The safe return of Verrazzano to France and his remarkable discoveries along the new continent were immediately heralded through Europe. The letter which he wrote on his arrival at Dieppe was at once eagerly copied and the transcripts widely circulated. In less than a month’s time the news of the navigator’s extensive explorations was spread over France, and became a prominent topic of conversation. The commercial advantages likely to accrue to France by the important discovery of a country thickly populated and rich in drugs, furs, and metals were everywhere discussed, and Verrazzano’s presence at the chief centres of trade was much desired that more information might be obtained respecting the people and the productions of the New Land. A Florentine, named Fernando Carli, a person well acquainted with Verrazzano’s former voyages, was in Lyons at the time when the surprising intelligence reached that city. He obtained a copy of Verrazzano’s letter, and sent it to his father in Florence, inclosed in the following communication: “In the name of God. “August 4, 1524. “Honored Father:— “Considering that when I was in the army in Barbary, at Gierbe, the news was sent you every day by the illustrious gentleman, Don Hugo de Moncada, captain-general of his Cesarean majesty in those barbarous parts, what followed contending with the Moors of that island, which seemed to have pleased our patrons and friends; and also the congratulatory news of the subsequent victory; [I now send you] the news [which] has recently reached this place, of the arrival of Captain Giovanni da Verrazzano, our Florentine, at the port of Dieppe, in Normandy, with his ship, the Dauphine, with which he sailed from the Canary Islands, the last of January, to go in search of new lands for this most serene crown of France, in which enterprise he displayed very noble and great courage in undertaking such an unknown voyage with only one ship, a caravel of hardly tons burden,[413] with only fifty men, with the intention, if possible, to discover Cathay, steering a course through climates other than those frequented by the Portuguese in going to it by the way of Calicut, by keeping more to the northwest and north, believing that, although Ptolemy, Aristotle, and other cosmographers assert that no land is to be found toward such climates, he would nevertheless find land there, which God has permitted him, as he distinctly describes in his letter to his serene majesty, a copy of which is inclosed in this communication. After spending many months in exploring, he asserts that he was compelled to return for want of provisions from that hemisphere into this one, having been seven months on the voyage, showing a very great and rapid passage, having accomplished a wonderful and most extraordinary