4 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK r. 



charts about two hundred leagues to the westward 

 of the Azores ; and it is a name still very generally 

 used by foreign navigators, although the etymology 

 of the word-is as uncertain as the application of it u 

 unjust. To the British nation the name bestowed by 

 Columbus is abundantly more familiar: and thus the 

 whole of the new hemisphere is, with us, common- 

 ly comprised under three great divisions; North Ame- 

 rica, South America, and the West Indies. 



But, subordinate to this comprehensive and simple 

 arrangement, necessity or convenience has introduced 

 more minute and local distinctions. That portion of 

 the Atlantic, which is separated from the main ocean 

 to the north and to the east, by the islands I have 



The term Antlles is applied by Hoffman to the Windward or Charai- 

 bean islands only, and is by him thus accounted for: " Dicuntur Antilas 

 Americae quasi ante Insulas Americae, nempe ante majores Insulas Sinus 

 Mexicani" (Hoffman Lexic. Uni<v.) Rochfort and Du Tertre explain 

 the word nearly in the same manner, while Mons. D'Anville applies the 

 name to those islands only, which are more immediately opposed to, or 

 situated against, the continent : thus he terms Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamai- 

 ca, and Porto Rico, the Great Antiles, and the small islands of Aruba, 

 Curacoa, Bonair, Magaritta, and some others near the coast of Caraccas 

 on the southern peninsula, the Less; excluding the Charaibean islands 

 altogether. A recurrence to the early Spanish historians would hare de- 

 monstrated to all these writers, that the word Antitia was applied to Hi- 

 spaniola and Cuba, before the discovery either of the windward islaads s 

 or any part of the American continent. This appears from the follow- 

 ing passage in the first book of the First Decad of Peter Martyr, which 

 bears date from the court of Spain, November 1493? eight montbs only 

 after Columbus'" s return from his first expedition ; " Ophiram Insularn 

 " sese reperisse refert : sed Cosmographorum traclu diligenter considera- 

 *' to, Antili* Insult sunt illse et adjacentes alias: hanc Hjsnaniohrri ap- 

 " pellavit, &c." 



