The Voyage of Verrazzano
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Henry C. Murphy >> The Voyage of Verrazzano
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THE VOYAGE OF VERRAZZANO;
A CHAPTER IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF MARITIME DISCOVERY IN AMERICA.
BY HENRY C. MURPHY.
TO THE MEMORY OF
BUCKINGHAM SMITH,
OF ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA.
The following pages, intended to show the claim of discovery in
America by Verrazzano to be without any real foundation, belong to a
work, in hand, upon the earliest explorations of the coast which
have led to the settlement of the United States by Europeans. They
are now printed separately, with some additions and necessary
changes, in consequence of the recent production of the map of
Hieronimo de Verrazano, which professes to represent this discovery,
and is therefore supposed to afford some proof of its authenticity;
in which view it has been the subject of a learned and elaborate
memoir by J. Carson Brevoort Esq.
Certain important documents in relation to Verrazzano, procured from
the archives of Spain and Portugal by the late Buckingham Smith, on
a visit to those countries a year or two before his death, are
appended. They were intended to accompany a second edition of his
Inquiry, a purpose which has been interrupted by his decease. They
were entrusted by him to the care of his friend, George H. Moore
Esq., of New York, who has placed them at our disposal on the
present occasion.
The fragmentary and distorted form in which the letter ascribed to
Verrazzano, appeared in the collection of Ramusio, and was thence
universally admitted into history, rendered it necessary that the
letter should be here given complete, according to its original
meaning. It is, therefore, annexed in the English translation of Dr.
Cogswell, which though not entirely unexceptionable is, for all
purposes, sufficiently accurate. The original Italian text can,
however, be consulted in the Collections of the New York Historical
Society, accompanying his translation, and also in the Archivio
Storico Italiano, in which it is represented by the editor to be
more correctly copied from the manuscript, and amended in its
language where it seemed corrupt; but such corrections are few and
unimportant. In all cases in which the letter is now made the
subject of critical examination, the passages referred to are given,
for obvious reasons, according to the reading of the Florentine
editor.
We are indebted to the American Geographical Society of New York for
the use of its photographs of the Verrazano map, and to Mr. Brevoort
for a copy of the cosmography of Alfonse, from which the chart of
Norumbega has been taken. And our thanks are due to Dr. J. Gilmary
Shea of New York, for valuable assistance; and to Dr. E. B.
Straznicky of the Astor Library, Mons. O. Maunoir of the Societe de
Geographie of Paris, Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull of Hartford, Hon. John
R. Bartlett of Providence, and James Lenox Esq. of New York, for
various favors kindly rendered during the progress of our
researches.
BROOKLYN, SEPT. 1875
CONTENTS.
Page
I. The Discovery Attributed to Verrazzano
II. The Verrazzano Letters not Genuine
III. The Letter untrue. I. No Voyage of Discovery made
for the King of France, as it states
IV. II. Misrepresentations in regard to the Geography
of the Coast. The Chesapeake. The Island of
Louise. Massachusetts Bay
V. III. Cape Breton and the Southerly Coast of Newfoundland,
here claimed to have been discovered,
were known previously. Perversion of the Text
of the Letter by Ramusio
VI. IV. The Description of the People and Productions
of the Land not made from the Personal Observations
of the Writer of the Letter. What distinctly
belonged to the Natives is unnoticed, and what is
originally mentioned of them is untrue. Further
important Alterations of the Text by Ramusio,
VII. The Extrinsic Evidence in Support of the Claim. I.
Discourse of the French Sea Captain of Dieppe,
VIII. II. The Verrazzano Map. It is not an Authoritative
Exposition of the Verrazzano Discovery. Its Origin
and Date in its present Form. The Letter of Annibal
Caro. The Map presented to Henry VIII.
Voyages of Verrazzano. The Globe of Euphrosynus
Ulpius
IX. The Letter to the King founded on the Discoveries of
Estevan Gomez. The History of Gomez and his
Voyage. The Publication of his Discoveries in
Spain and Italy before the Verrazzano claim. The
Voyage described in the Letter traced to Ribero's
Map of the Discoveries of Gomez
X. The Career of Verrazzano. An Adventurous Life and
Ignominious Death. Conclusion
Appendix
Index
[Proofreaders note: ILLUSTRATIONS and MAPS omitted]
THE VOYAGE OF VERRAZZANO:
A CHAPTER IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF MARITIME DISCOVERY IN AMERICA.
I.
THE DISCOVERY ATTRIBUTED TO VERRAZZANO.
The discovery of the greater portion of the Atlantic coast of North
America, embracing all of the United States north of Cape Roman in
South Carolina, and of the northern British provinces as far at
least as Cape Breton, by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine, in
the service of the king of France, has received until quite recently
the assent of all the geographers and historians who have taken
occasion to treat of the subject. This acknowledgment, for more than
three hundred years, which would seem to preclude all question in
regard to its authenticity at this late day, has, however, been due
more to the peculiar circumstances of its publication than to any
evidence of its truth. The only account of it which exists, is
contained in a letter purporting to have been written by the
discoverer himself, and is not corroborated by the testimony of any
other person, or sustained by any documentary proof. It was not
published to the world until it appeared for the first time in
Italy, the birth place of the navigator, more than thirty years
after the transactions to which it relates are alleged to have taken
place; and it has not, up to the present time, received any
confirmation in the history of France, whose sovereign, it is
asserted, sent forth the expedition, and to whose crown the right of
the discovery accordingly attached. Yet it is not difficult to
comprehend how the story, appealing to the patriotic sympathies of
Ramusio, was inconsiderately adopted by him, and inserted in his
famous collection of voyages, and thus receiving his sanction, was
not unwillingly accepted, upon his authority, by the French nation,
whose glory it advanced, without possibly its having any real
foundation. And as there never was any colonization or attempt at
possession of the country in consequence of the alleged discovery,
or any assertion of title under it, except in a single instance of a
comparatively modern date, and with no important hearing, it is no
less easy to understand, how thus adopted and promulgated by the
only countries interested in the question, the claim was admitted by
other nations without challenge or dispute, and has thus become
incorporated into modern history without investigation.
Although the claim has never been regarded of any practical
importance in the settlement of the country, it has nevertheless
possessed an historical and geographical interest in connection with
the origin and progress of maritime discovery on this continent. Our
own writers assuming its validity, without investigation, have been
content to trace, if possible, the route of Verrazzano and point out
the places he explored, seeking merely to reconcile the account with
the actual condition and situation of the country. Their
explanations, though sometimes plausible, are often contradictory,
and not unfrequently absurd. Led into an examination of its merits
with impressions in its favor, we have nevertheless been compelled
to adopt the conclusion of a late American writer, that it is
utterly fictitious. [Footnote: An Inquiry into the Authenticity of
Documents concerning a Discovery in North America claimed to have
been made by Verrazzano. Read before the New York Historical
Society, Tuesday, October 10, 1864. By Buckingham Smith. New York,
1864. pp. 31, and a map.] The grounds upon which our conviction
rests we propose now to state. Some documents will be introduced,
for the first time here brought to light, which will serve further
to elucidate the question, and show the career and ultimate fate of
Verrazzano.
The letter, in which the pretension is advanced, professes to be
addressed by Verrazzano to the king of France, at that time Francis
I, from Dieppe, in Normandy, the 8th of July (O. S.), 1534, on his
return to that port from a voyage, undertaken by order of the king,
for the purpose of finding new countries; and to give an account of
the discoveries which he had accordingly made. He first reminds his
majesty that, after starting with four ships, originally composing
the expedition, he was compelled by storms, encountered on the
northern coasts, to put into Brittany in distress, with the loss of
two of them; and that after repairing there the others, called the
Normanda and Delfina (Dauphine), be made a cruize with this FLEET OF
WAR, as they are styled, along the coast of Spain. He finally
proceeded on the voyage of discovery with the Dauphine alone,
setting sail from a desolate rock near the island of Madeira, on the
17th of January, 1524, with fifty men, and provisions for eight
months, besides the necessary munitions of war. This voyage,
therefore, is to be regarded, according to the representations here
made, to have been begun with the sailing of the four ships, from
Dieppe, in the preceding year they fell upon a "country never before
seen by any one either in ancient or modern times." [Footnote: Some
writers have regarded this introductory as referring to two voyages
or cruises, one with the four ships before the disaster, and the
other with the Dauphine afterwards. But it seems clear from their
being described as assailed by tempests in the north, which
compelled them to run into Brittany for safety, that they were not
far distant from Dieppe when the storms overtook them; and must have
been either on their way out or on their return to that port. If
they were on their return from a voyage to America, as Charlevoix
infers (Fastes Chronologiques 1523-4), or simply from a cruise, as
Mr. Brevoort supposes, they would, after making their repairs, have
proceeded home, to Dieppe, instead of making a second voyage. They
must, therefore, be regarded as on their way from Dieppe. The idea
of a voyage having been performed before the storms seems to be due
to alteration which Ramusio made in this portion of the letter, by
introducing the word "success," as of the four ships, Charlevoix
expressly refers to Ramusio as his authority and Mr. Brevoort makes
a paraphrase from the Carli and Ramusio versions combined. (Notes on
the Verrazzano Map in Journal of the Am. Geog. Society of New York,
vol. IV, pp. 172-3)] On leaving Madeira they pursued a westerly
course for eight hundred leagues and then, inclining a little to the
north, ran four hundred leagues more, when on the 7th of March
[Footnote: There is some ambiguity in the account, as to the time
when they first saw land. The letter reads as follows: "On the 17th
of last January we set sail from a desolate rock near the island of
Madeira, and sailing westward, in twenty-five days we ran eight
hundred leagues. On the 24th of February, we encountered as violent
a hurricane as any ship ever weathered. Pursuing our voyage toward
the west, a little northwardly, in twenty-four days more, have run
four hundred leagues, we reached a new country," &c. If the twenty-
four days be calculated from the 24th of February, the landfall
would have taken place on the 20th of March; but if reckoned from
the first twenty-five days run, it would have been on the 7th of
that month. Ramusio changes the distance first sailed from 800 to
500 leagues; the day when they encountered the storm from the 24th
to the 20th of February; and the twenty-four days last run to
twenty-five; making the landfall occur on the 17th or 10th of March
according to the mode of calculating the days last run. As it is
stated, afterwards, that they encountered a gale WHILE AT ANCHOR ON
THE COAST, EARLY in March, the 7th of that month must be taken as
the time of the landfall.] It seemed very low and stretched to the
south, in which direction they sailed along it for the purpose of
finding a harbor wherein their ship might ride in safety; but
DISCOVERING NONE in a distance of fifty leagues, they retraced their
course, and ran to the north with no better success. They therefore
drew in with the land and sent a boat ashore, and had their first
communication with the inhabitants, who regarded them with wonder.
These people are described as going naked, except around their
loins, and as being BLACK. The land, rising somewhat from the shore,
was covered with thick forests, which sent forth the sweetest
fragrance to a great distance. They supposed it adjoined the Orient,
and for that reason was not devoid of medicinal and aromatic drugs
and gold; and being IN LATITUDE 34 Degrees N., was possessed of a
pure, salubrious and healthy climate. They sailed thence westerly
for a short distance and then northerly, when at the end of fifty
leagues they arrived before a land of great forests, where they
landed and found luxuriant vines entwining the trees and producing
SWEET AND LUSCIOUS GRAPES OF WHICH THEY ATE, tasting not unlike
their own; and from whence they carried off a boy about eight years
old, for the purpose of taking him to France. Coasting thence
northeasterly for one hundred leagues, SAILING ONLY IN THE DAY TIME
AND NOT MAKING ANY HARBOR in the whole of that distance, they came
to a pleasant situation among steep hills, from whence a large river
ran into the sea. Leaving, in consequence of a rising storm, this
river, into which they had entered for a short distance with their
boat, and where they saw many of the natives in their CANOES, they
sailed directly EAST for eighty leagues, when they discovered an
island of triangular shape, about ten leagues from the main land,
EQUAL IN SIZE TO THE ISLAND OF RHODES. This island they named after
the mother of the king of France. WITHOUT LANDING UPON IT, they
proceeded to a harbor fifteen leagues beyond, at the entrance of a
large bay, TWELVE LEAGUES BROAD, where they came to anchor and
remained for fifteen days. They encountered here a people with whom
they formed a great friendship, different in appearance from the
natives whom they first saw,--these having a WHITE COMPLEXION. The
men were tall and well formed, and the women graceful and possessed
of pleasing manners. There were two kings among them, who were
attended in state by their gentlemen, and a queen who had her
waiting maids. This country was situated in latitude 41 Degrees 40'
N, in the parallel of Rome; and was very fertile and abounded with
game. They left it on the 6th of May, and sailed one hundred and
fifty leagues, CONSTANTLY IN SIGHT OF THE LAND which stretched to
the east. In this long distance THEY MADE NO LANDING, but proceeded
fifty leagues further along the land, which inclined more to the
north, when they went ashore and found a people exceedingly
barbarous and hostile. Leaving them and continuing their course
northeasterly for fifty leagues FURTHER, they discovered within that
distance thirty-two islands. And finally, after having sailed
between east and north one hundred and fifty leagues MORE, they
reached the fiftieth degree of north latitude, where the Portuguese
had commenced their discoveries towards the Arctic circle; when
finding their provisions nearly exhausted, they took in wood and
water and returned to France, having coasted, it is stated, along an
UNKNOWN COUNTRY FOR SEVEN HUNDRED LEAGUES. In conclusion, it is
added, they had found it inhabited by a people without religion, but
easily to be persuaded, and imitating with fervor the acts of
Christian worship performed by the discoverers.
The description of the voyage is followed by what the writer calls a
cosmography, in which is shown the distance they had sailed from the
time they left the desert rocks at Madeira, and the probable size of
the new world as compared with the old, with the relative area of
land and water on the whole globe. There is nothing striking or
important in this supplement, except that it emphasizes and enforces
the statements of the former part of the letter in regard to the
landfall, fixes the exact point of their departure from the coast
for home again at 50 Degrees N. latitude, and gives seven hundred
leagues as the extent of the discovery. The length of a longitudinal
degree along the parallel of thirty-four, in which it is reiterated
they first made land, and between which and the parallel of thirty-
two they had sailed from the Desertas, is calculated and found to be
fifty-two miles, and the whole number of degrees which they had
traversed across the ocean between those parallels, being twelve
hundred leagues, or forty-eight hundred miles, is by simple division
made ninety-two. The object of this calculation is not apparent, and
strikes the reader as if it were a feeble imitation of the manner in
which Amerigo Vespucci illustrates his letters. A statement is made,
that they took the aim's altitude from day to day, and noted the
observations, together with the rise and fall of the tide, in a
little boat, which was "communicated to his majesty, in the hope of
promoting science." It is also mentioned that they had no lunar
eclipses, by means of which they could have ascertained the
longitude during the voyage. This fact is shown by the tables of
Regiomontanus, which had been published long before the alleged
voyage, and were open to the world. The statement of it here,
therefore, does not, as has been supposed, furnish any evidence in
support of the narrative, by redeem of its originality. Such is the
account, in brief; which the letter gives of the origin, nature and
extent of the alleged discovery; and as it assumes to be the
production of the navigator himself, and is the only source of
information on the subject, it suggests all the questions which
arise in this inquiry. These relate both to the genuineness of the
letter, and the truth of its statements; and accordingly bring under
consideration the circumstances under which that instrument was made
known and has received credit; the alleged promotion of the voyage
by the king of France; and the results claimed to have been
accomplished thereby. It will be made to appear upon this
examination, that the letter, according to the evidence upon which
its existence is predicated, could not have been written by
Verrazzano; that the instrumentality of the King of France, in any
such expedition of discovery as therein described, is unsupported by
the history of that country, and is inconsistent with the
acknowledged acts of Francis and his successors, and therefore
incredible; and that its description of the coast and some of the
physical characteristics of the people and of the country are
essentially false, and prove that the writer could not have made
them, from his own personal knowledge and experience, as pretended.
And, in conclusion, it will be shown that its apparent knowledge of
the direction and extent of the coast was derived from the
exploration of Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese pilot in the service of
the king of Spain, and that Verrazzano, at the time of his pretended
discovery, was actually engaged in a corsairial expedition, sailing
under the French flag, in a different part of the ocean.
II.
THE VERRAZZANO LETTER NOT GENUINE
No proof that the letter ascribed to Verrazzano, was written by him,
has ever been produced. The letter itself has never been exhibited,
or referred to in any authentic document, or mentioned by any
contemporary or later historian as being in existence, and although
it falls within the era, of modern history, not a single fact which
it professes to describe relating to the fitting out of the
expedition, the voyage, or the discovery, is corroborated by other
testimony, whereby its genuineness might even be inferred. The only
evidence in regard to it, relates to two copies, as they purport to
be, both in the Italian language, one of them coming to us printed
and the other in manuscript, but neither of them traceable to the
alleged original. They are both of them of uncertain date. The
printed copy appears in the work of Ramusio, first published in
1556; when Verrazzano and Francis I, the parties to it, were both
dead, and a generation of men had almost passed away since the
events which it announced had, according to its authority, taken
place, and probably no one connected with the government of France
at that time could have survived to gainsay, the story, were it
untrue.[Footnote: Verrazzano died in 1527; Louise, the mother of
Francis I in September, 1582, and Francis himself in March, 1547.]
Ramusio does not state when or how he obtained what he published. In
the preface to the volume in which it is printed, dated three years
before, he merely speaks of the narrative incidentally, but in a
discourse preceding it, he obscurely alludes to the place where he
found it, remarking that it was the only letter of Verrazzano that
he had "been able to have, because the others had got astray in the
troubles of the unfortunate city of Florence." The origin of the
manuscript version is equally involved in mystery. It forms part of
a codex which contains also a copy of a letter purporting to have
been written by Fernando Carli, from Lyons to his father in
Florence, on the 4th of August, 1524, giving an account of the
arrival of Verrazzano at Dieppe, and inclosing a copy of his letter
to the King. The epistles of Carli and Verrazzano are thus connected
together in the manuscript in fact, and by reference in that of
Carli, making the copy of the Verrazzano letter a part of Carli's,
and so to relate to the same date. But as the Carli letter in the
manuscript is itself only a copy, there is nothing to show when that
was really written; nor is it stated when the manuscript itself was
made. All that is positively known in regard to the latter is, that
it was mentioned in 1768, as being then in existence in the Strozzi
library in Florence. When it came into that collection does not
appear, but as that library was not founded until 1627, its history
cannot be traced before that year, [Footnote: Der Italicum von D.
Friedrich Blume. Band II, 81. Halle, 1827.] Its chirography,
however, in the opinion of some competent persons who have examined
it, indicates that it was written in the middle of the sixteenth
century. There is, therefore, nothing in the history or character of
the publication in Ramusio or the manuscript, to show that the
letter emanated from Verrazzano. Neither of them is traceable to
him; neither of them was printed at a time when its publication,
without contradiction, might be regarded as an admission or
acknowledgment by the world of a genuine original; and neither of
them is found to have existed early enough to authorize an inference
in favor of such an original by reason of their giving the earliest
account of the coasts and country claimed to have been discovered.
On the contrary, these two documents of themselves, when their
nature and origin are rightly understood, serve to prove that the
Verrazzano letter is not a genuine production. For this purpose it
will be necessary to state more fully their history and character.
The existence of the copy which, in consequence of its connection in
the same manuscript with that of the Carli letter, may be designated
as the Carli version, is first mentioned in an eulogy or life of
Verrazzano in the series of portraits of illustrious Tuscans,
printed in Florence in 1767-8, as existing in the Strozzi library.
[Footnote: Serie di Ritratti d'Uomini Illustri Toscani con gli elogi
istorici dei medesimi. Vol. secondo Firenze, 1768.] The author calls
attention to the fact, that it contains a part of the letter which
is omitted by Ramusio. In another eulogy of the navigator, by a
different hand, G. P. (Pelli), put forth by the same printer in the
following year, the writer, referring to the publication of the
letter of Ramusio, states that an addition to it, describing the
distances to the places where Verrazzano had been, was inserted in
writing in a copy of the work of Ramusio, in the possession at that
time of the Verrazzano family in Florence. These references were
intended to show the existence of the cosmography, which Tiraboschi
afterwards mentions, giving, however, the first named eulogy as his
authority. No portion of the Carli copy appeared in print until
1841, when through the instrumentality of Mr. Greene, the American
consul at Rome, it was printed in the collections of the New York
Historical Society, accompanied by a translation into English by the
late Dr. Cogswell. It was subsequently printed in the Archivio
Storico Italiano at Florence, in 1853, with some immaterial
corrections, and a preliminary discourse on Verrazzano, by M.
Arcangeli. From an inspection of the codex in the library, where it
then existed in Florence, M. Arcangeli supposes the manuscript was
written in the middle of the sixteenth century. This identical copy
was, therefore, probably in existence when Ramusio published his
work. Upon comparing the letter as given by Ramusio with the
manuscript, the former, besides wanting the cosmography, is found to
differ from the latter almost entirely in language, and very
materially in substance, though agreeing with it in its elementary
character and purpose. The two, therefore, cannot be copies of the
same original. Either they are different versions from some other
language, or one of them must be a recomposition of the other in the
language in which they now are found. In regard to their being both
translated from the French, the only other language in which the
letter can be supposed to have been written besides the native
tongue of Verrazzano, although it is indeed most reasonable to
suppose that such a letter, addressed to the king of France, on the
results of an expedition of the crown, by an officer in his service,
would have been written in that language, it is, nevertheless,
highly improbable that any letter could, in this instance, have been
so addressed to the King, and two different translations made from
it into Italian, one by Carli in Lyons in 1524, and the other by
Ramusio in Venice twenty-nine years afterwards, and yet no copy of
it in French, or any memorial of its existence in that language be
known. This explanation must therefore be abandoned. If on the other
hand, one of these copies was so rendered from the French, or from
an original in either form in which it appears in Italian, whether
by Verrazzano or not, the other must have been rewritten from it. It
is evident, however, that the Carli version could not have been
derived from that contained in Ramusio, because it contains an
entire part consisting of several pages, embracing the
cosmographical explanations of the voyage, not found in the latter.
As we are restricted to these two copies as the sole authority for
the letter, and are, therefore, governed in any conclusion on this
subject by what they teach, it must be determined that the letter in
Ramusio is a version of that contained in the Carli manuscript. This
suggestion is not new. It was made by Mr. Greene in his monograph on
Verrazzano, without his following it to the conclusion to which it
inevitably leads. If the version in Ramusio be a recomposition of
the Carli copy, an important step is gained towards determining the
origin of the Verrazzano letter, as in that case the inquiry is
brought down to the consideration of the authenticity of the Carli
letter, of which it forms a part. But before proceeding to that
question, the reasons assigned by Mr. Greene, and some incidental
facts stated by him in connection with them, should be given. He
says:
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