These Are All
The Well Authenticated Discoveries Made In The Sixteenth And Seventeenth
Centuries, On The North-West Coast Of America.
Cape Mendocino, in about
40-1/2 degrees north latitude, is the extreme limit of the certain
knowledge possessed at this period respecting this coast:
The information
possessed respecting New Georgia and New Cornwall was very vague and
obscure.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the coasts of the east side of
North America, particularly those of Florida, Virginia, Acadia and Canada,
were examined by navigators of different countries. Florida was discovered
in the year 1512, by the Spanish navigator, Ponce de Leon; but as it did
not present any appearance of containing the precious metals, the Spaniards
entirely neglected it. In 1524, the French seem to have engaged in their
first voyage of discovery to America. Francis I. sent out a Florentine with
four ships: three of these were left at Madeira; with the fourth he reached
Florida. From this country he is said to have coasted till he arrived in
fifty degrees of north latitude. To this part he gave the name of New
France; but he returned home without having formed any colony. Towards the
end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, the
English began to form settlements in these parts of North America. Virginia
was examined by the famous Sir Walter Raleigh: this name was given to all
the coast on which the English formed settlements. That part of it now
called Carolina, seems to have been first discovered by Raleigh.
The beginning of the seventeenth century was particularly distinguished by
the voyage of La Maire and Schouten. The States General of Holland, who had
formed an East India Company, in order to secure to it the monopoly of the
Indian trade, prohibited all individuals from navigating to the Indian
Ocean, either round the Cape of Good Hope or through the Straits of
Magellan. It was therefore an object of great importance to discover, if
practicable, any passage to India, which would enable the Dutch, without
incurring the penalties of the law, to reach India. This idea was first
suggested by La Maire, a merchant of Amsterdam, and William Schouten, a
merchant of Horn. They had also another object in view: in all the maps of
the world of the sixteenth century, a great southern continent is laid
down. In 1606, Quiros, a Spanish navigator, had searched in vain for this
continent; and La Maire and Schouten, in their voyage, resolved to look for
it, as well as for a new passage to India. In 1615 they sailed from Holland
with two ships: they coasted Patagonia, discovered the strait which bears
the name of La Maire, and Staten Island, which joins it on the east. On the
31st of January next year, they doubled the southern point of America,
having sailed almost into the sixtieth degree of south latitude; this point
they named Cape Horn, after the town of which Schouten was a native.
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