He Remained In This
Place Almost A Year, Suffering Many Hardships.
At length he found means to
send a canoe over to Hispaniola with intelligence of his forlorn condition,
and procured a vessel to transport him and his men to that island, whence
he went to Spain.
This was his last voyage; after which he spent the
remainder of his life at Valadolid, where he died on the 8th of May 1506,
aged 64 years. His body was carried to Seville, as he had ordered in his
will, and was there honourably interred in the church of the Carthusians,
called De las Cuevas, with a Latin epitaph commemorating his great
actions.
[1] Trinidad, which is now subject to Britain, is on the coast of Cumana,
or the Spanish main, on the north-eastern shoulder of South America,
between Lat. 10 deg. and 10 deg. 50' N. Long. 61 deg. and nearly 62 deg. W. - E.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III.
THE VOYAGES OF AMERICUS VESPUCIUS TO THE NEW WORLD[1].
INTRODUCTION.
The relation which is here offered to the public, we believe for the first
time in the English language, is only an abridged account of four voyages
made by Americus Vespucius to the New World, as written by himself, in
which he expresses his intention of publishing a more extensive work,
wherein all the events of these four voyages were to be related at large.
The information he has conveyed in the present article is by no means
satisfactory; yet it constitutes an original document respecting the early
discoveries of the southern continent of the New World, and is therefore
essential to the principles and arrangement of our work. Ample
opportunities will occur in the sequel, for inserting more extended
accounts of the countries which were visited lay this early navigator,
whose singular good fortune has raised him an eternal monument infinitely
beyond his merit, by the adoption of his otherwise obscure name for
designating the grand discovery of the immortal Columbus.
Various early editions of the voyages of this navigator are mentioned in
the Bibliotheque Universelle des Voyages[2], a recent work of much
research, published at Paris in 1808. In the titles of these he is named
Americo Vespucio, and Alberico Vespucio. In the NOVUS ORBIS of Simon
Grynaeus, from which our present article is translated, he is called
Americus Vesputius. In another portion of that work, containing some
very slight notices of these four voyages, his name is altered to
Albericus[3]. A modern author, we know not on what authority, names him
Amerigo Vespucci[4]. In all these publications, the authors or editors
have used their endeavours to deprive the illustrious Columbus of the
well earned glory of being the discoverer of the New World, and to
transfer that honour most undeservedly to Americus, whose name has long
been indelibly affixed to this new grand division of our globe. Americus
himself pretended to have made the first discovery of the continent of
the New World, alleging that his great precursor Columbus was only the
discoverer of the large West India islands.
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