Part 3
Allefonsce after disposing of the region of New England, turns southward, and says: “From the Norombega River,” that is, the Penobscot, “the coast runs west-southwest about two hundred and fifty leagues to a large bay (anse) running inland about twenty leagues, and about twenty-nine leagues wide. In this bay there are four islands close together. The entrance to the bay is by 38° N., and the said islands lie in 39° 30′ N. The source of this bay has not been explored, and I do not know whether it extends further on.... The whole coast is thickly populated, but I had no intercourse with them.” Continuing, he says: “From this bay the coast runs west-northwest about forty-six leagues. Here you come upon a great fresh-water river, and at its entrance is a sand island.” What is more, he adds: “Said island is 39° 49′ N.”
From the description of Allefonsce, it is evident that the “great fresh-water river” is the Hudson, described five years before by Oviedo, out of the Map of Chaves, as the River of St. Anthony, while the “island of sand” was Sandy Hook.[9]
Turning from the manuscript of Allefonsce to the printed cosmography, we discover that the latter is only an abridgement, it being simply said that after leaving Norombega, the coast turns to the south-southeast to a cape which is high land (Cape Cod), and has a great island and three or four small isles. New York and the entire coast south have no mention. The manuscript, however, suffices for our purpose and proves that the coast was well known.
It has been already stated that it would be impossible to say when the first Englishman visited this region; yet in the year 1567-8, evidence goes to prove that one David Ingram, an Englishman, set ashore with a number of companions in the Bay of Mexico, journeyed on foot across the country to the river St. John, New Brunswick, and sailed thence for France. Possibly he was half crazed by his sufferings, yet there can be little doubt that he crossed the continent and passed through the State of New York, traveling on the Indian paths and crossing many broad rivers. If the story is true, Ingram is the first Englishman known to have visited these parts.
In April, 1583, Captain Carline wrote out propositions for a voyage “to the latitude of fortie degrees or thereabouts, of that hithermost part of America,” and, in 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert had this region under consideration, Hakluyt observing on the margin of his “Divers Voyages” that this was “the Countrey of Sir H. G. Uoyage.” Hays says in his account of the region, that “God hath reserved the same to be reduced unto Christian civility by the English nation” and, also that “God would raise him up an instrument to effect the same.” All this is very interesting in connection with English claims and enterprise. In the same year the French were active on the coast, and one Stephen Bellinger, of Rouen, sailed to Cape Breton, and thence coasted southwesterly six hundred miles “and had trafique with the people in tenne or twelve places.” Thus the French were moving from both the north and the south towards this central region; but we cannot say how far south Bellinger actually came, as there is nothing to indicate his mode of computation. It is not improbable that he knew and profited by the rich fur-trade of the Hudson.
In 1598 and there about, we find it asserted that the Dutch were upon the ground, for, in the year 1644, the Committee of the Dutch West India Company, known as the General Board of Accounts, to whom numerous documents and papers have been intrusted, made a lengthy report, which they begin as follows: “New Netherland, situated in America, between English Virginia and New England, extending from the South [Delaware] river, lying in 34½ degrees to Cape Malabat, in the latitude of 41½ degrees, was first frequented by the inhabitants of this country in the year 1598, and especially by those of the Greenland Company, but without making any fixed settlements, only as a shelter in winter. For which they built on the North [Hudson] and the South [Delaware] rivers there two little forts against the attacks of the Indians.” Mr. Brodhead says that the statement “needs confirmation.” Still it is somewhat easy to understand why a statement of this kind coming from such a body should require confirmation; but the Committee had no reason for misstating the facts, and ought to have been accurately informed. Yet if confirmation is insisted upon, we are prepared to give it, such as it is, from an English and, in fact, an unexpected source. Our authority is no less a personage than Governor Bradford, of Plymouth Colony, whose office and inclinations led him to challenge all unfounded claims that might be put forth by the Dutch. Nevertheless, writing to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the father of New England colonization, who likewise was hostile to the pretensions of the Dutch, Bradford says, under date of June 15, 1627, that the Dutch on the Hudson “have used trading there this six-or-seven-and-twenty years, but have begun to plant of later time, and now have reduced their trade to some order.” Bradford lived in Holland in 1608, and had abundant opportunities for knowing everything relating to Dutch enterprise. It is perfectly well known that the Plymouth Colonists of 1620 intended to settle at the Hudson, though circumstances directed them to the spot pointed out by Dermer in 1619, when in the service of Gorges. Thus, about seventeen years before the Committee of 1644 reported, Governor Bradford, an unwilling, but every way competent and candid witness, carried back the Dutch occupancy, under the Greenland Company, to the year 1600. Besides, on the English map of the voyage of Linschoten, 1598, there is a dotted trail from the latitude of the Hudson, 40° N. to the St. Lawrence, showing that the route was one known and traveled at that time. It is evident, from a variety of considerations, that both the Dutch and French resorted to the Hudson at this period to engage in the trade. Linschoten was one of the best informed of Dutch writers, and probably understood the significance of the representation upon his map. The probability is that this route was known a long time before, and that it may be indicated by Cartier, who, when in Canada, 1534, was told of a route by the way of the river Richelieu, to a country a month’s distance southward, supposed to produce cinnamon and cloves, which Cartier thought the route to Florida. Champlain, writing in Canada, says that, in the year previous, certain French who lived on the Hudson were taken prisoners when out on an expedition against the northern Indians, and were liberated, on the ground that they were friends of the French in Canada. This agrees with the report of the Labadists, who taught that a French child, Jean Vigné, was born here in 1614. Evidently the French had been on the ground in force for some years, and were able to make expeditions against the savages. Very likely the French were here quite as early as the Hollanders.
There seems to be, however, another curious piece of confirmation, which comes from the writings of the celebrated Father Isaac Jogues, who was in New Amsterdam during the year 1646. In a letter written on August 3d of that year, he says that the Dutch were here, “about fifty years” before, while they began to settle permanently only about “twenty years” since. The latter statement is sufficiently correct, as 1623 was the year when a permanent colony was established by the Dutch. The former statement carries us back to the date of the “Greenland Company.”
So far as present evidence goes, it is perhaps unnecessary to say anything more in vindication of the statement of the Dutch Committee of 1644, claiming that representatives of the Greenland Company wintered here in 1598. Nevertheless, as a matter of interest, and to show how well the Hudson was known at this time by both Dutch and English, we may quote from the English translation of the Dutch narrative of Linschoten, which clearly describes the coast. He says: “There is a countrey under 44 degrees and a halfe, called Baccalaos.” This country of Baccalaos reached nine hundred miles, that is, from the Cape de Baccalaos [Cape Race] to Florida.
The distances are given approximately, of course, by Linschoten, being on the decimal system, but they distinctly mark the principal divisions of the coast and fix the fact beyond question that the Hudson was perfectly well known.
On the general subject it may be said, that the record of the “Greenland Company” is not satisfactory, yet the word “Greenland” at that time had a very general use, and all that the Committee of Accounts may have meant by the phrase was, that a company or association engaged in the fur and fish trade, which for centuries, even, had been prosecuted at the north, had sent some ships to this region in 1598. There is certainly nothing unreasonable in this supposition, the coast being so well known. Various adventurers of whom we know nothing doubtless came and went unobserved, being in no haste to publish the source from which they derived such a profitable trade in peltries. The Committee of Accounts either falsified deliberately or followed some old tradition. Why may not a tradition be true?
We turn next to examine a map recently brought to notice and which is of unique value. Formerly the map usually pointed out as the oldest seventeenth century map of this region was the Dutch “Figurative” Map, which was found by Mr. Brodhead in the Dutch archives. We have now, however, an earlier map of 1610, which was prepared from English data for James I., a copy finding its way to Philip III., by Velasco, March 22, 1611. Sandy Hook, though without name, is delineated about as it appears in later maps, while Long Island is shown as a part of the main, with no indication of the Sound, though Cape Cod and the neighboring islands are well delineated, and Verrazano’s Island of “Luisa” appears as “Cla[u]dia,” the mother of Francis I. Clearly at this time neither Block nor any other Dutch navigator had passed through Hell Gate into Long Island Sound.
There is nothing whatever in this map relating to explorations by any nation later than 1607. Jamestown appears on the Virginia portion, and Sagadehoc in Maine. It was simply a copy of a map made soon after the voyage to New England and Virginia in 1607. The compiler had not heard of Hudson’s voyage, as that navigator did not reach England until November 7, 1609. If he had received any information from Hudson, he would have shown the river terminating in a shallow, innavigable brook, whereas the river is indicated, in accordance with Captain John Smith’s idea, as a strait, leading to a large body of water. Further, the map contradicts Hudson, who represents the Hoboken side of the river as “Manhatta,” while this map puts the name on both sides, “Manahata,” on the west and “Manahatin” on the east. It is not unlikely that Hudson had with him a copy of the map, for his guidance on the voyage in the Half-Moon.
[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]
Though this map bears a date subsequent to Hudson’s voyage, the contents prove that the original could not have been drawn later than 1608. It was evidently one of the various maps of which Smith spoke and which he underrated. Its substance indicates that it was drawn from a source independent of the Dutch and French, showing that the English knew of the Bay of New York and its relation to Sandy Hook, and that they supposed the great river delineated was a broad stream which, in someway, communicated with the Pacific. On the original map of which Velasco’s example was a copy, the land west of the river was colored blue, and the legend says that it is described by information drawn from the Indians. What we need now is the original map, which may still exist in some obscure collection in England or Holland, and quite as likely in the archives of Spain, sent thither by jealous Spanish spies, who lingered, like Velasco, at the court of James I., to learn what they could with respect to English enterprise in America. At all events we have in this English map the first seventeenth century delineation of this region, and one showing that the English knew the form and general character of the country which the crown conveyed to the colonists of North and South Virginia in 1606. So far as now known, it was clearly the English who first became acquainted with the name that the Aborigines applied to the island upon which our great metropolitan city stands. Whether or not this was an aboriginal word or a corruption of a Castilian term future investigators may decide. The unexpected finding of this old English map in the Spanish archives revives our hopes relating to the discovery of new sources of information concerning early voyages to this coast. English enterprise and adventure on the Virginia coast, extending from Raleigh’s expedition, 1584, to Gosnold’s fatal quest, 1603, must have brought Englishmen into the Bay of New York, unless miracle was balanced against curiosity and chance. There are archives yet to be opened that may give the origin of the delineations of this region found in the remarkable map from Samancas, and we need to be cautious in making claims even for the priority of the Dutch in 1598.
The period under consideration was a period of reconnoissance, one that offered some romantic incident, but more of disappointment and mortification. Here was a site for one of the noblest cities in the world, but the voyager was blind. The river offered no route to the gorgeous Indies, and Verrazano had little inclination to test its swift tide. Gomez, in the short January days of 1525, had no desire to ascend, for when his ship met the drift ice tossing on the cold, swirling stream, he thought of Anthony in his desolate retreat on the Red Sea, put the river under his charge, and sailed away in search of happier shores. Sailors of other nationalities, doubtless, ascended the river; but, finding it simply a river, they took what peltries they could get, and, like Gomez, turned the whole region over to the care of the solitary Saint, who for nearly a century stood connected with its neglect. Much remained to be done before steps could be taken with regard to colonization. The initial work, however, was inaugurated by the sturdy Englishman, Henry Hudson, and the proud Spanish caravel disappears, while the curtain rises upon the memorable voyage of the quaint Dutch fly-boat, the Half-Moon.
FOOTNOTES
[2] Letter addressed to the writer in 1890.
[3] The vignette on proceeding page is a faithful representation of the Florentine portrait.
[4] The usual course was to sail southward and reach Florida coasting north, or to sail to Newfoundland and coast southward. It required especial boldness to take the direct course, and, in 1562, when Ribault followed this course, he was proud of the achievement. The fact that Verrazano sailed the direct course at that time proves the authenticity of his voyage, as a forger would not have invented the story.
[5] On the Map of Verrazano, to which attention will be directed, this triangular island is delineated. The voyager approaching the island from the west comes to a point of the triangle where he can look away in the easterly direction, and at a glance take in two sides; while on reaching the eastern limit the third side plainly appears. In sailing past Block Island, as Verrazano did, from west to east, the navigator could not fail to discover its triangular shape. Indeed it is so marked that one is struck by the fact.
[6] The story of this map is curious. The American contents were first given to the public by the writer in the “Magazine of American History,” and afterward reprinted in “Verrazano the Explorer.”
[7] In “Cabo de Arenas,” the coast names taken from a large collection of maps are arranged in parallel columns, illustrating three main divisions of the coast, showing that Cabo de Baxos was the name applied to Cape Cod, and Cabo de Arenas to Sandy Hook. Capo Cod in the early times was not a sandy cape, but a beautiful and well-wooded cape. Sandy Hook ever since it was known has borne its present character.
[8] Those who have fancied that Cape Arenas was Cape Cod, and that the bay behind it was Massachusetts Bay, have the same difficulty as regards dimensions. Students of American cartography understand perfectly well that latitudes in the old maps were often more than two degrees out of the way, the instruments of that period being so defective.
[9] To convince himself of this fact the reader may compare the reconstructed Map of Chaves with the coast surveys, when the main difference will be found to consist in the exaggeration of Sandy Hook. The “Narrative and Critical History of America,” dealing with this point, suppresses all allusion to the fact that Kohl recognizes the cape on the Map of Chaves with the names “Santiago” and “Arenas” as Sandy Hook, which follows, as the river inside of the Hook he identifies with the Hudson. Dr. Kohl, though generally very acute, failed to see that Oviedo’s description of the Map of Chaves was, substantially, the description of Ribeiro, and that in identifying, as he chanced to, the “Arenas” of Ribeiro with Cape Cod, he stultified his own reasoning. Nor did he consider this, that if the great Cape “Arenas” was intended for Cape Cod, there is no representation whatever of Sandy Hook and the Hudson in the old cartography and that all the voyages to this region geographically went for nothing. _Credat Judaeus Appellus!_ This exaggeration of Sandy Hook is conceded, yet the inlets along the New Jersey shore may have been viewed as connected by Gomez; and indeed, so great have been the changes along the coast that no one can well deny that they were connected in 1525, and formed a long bay running down behind Sandy Hook. It will prove more historic to follow the writer, who says, “that the coast of New York and the neighboring district were known to Europeans almost a century before Hudson ascended the ‘Great River of the North,’ and that this knowledge is proved by various maps made in the course of the sixteenth century. Nearly all of them place the mouth of a river between the fortieth and forty-first degrees of latitude, or what should be this latitude, but which imperfect instruments have placed farther north.”—Nar. and Crit. His. of Amer., 4: 432.
EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE.
Seventy-odd years ago the Rev. Sydney Smith wrote in the Edinburg Review as follows: “Literature, the Americans have none—no native literature, we mean. It is all imported. They had a Franklin, indeed, and may afford to live for half a century on his fame. There is, or was, a Mr. Dwight, who wrote some poems, and his baptismal name was Timothy. There is also a small account of Virginia, by Jefferson, an epic by Joel Barlow, and some pieces of pleasantry by Mr. Irving. But why should the Americans write books, when a six weeks’ passage brings them, in their own tongue, our sense, science and genius in bales and hogsheads?”
Times have changed since Mr. Smith wrote this somewhat sarcastic summary of our native literature; for, while it is true that we still import British “sense, science, and genius in bales and hogsheads,” it is done now on principles of reciprocity, and we return quite as good and perhaps nearly as much as we receive.
Americans do not instance Mr. Dwight, whose “baptismal name was Timothy,” or Mr. Barlow, the author of the epic so sneeringly referred to, as the chiefs of American poesy; yet we need not blush for either of them; for the first was a distinguished scholar the President of Yale College, and the author of the hymn so dear to many pious hearts:
“I love thy kingdom, Lord! The house of Thine abode; The church our blest Redeemer saved With His own precious blood.”
The other, Mr. Barlow, was a well-known man of letters and politician in his day, author of the “Columbiad,” the epic referred to by Mr. Smith, and minister plenipotentiary of the United States to the coast of France at a critical period of our history. As to the “Columbiad,” it has been pronounced by competent critics to be equal in merit to Addison’s “Campaign,” and surely it is no disgrace to have equalled Addison.
It was the fashion in those days for Englishmen to sneer at Americans; and so we find in another review, written by the same gentleman in 1820, this language: “During the thirty or forty years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for the sciences, for the arts, for literature, or even for the statesmanlike studies of politics or political economy.... In the four quarters of the globe who reads an American book? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they analyzed? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans? What have they done in mathematics? Who drinks out of American glasses? or eats from American plates? or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American blankets?” In the very same year that this array of rather insolent queries was propounded by Sydney Smith, the genial Washington Irving, in the advertisement to the first English edition of his Sketch Book, remarks: “The author is aware of the austerity with which the writings of his countrymen have been treated by British critics.” We have not a particle of doubt as to the “austerity” in question. The salvos of Old Ironsides and the roar of Jackson’s guns at New Orleans, were unpleasant facts not yet forgotten by Englishmen.
But Sydney Smith was not quite fair towards our countrymen. It was “during the thirty or forty years of their independence” referred to that Fulton’s steamboat revolutionized navigation, that Rittenhouse developed a mathematical skill second only to that of Newton; that West delighted even royalty itself with the creations of his pencil; while in “the statesmanlike studies of politics or political economy,” it was during this very period that Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and their coadjutors did more to develop the true principles of government and politics than had ever been done before in the history of the world. True, we had not much to boast of, but it would have been only just to give us credit for what we were worth. Moreover, in a small way, but to the extent it was possible under the circumstances, the English colonists in America had cultivated letters from the beginning. In 1685, Cotton Mather wrote his Memorable Providences; in 1732, Franklin began to issue his Poor Richard’s Almanac; in 1749, Jonathan Edwards published his Life of David Brainerd, and in 1754, his famous treatise on The Freedom of the Will and Moral Agency. Besides these, which perhaps stand out most conspicuously, there were many minor works of more or less excellence, over most of which the iniquity of oblivion, to use the fine phrase of Sir Thomas Browne, hath scattered her poppy.