The Admiral Being Much Delighted With The Relations Of Sea Voyages, His
Mother-In-Law Gave Him The Journals And
Sea charts which had been left by
her husband, which excited his curiosity to make inquiry respecting the
other voyages
Which the Portuguese had made to St George del Mina and the
coast of Guinea, and he enjoyed great delight in discoursing with such as
had sailed to those parts. I cannot certainly determine whether he ever
went to Mina or Guinea during the life of this wife. But while he resided
in Portugal he seriously reflected on the information he had thus received;
and concluded, as the Portuguese had made discoveries so far to the
southward, it was reasonable to conclude that land might be discovered by
sailing to the westwards. To assist his judgment, he again went over the
cosmographers which he had formerly studied, and considered maturely the
astronomical reasons which corroborated this new opinion. He carefully
weighed likewise the information and opinions on this subject of all with
whom he conversed, particularly sailors. From an attentive consideration
of all that occurred to him, he at length concluded that there must be
many lands to the west of the Canary and Cape de Verd islands; and that it
must be perfectly possible to sail to and discover them. But, that it may
distinctly appear by what train of arguments he came to deduce so vast an
undertaking, and that I may satisfy those who are curious to know the
motives which induced him to encounter so great danger, and which led him
to his great discovery, I shall now endeavour to relate what I have found
among his own papers respecting this matter.
The motives which induced my father to undertake the discovery of the West
Indies were three. Natural reason, authority of authors, and the testimony
of sailors. From natural reason my father concluded that the whole sea and
land of this world composed a globe or sphere, which might assuredly be
gone round, so that men should stand with their feet directly against the
feet of other men, in any precisely opposite parts whatever. Secondly,
he took it for granted upon the authority of approved authors that a great
portion of our globe had been already travelled over and explored; and
that it now only remained to discover the whole, so as to make known what
was contained in the vacant space which remained, between the eastern
boundaries of India which were known to Ptolemy and Marinus, and those our
newly discovered western parts of the coast of Africa and the Azores and
Cape Verd islands, the most westerly which were yet known. Thirdly, he
concluded that this still unknown space, between the eastern limits known
to Marinus and the Cape Verds, could not exceed a third part of the
circumference of the globe; since Marinus had already described 15 hours
towards the east, out of the 24 parts or hours into which the
circumference of the world is divided by the diurnal course of the sun;
and therefore to return in an easterly direction to the Cape Verd islands
from the limits discovered by Marinus, or to proceed westerly from these
islands to meet the eastern limits of Marinus, required only to pass over
about 8 parts in 24 of the circumference of the earth[1].
He reckoned, fourthly, that as the cosmography of Marinus had given an
account of fifteen hours or parts of the circumference of the globe
eastwards, and had not yet attained to a knowledge of the eastern
extremity of the land, it followed of course that this eastern extremity
must be considerably beyond those known limits; and consequently, that the
farther it extended eastwards, so much the nearer it must approach to the
Cape Verd islands, or the then known western limits of the globe:
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