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. It has been already mentioned,
in the introduction to the voyages of Columbus, that in his first voyage
Americus sailed under the command of a Spanish officer named Ojeda or
Hojeda, who had accompanied Columbus in his second voyage:
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