■LIFE OF COLON, BY HIS SON.

16

fome land that fheltered it towards the weft. But it being then the month of Auguft,they would not turn towards the ifland, for fear of winter. This was above fortyyears before our Indies were difcovered. This account was confirmed by the relationa mariner at Port St. Mary made, telling him that once making a voyage into Ireland ,he faw the faid land, which he then thought to be part of Tartary, falling off towardsthe weft, which it is like was the land we now call Bacallaos, and that they could notmake up to it by reafon of the bad weather. This he faid agreed with what one Peterde Velafco of Galicia , affirmed to him, in the city of Murcia in Spain , which was, thatfailing for Ireland , they went away fo far to north-weft, that they difcovered land weftof Ireland , which land he believes to be the fame that one Femaldolmos attempted todifcover, after the manner as I fhall here faithfully fet down, as I found it in my fa-ther’s writings ; that it may appear how fome men lay the foundation of great mattersupon flight grounds. Gonfalo de Oviedo, in his hiftory of the Indies, writes, that theadmiral had a letter, wherein he found the Indies defcribed, by one that had before dif-covered them ; which was not fo, but thus : Vincent Dear, a Portuguefe of Tavira ,returning from Guinea to the Tercera iflands, and having paffed the ifland of Madera,which he left eaft of him, faw, or imagined he faw, an ifland which he certainly con-cluded to be land. Being come to the Tercera ifland, he told it to one Luke deCazzana, a Genoefe merchant, who was very rich, and his friend perfuading him tofit out fome veffel to conquer that place; which he was very willing to do, and ob-tained licence for it of the King of Portugal . He writ, therefore, to his brother Francisde Cazzana, who refided at Sevil, to fit out a fhip with all fpeed for the faid pilot.But the faid Francis making a jeft of fuch an undertaking, Luke de Cazzana fet outa veffel in the Tercera ifland, and the pilot went out three or four times to feek thefaid ifland, failing from one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty leagues,but all in vain, for he found no land. Yet for all this, neither he nor his partnergave over the enterprize till death, always hoping to find it. And the brother afore-faid told me, and affirmed it, that he knew two fons of the captain that difcoveredthe Tercera ifland, their names Michael and Jafper Cortereal, who went feveral timesto difcover that land, and at laft in the year 1502, perifhed in the attempt, one afteranother, without ever being heard of; and that this was well known to many.

CHAP. X. — Proving it to be falfe , that the Spaniards had formerly the Dominion ofthe Indies , as Gonzalo de Oviedo endeavours to make out in his Hi/lory.

IF all we have faid above concerning fo many imaginary iflands and countries, ap-pears to be a mere fable and folly, how much more reafon have we'to look upon thatas a falfehood, which Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo conceits in his natural hiftory ofthe Indies, looking upon his own imagination as a certain truth, and faying he hasfully made opt, that there was another difcoverer of this navigation of the ocean, andthat the Spaniards had the dominion of thofe lands ; alledging to make out his affer-tion, what Ariftotle writes of the ifland Atlantis, and Sebofus of the Hefperides. Thishe affirms upon the judgment of fome perfons, whofe writings we have duly weighedand examined, and I would have omitted to talk on this fubjeft, to avoid condemningfome, and tiring the reader, had I not confidered, that fome perfons, to leffen theadmiral’s honour and reputation, make great account of fuch notions. Befides, Ithought I did not perform my duty fully, by fetting down with all fincerity the mo-tives and inducements that inclined the admiral to undertake his unparalleled enterprize,if I fhould fuffer fuch a falfehood, which I know to be fo, to pafs uncenfured. There-fore,