdam, offered a pair, in 1877, for five hundred Dutch
florins, and in his _Books on America_, iii. 164, another at seven
hundred and fifty florins. (_Catalogue_, 1877, no. 329.) A pair, dated
1606, was in the Stevens sale, 1881. _Hist. Coll._, i., no. 1335.
I find no trace of the globe of Hondius, 1597, which gives the American
discoveries up to that date. See _Davis’s Voyages_ (Hakluyt Society),
p. 351. Hondius and Langeren were rivals.
[Illustration: SKETCH FROM THE MOLINEAUX MAP.
The Legends are as follows:—
1. This land was discovered by John and Sebastian Cabot for Kinge
Henry y^e 7, 1497.
2. Bacalaos.
3. C. Bonavista.
4. C. Raso.
5. C. Britton.
6. I. Sables.
7. I. S. John.
8. Claudia.
9. Comokee.
10. C. Chesepick.
11. Hotorast.
12. La Bermudas.
13. Bahama.
14. La Florida.
15. The Gulfe of Mexico.
16. Virginia.
17. The lacke of Tadenac, the bounds whereof are unknowne.
18. Canada.
19. Hochelague.]
=F.= MOLINEAUX MAP, 1600.—Emeric Molineaux, the alleged maker of this
map, belonged to Lambeth, “a rare gentleman in his profession, being
therein for divers years greatly supported by the purse and liberality
of the worshipful merchant, Mr. William Sanderson.” Captain Markham
(_Davis’s Voyages_, Hakluyt Society, London, 1880, pp. xxxiii, lxi,
also p. lxxxviii) is of the opinion that the true author is Edward
Wright, the mathematician, who perfected and rendered practicable what
we know to-day as Mercator’s projection,—first demonstrating it in his
Certain Errors in Navigation Detected, 1599, and first introducing its
formulæ accurately in the 1600 map. Hakluyt had spoken of the globe
by Molineaux in his 1589 edition, but it was not got ready in time
for his use. The map followed the globe, but was not issued till about
1600, the discoveries of Barentz in 1596 being the last indicated on
it. It measures 16½ × 25 inches. Quaritch in 1875 advanced the
theory that the globe of Molineaux was referred to in Shakespeare’s
_Twelfth Night_ (act iii. sc. 2), as the “new map.” (Quaritch’s 1879
_Catalogue_, no. 321, book no. 11919),—a theory made applicable to the
map and sustained by C. H. Coote in 1878, in _Shakespeare’s “new map”
in Twelfth Night_ (also in _Transactions_ of the New Shakspere Society,
1877-79, i. 88-100), and reasserted in the Hakluyt Society’s edition
of _Davis’s Voyages_, p. lxxxv. Henry Stevens (_Hist. Coll._ i. 200),
however, is inclined to refer Shakespeare’s reference (“the new map
with the augmentation of the Indies”) to the “curious little round-face
shaped map” in Wytfliet’s _Ptolemæum Augmentum_, 1597.
The Molineaux-Wright map has gained reputation from Hallam’s reference
to it in his _Literature of Europe_ as “the best map of the sixteenth
century.” It is now accessible in the autotype reproduction which was
made by Mr. Quaritch from the Grenville copy of Hakluyt’s _Principall
Navigations_ in the British Museum, and which accompanies the Hakluyt
Society’s edition of _Davis’s Voyages_. There are nine copies of the
map known, as follows: 1. King’s Library. 2. Grenville Library. 3.
Cracherode Copy. (These three are in the British Museum.) 4. Admiralty
Office. 5. Lenox Library, New York. 6. University of Cambridge. 7.
Christie Miller’s Collection. 8. Middle Temple. 9. A copy in Quaritch’s
Catalogue, 1881, no. 340, title-number, 6235, which had previously
appeared in the Stevens sale, _Hist. Collections_, i. 199. Quaritch
held the Hakluyt (3 vols.) with this genuine map at £156, and it is
said no other copy had been sold since the Bright sale.
It may be noted that Blundeville, who in his _Exercises_, pp. 204-42,
describes the Mercator and Molineaux globes, also, pp. 245-78, gives a
long account of a mappamundi by Peter Plancius, dated 1592, of which
Linschoten, in 1594, gives a reduction.
=G.= MODERN COLLECTIONS OF EARLY MAPS.—The collections of
reproductions of the older maps, showing portions of the American
coast, and representing what may be termed the beginnings of modern
cartography, are the following:—
JOMARD, E. F. _Les Monuments de la Géographie._ Paris, 1866. The death
of Jomard in 1862 (see Memoir by M. de la Roquette, in _Bulletin de
la Soc. Géog._ February, 1863, or 5th ser. v. 81, with a portrait;
Cortambert’s _Vie et Œuvres de Jomard_, Paris, 1868, 20 pages; and
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, iv. 232, vi. 334) prevented the completion
by him of the text which he intended should accompany the plates. M.
D’Avezac’s intention to supply it was likewise stayed by his death, in
1875. It proved, however, that Jomard had left behind what he had meant
for an introduction to the text; and this was printed in a pamphlet
at Paris in 1879, as _Introduction à l’Atlas des Monuments de la
Géographie_, edited by E. Cortambert. It is a succinct account of the
progress of cartography before the times of Mercator and Ortelius. The
atlas contains five maps, of great interest in connection with American
discovery:—
The Frankfort Globe, _circa_ 1520.
Juan de la Cosa’s map, 1500.
The Cabot map of 1544.
A French map, made for Henri II.
Behaim’s Globe, 1492.
These reproductions are of the size of the original. Good copies are
worth £10 10_s._
SANTAREM, VISCONDE DE. _Atlas Composé de Cartes des XIV^e XV^e XVI^e
et XVII^e siècles_, Paris. 1841-53. This was published at the charge
of the Portuguese Government, and is the most extensive of modern
fac-similes. Copies, which are rarely found complete, owing to its
irregular publication over a long period, are worth from $175 to $200.
A list of the maps in it is given in Leclerc, _Bibliotheca Americana_,
1878, no. 529; and of them the following are of interest to students of
American history:—
51. Mappemonde de Ruysch. This appeared in the Ptolemy of 1508 at Rome,
the earliest engraved map of America.
52. Globe of Schoner, and the map in Camer’s edition of Solinus, each
of 1520.
53. Mappemonde par F. Roselli, Florence, 1532, and the maps of
Sebastian Munster, 1544, and Vadianus, 1546.
The atlas should be accompanied by _Essai sur l’histoire de la
Cosmographie et de la Cartographie pendant le Moyen Age, et sur les
progrès de la Géographie après les grandes découvertes du XV^e siècle_.
3 vols. Paris. 1849-52.
KUNSTMANN, F. _Entdeckung Amerikas nach den ältesten Quellen
geschichtlich dargestellt._ Munich, 1859. This was published under
the auspices of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and is
accompanied by a large atlas, giving fac-similes of the principal
Spanish and Portuguese maps of the sixteenth century, including one of
the California coast, and that of the east coast of North America, by
Thomas Hood, 1592. Copies are worth from $15 to $20.
LELEWEL, J. _Géographie du Moyen Age étudiée._ Bruxelles. 1852. 3
vols. 8º. With a small folio atlas, of thirty-five plates, containing
fifty-two maps. The text is useful; but, as a rule, the maps are on too
small a scale for easy study.
A series of photographic reproductions of early maps is now appearing
at Venice, under the title of _Raccolta di Mappamondi e Carte nautiche
del XIII al XVI secolo_. There are two which have a particular interest
in connection with the earliest explorations in America; namely,—
16. _Carta da navigare._ Attributed to ALBERTO CANTINO, supposed to
be A.D. 1501-03, and to illustrate the third voyage of Columbus. The
original is in the Bibl. Estense at Modena. [Not yet published.]
17. AGNESE, BATTISTA. _Fac-simile delle Carte nautiche dell’ anno
1554, illustrate da Teobaldo Fischer._ Venezia. 1881.
The editor, Fischer, is Professor of Geography at Kiel. The original is
in the Bibliotheca Marciana, at Venice. The sheets which throw light
upon the historical geography of America are these:—
XVII. 4. North America northward to the Penobscot and the Gulf of
California; and the west coast of South America to 15° south; then
blank, till the region of Magellan’s Straits is reached.
XVII. 5. North America, east coast from Labrador south; Central
America; South America, all of east coast, and west coast, as in XVII.
4.
XVII. 33. The World,—the American continent much as in XVII. 4 and 5.
We note the following other maps of Agnese:—
_a._ Portolano in the British Museum, bearing date 1536. _Index to MSS.
in British Museum_, 19,927. If this is the one Kohl (_Discovery of
Maine_, p. 293) refers to as no. 5,463, MS. Department British Museum,
it is signed and dated by the author.
_b._ Portolano, dated 1536, in the royal library at Dresden, of ten
plates,—one being the World, the western half of which, showing
America, is given reduced by Kohl, p. 292. It resembles XVII. 33,
above, but is not so well advanced, and retains a trace of Verrazano’s
Sea, which makes New England an isthmus. It wants the California
peninsula, a knowledge of whose discovery had hardly yet reached Venice.
_c._ Portolano, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; thought by Kohl,
who gives a sketch (pl. xv. c), to be the work of Agnese, since it
closely resembles, in its delineations of the American continent, that
Venetian’s notions. This, perhaps, is earlier than the previous map;
for it puts a strait leading to the Western sea, where Cartier had just
before supposed he had found such in the St. Lawrence.
_d._ Map in the archives of the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, marked “Baptista
Agnes fecit, Venetiis, 1543, die 18 Febr.” Kohl (pl. xvii. 3) gives
from it a draft of the eastern coast of the United States.
_e._ Map, like _d_, in the Huth Library at London.
_f._ Portolano in the Royal Library, Dresden. It shows California.
Kohl, p. 294.
_g._ Portolano in the British Museum, dated 1564. _Index to MSS._
25,442.
Kohl says (p. 293) there are other MS. maps of Agnese in London, Paris,
Gotha, and Dresden, not here enumerated.
A few other books, less extensive and more accessible, deserve
attention in connection with the study of comparative early American
cartography.
HENRY STEVENS. _History and Geographical Notes of the Early Discoveries
in America, 1453-1530_, New Haven, 1869, with five folding plates of
photographic fac-similes of sixteen of the most important maps.
DR. J. G. KOHL. _Discovery of Maine_ (_Documentary History of Maine_,
1), with reduced sketches, not in fac-simile, of many early charts of
our eastern seaboard.
CHARLES P. DALY. _Early History of Cartography, or what we know of
Maps and Map-making before the time of Mercator_,—being his annual
address, 1879, before the American Geographical Society. The maps are
unfortunately on a very much reduced scale.
* * * * *
NOTE.—Since this chapter was completed Henry Harrisse’s _Jean et
Sébastien Cabot_, Paris, 1882, has given us the fullest account of
Agnese’s cartographical labors, with much other useful information
about the maps from 1497 to 1550; and George Bancroft (_Magazine of
American History_, 1883, pp. 459, 460), in defence of his latest
revision, has controverted Dr. De Costa’s statement (Ibid., 1883, p.
300), that Gosnold had no permission from Ralegh, and has set forth his
reasons for believing that Waymouth ascended the George’s River. De
Costa replied to Bancroft in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Aug., 1883, p.
143.