n8 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. i. 



4< would havf sufficiently confirmed the truth of their relation, 

 * even if the papers and documents which they produced, had 

 " not put the matter out of all possible doubt.' 1 



To the preceding instances it may be added, that Columbus 

 himself, in his second expedition to the West Indies, found 

 the stern-post of a vessel lying on the shore at Guadaloupe ; 

 a circumstance which affords a strong presumption that a ship 

 hud been in the New world before him. 



Under this head of fortuitous visits to the American conti- 

 nent prior to that of Columbus, may likewise be included the 

 circumstance mentioned by Martyr, that at a place called Qua- 

 requa, in the gulph of Darien, Vascho Nunez met with a colo- 

 ny of negroes. The inquiry (if any was made) by what 

 means they came into that region, or how long they had resi- 

 ded in it, and the answers to such questions, are not recorded 

 by the Spanish historians; but from the smallness of their 

 number, it was supposed they had not been long arrived upon 

 that coast. There can be no doubt but that some accidental 

 cause had conducted them thither from Africa, and in open 

 canoes, of no better construction than those of the American 

 Indians.}! 





 Mancipia ibi nigra.repererunt ex regione distante a Quarequa, dierum 



spatio tantuin duorum quae solos gignit nigritas et eos feroces atque ad- 



rwodum truces. P. Martvr. decad. iii. c. i. 



* ' 



fl Such accidents in truth are common in all parts of the world. The in- 

 habitants of Java report their origin to have been from China ; the tradition 

 among them being that, 850 years ago, their progenitors were driven by a 

 tempest upon that island in a Chinese junk : And we owe the European 

 discovery of Japan to three Portuguese exiles who were shipwrecked there 

 in 1542. I believe that ships bound from Europe to the East Indies, at 





