All the circumstances relating to the existence of the Verrazzano letter thus prove that it was not the production of Verrazzano at the time and place it purports to have been written by him. We pass now to the question of its authenticity, embracing the consideration of its own statements and the external evidence which exists upon the subject. The letter professes to give the origin and results of the voyage; that is, the agency of the king of France in sending forth the expedition, and the discoveries actually accomplished by it. In both respects it is essentially untrue. It commences by declaring that Verrazzano sailed under the orders and on behalf of the king of France, for the purpose of finding new countries, and that the account then presented was a description of the discoveries made in pursuance of such instructions. That no such voyage of discoveries were made for that monarch is clearly deducible from the history of France. Neither the letter, nor any document, chronicle, memoir, or history of any kind, public or private, printed or in manuscript, belonging to that period, or the reign of Francis I, who then bore the crown, mentioning or in any manner referring to it, or to the voyage and discovery, has ever been found in France; and neither Francis himself, nor any of his successors, ever acknowledged or in any manner recognized such discovery, or asserted under it any right to the possession of the country; but, on the contrary, both he and they ignored it, in undertaking colonization in that region by virtue of other discoveries made under their authority, or with their permission, by their subjects.