A CHILD'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. MY JOHN GILMARY SHEA, LL.D.. AUTHOR OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI, EARLY VOYAGES," HISTORY OF AND OTHER HISTORICAL SOCIETIES. VOLUME I. NEW YORK: MAC DAVITT & CO. LIBRARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, RECOUNTED TO THE YOUNG. PRELUDE. THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY AWAKENED. The Crusades made the East known to the Kingdoms of Western Europe-Travels of Mis sionaries and Traders The Atlantic-What was known of it-St. Brendan's Isle-What it was-Iceland, Greenland-The way to the Indies around the Cape of Good Hope--Romantic Story of the Madeira Islands-Geography and its Cultivation in Italy. THE Crusades and their romantic history are known at least in outline to all. Few have not read of those wonderful wars in which armies from all the new-formed kingdoms of Western Europe poured down upon Asia to rescue the tomb of Christ, the Holy Sepulchre, from the hands of the Mohammedans. The prodigies of valor achieved by Godfrey de Bouillon, Richard Coeur de Lion, Tancred, Louis IX., the Knights of the Temple, and of St. John of Jerusalem, will ever possess the charm of a romance. All Europe burned with the fever of excitenent. The very children were roused to action and sought to take part in the expeditions which absorbed all minds. One of the strangest episodes of the whole period of these wars, was the Crusade of the Children, undertaken in 1212 by an army of brave, but misguided boys. One great and good result came forth from the Crusades, although they failed in their main object. People learned more of the East, of its science, its fabrics, its plants, its riches of every kind. A spirit of travel was awakened. Missionaries set out to announce the gospel to distant lands; merchants hastened to open new avenues of trade. All Europe was astir. The accounts brought back by Carpini and Rubruquis, who penetrated into Tartary, opened a new world. Then Marco Polo, the greatest of early travellers, pushed on till he reached Cathay, or China, and astonished men with his accounts of the strange people of that land. Catalani next described the wonders of Asia, and Mandeville gave a book of travels in which he introduced the most extraordinary stories. Then commerce reawakened from its long sleep, and trade between the various Christian States, and between them and distant lands, was extended with remarkable rapidity. In the commercial operations which sprang up, Genoa and Venice took the lead: their ships were not confined to the Mediterranean, but sought the shores of the Atlantic The sciences of Geography and Navigation became in Italy favorite studies. and were cultivated to an extent not common in other parts of Europe, with rare exceptions. But most of the Kings of those times were too much taken up with wars and pleasures to give any attention to such severe studies, or encourage them as they should. Italy, where there were free Republics, full of commercial activity, and then the religious centre of Christendom, had the most learned geographers and navigators, as well as the most skillful naval commanders. Other nations, therefore, for several centuries, looked as a matter of course to Italy for the latest improvements in all that regarded navigation and the sea. Kings even hired ships from these Italian Republics to aid |