that Columbus conceived his enterprise, before he was enabled to carry it into effect; that the greater part of that time was passed in almost hopeless solicitation, amidst poverty, neglect and taunting ridicule; that the prime of his life had wasted away in the struggle, and that when his perseverance was finally crowned with success, he was in about his sixty-fifth year. His example should encourage the enterprising never to despair."*

Columbus had interested the powerful family of the Pinzons in his cause, and through their influence and the generous impulses of the queen, Isabella, an agreement was finally reached and a contract signed on April 17, 1492,† whereby he was made high admiral and viceroy of all the countries he might discover, and a certain portion of the profits was guaranteed to him. Columbus was therefore enabled to embark from the port of Palos on Friday, August 3, 1492, his expedition consisting of three small caravels the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Niña - each

† Fiske, Discovery of America, vol. i., pp. 395419, where the terms of the contract are given in full. But even Isabella required that Columbus should await the fall of Grenada before she would consider his project. The Charter of Privileges and Prerogatives granted to Columbus will be found in F. N. Thorpe, The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories and Colonies, now or heretofore forming the United States of America, House of Representatives Document No. 357, 59th Congress, 2d session (1909); Hazard, Historical Collections of State Papers, vol. i., pp. 1-6.

of which had a crew of 90 men.* After an eventful voyage land was sighted on Friday, October 12, 1492, and the great mystery of the ocean lay revealed before him; the theory which wise and learned men had scoffed at was now triumphantly established; and Columbus had secured to himself everlasting glory. The land thus reached proved to be the island Guanahani Guanahani - now called Cat Island, one of the Bahamas, which Columbus named San Salvador.+

Of the three subsequent voyages and the other discoveries of Columbus, and of the varied fortune of his later life, we cannot make mention here.

His latter days were spent in illness, humiliation and despondency, and were further embittered by envy, distraction, injustice and cruelty. Deprived of the honor of naming the newly discovered continent, and ren

For the names of these men see Fiske, App. C., vol. ii., pp. 594-597. Irving (vol. i., p. 362) says that at the suggestion of Columbus many prisoners were released in Spain upon condition that they would accompany him on his voyages to America.

In a paper read before the New York Historical Society, October 6, 1846, Mr. George Gibbs gives several reasons for believing that the Grand Turk Island was the one at which Columbus first touched. Muñoz, Major, Murdock, and Becker claim that this is Watling Island; Irving and Humboldt say it is Cat Island; Fox says Samana; and Navarrette and Kettell says Turk's Island. Sir Clements Markham claims that the journal of Columbus necessitates that the island which was the landfall must satisfy twenty-four requirements and that Watling Island fits the description perfectly.

The details will be found in Fiske's Discovery of America, vol. i., pp. 447-512, and in the various biographies of Columbus.

a distinguished Florentine navigator. Vespucci wrote a number of letters in Latin to Lorenzo de Medici, one of which was printed in 1505 and was the first of his narratives published. On September 4, 1504, he also wrote a letter from Lisbon to René, duke of Lorraine, in which he claims to have discovered the mainland in 1497. As Vespucci was a man of superior learning and intelligence, and as his name was thus publicly connected with the New World, as the discoverer of the Continent although he was not the first to reach Terra Firma, Columbus, Cabot and others having preceded him the well-known cosmographer, Martin Waldseemüller, of Fribourg, patronized by René, decided in 1507 to give the New World the name of America. The works of Waldseemüller, who styled himself by the Grecianized title, Hylacomylas, went through a large number of editions, and thus the name America became familiar throughout the larger part of the civilized world. It does seem, however, that this was a great injustice to Columbus.*

Meanwhile, the Portuguese had been making discoveries along the coast of Africa in the hope of finding a route there to the East and for several years before Columbus started

* Harrisse, Bibliotheca; Decouverte; Fischer and Wieser, Die Alteste Karte mit dem Namen America; d'Avezac, Martin Hylacomylus Waltzemüller; Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen; Charles Morris, Americus Vespucius and the Naming of America, in The Discoverers and Explorers of America, pp. 23–31 (1906).

many voyages had been made and much money expended in a vain endeavor to locate the passage eastward. As Spain and Portugal had made their attempts in opposite directions, Pope Alexander VI, thinking to settle all future territorial disputes, on May 4, 1493, issued his famous bull giving Spain the western half of the Christian world and Portugal the eastern half.* This bull gave to Spain "all lands that might be discovered west and south of a line drawn from the North to the South Pole, at a distance of one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands." In June, 1494, the line was changed and by the convention of Tordesillas it was made to run 370 leagues west of Cape Verd, thus giving the larger share of Brazil to the Portuguese.†

The spirit of maritime enterprise was immediately aroused in England by the marvelous discovery of the New World and the glory of first reaching the continent of North America undisputably belongs to one of her sons. England had not as yet reached that position of prominence in naval affairs which she acquired many years afterward. The active

*The Latin text of this bull will be found in Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, vol. i., pp. 41-43; Hazard, State Papers, vol. i., pp. 3-6.

George P. Fisher, The Colonial Era, pp. 1415; Bancroft, History of the United States, vol. i.. p. 9 (author's last revision, 1882); Edward G. Bourne, Spain in America, in American Nation series, vol. iii., p. 31; Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, vol. i., p. 40.