Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 4 (of 8): French Explorations and Settlements in North America and Those of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedes 1500-1700
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 4 (of 8): French Explorations and Settlements in North America and Those of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedes 1500-1700
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
Even down to modern times the distinction between the voyages has
not been recognized. Biddle, Humboldt, and others speak of only one
expedition. The Portuguese authorities, however, are explicit in the
matter. In 1563 there was published at Lisbon a volume of navigations
and discoveries written by Antonio Galvano, who had died a few years
before.[24] Galvano was born at Lisbon in 1503. He went, a young man,
to India, and distinguished himself there, having command of the
expedition which reduced the Moluccas to Portuguese rule, and becoming
the governor of Ternate,—the largest of these islands. He was recalled
home, and coldly received by the King. Becoming indigent, he was
forced to take refuge in a hospital, where he finally died in 1557.
His papers were bequeathed to a friend, Don Francisco y Sousa Tavares,
who prepared the volume for the press. Galvano gives a good account
of the expedition of Gaspar Cortereal, clearly dividing it into two
voyages; and he tells also of Miguel Cortereal’s attempt to discover
his brother’s fate. The original Portuguese text is very rare. Hakluyt
published a translation of it in 1601,[25] and states in his Dedication
of that book to Sir Robert Cecil that he could not succeed in finding
a copy of the original. The translation was made, he says, “by some
honest and well-affected marchant of our nation, whose name by no
meanes I could attaine unto, and that, as it seemeth, many yeeres ago.
For it hath lien by me above these twelve yeeres.” In 1862 the Hakluyt
Society of London reprinted this translation under the editorial
supervision of Vice-Admiral Bethune. In this edition corrections of the
English version are noted, and the whole Portuguese text is given, page
for page, from a copy of the original in the Carter-Brown Library. The
passage relating to the Cortereals is found at pages 96, 97, of this
Hakluyt Society’s volume.[26]
The Chronicle of King Emanuel, by Damiano de Goes, appeared at Lisbon
in 1565-1567.[27] Goes was born in 1501, and died about 1573. He was
employed in the diplomatic service of Portugal in Flanders, Denmark,
and other countries, and travelled extensively. Galvano considered
him, as a traveller, worthy of mention in his work, and says that he
visited England, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Muscovy, and Norway.
“He did see, speake, and was conuersant with all the kings, princes,
nobles, and chiefe cities of all Christendome in the space of 22
yeeres (occupied in the work); so that by reason of the greatnes of
his trauell I thought him a man woorthie to be here remembred.”[28]
He became afterward historiographer of Portugal, and was placed
in charge of the public archives. But he fell under the ban of the
Inquisition, and died in obscurity. His account of the Cortereals,
which is clear and of great value, from the learning of the writer and
from his excellent opportunities to inform himself, is given in the
sixty-seventh chapter of the first part of the Chronicle, at pp. 87,
88.[29]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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