Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689 — John Shaqi
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
Clement Adams’s map is yet a mystery. I have already called attention
to two editions of Cabot’s map, one of which is in the National Library
at Paris, and another from which the legends in Chytræus were copied.
The extract from Adams’s edition, first made by Hakluyt in 1589,[89]
was in Latin, but from a text quite different from that of Chytræus,
or from the Paris map. It is Legend No. 8 of the inscriptions, and was
the “Chapiter of Gabot’s mapp _De terra nova_,” as set out by Adams,
which Hakluyt tells us of in his _Discourse_.[90] This heading is the
same as that in Chytræus. Here we have two different translations from
a Spanish original. Did Adams transcribe from another copy of Cabot’s
map yet to be discovered—for we can hardly suppose he would make a new
Latin version of the legends, with one already before him—or did he
translate from a map with the Spanish legends only?—neither of which
precious documents is to be found in our bureaus of cartography, and
they are yet to be added to Dr. Kohl’s list of lost maps!
Following Hakluyt’s extract from Adams’s map is an English version by
him, beginning thus:—
“In the year of our Lord 1494, John Cabot, a Venetian, and his son
Sebastian (with an English fleet set out from Bristol), discovered
that land which no man before that time had attempted, on the 24th of
June, about five of o’clock early in the morning. This land he called
Prima vista, that is to say, First seen, because, as _I suppose_, it
was that part whereof they had the first sight from sea. That island
which lyeth out before the land he called the Island of S. John, upon
this occasion, as _I think_, because it was discovered upon the day of
St. John the Baptist.”
It is scarcely necessary to say that the passage in parenthesis is not
in the original, but is introduced by Hakluyt. But the words which I
have italicized are represented in the extract by “credo” and “opinor,”
and are not authorized by the language of the Paris map, nor by the
same legend in Chytræus. In the concluding part of this extract, not
here quoted, Hakluyt speaks of a certain kind of fish seen by the
Cabots, “which the _Savages_ call Baccalaos.” The Latin of Adams’s map
and of the Paris map is _vulgus_, which may mean the common people of
Europe, or the fishermen. In the Spanish of the Paris map, it is said
that the fish are called Baccalaos, but it does not say by whom. The
“white bears” of the Spanish crept into the Latin of Adams, and of
course into Hakluyt’s English, as “white lions.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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