SOO COSMOS. 



py the easteia shores of the Atlantic, the boun laries of which 

 appear to he constantly brought nearer and nearer to one an* 



blame are strangely mingled in it. We see that dislike and suspicion of 

 fraud augmented in proportion as the fame of the Florentine navigatoi 

 spread. In the preface (Prolongo) which was written first, Las l^asas 

 says, '• Amerigo relates what he did in two voyages to our Indies, but 

 he appears to have passed over many circumstances, whether design- 

 edly (« saviendas), or because he did not attend to them. This circum- 

 stance has led some to attribute to him that which is due to others, and 

 which ought not to be taken from them." The judgment pi'onounced 

 in the 1st book (chap. 140) is equally moderate : " Here I must speak 

 of the injustice which Amerigo, or perhaps those who printed (d los 

 que imprimiiroji) the Quatuor Navigatio7ies, appear to have committed 

 toward the admiral. To Amerigo alone, without naming any other, the 

 discovery of the continent is ascribed. He is also said to have placed 

 the name of America in maps, thus sinfully failing toward the admiral 

 As Amerigo was learned, and had the power of writing eloquently {era 

 latino y eloquente), he represented himself in the letter to King Rene 

 as the leader of Hojeda's expedition ; yet he was only one of the sea- 

 men, although experienced in seamanship and learned in cosmography 

 {liombre entendldo en las cosas de la mar y docto en Cosmographia). . . . 

 In the w^orld the belief prevails that he was the first to set foot on the 

 main laud. If he purposely gave currency to this belief, it was great 

 wickedness; and if it was not done intentionally, it looks like it (clara 

 pareze la falsedad : y si fue de industria kecha maldad grande fui. ; y 

 ya que no lo fuese, al menos parezelo'). . . . Amerigo is represented as 

 having sailed in the year 7 (1497): a statement that seems, indeed, to 

 have been only an oversight in writing, and not an intentional false 

 statement (pareze aver avido yerro de pendola y no malicia), because he 

 is stated to have returned at the end of eighteen months. The foreign 

 writers call the country America; it ought to be called Columba." 

 This passage shows clearly that up to that time Las Casas had not ac 

 cused Amerigo of having himself brought the name America into usage. 

 He says, an tornado los escriptores estrangeros de nomhrar la nuestra 

 Tierra Jirme America, como si Americo solo y no otro con it y antes que 

 todos la oviera descuhierto. In lib. i., cap. 164-169, and in lib. ii., cap. 

 2, of the work, his hatred is fully expressed ; nothing is now attributed 

 to erroneous dates, or to the partiality of foreigners for Amerigo ; all ia 

 intentional deceit, of which Amerigo himself is guilty (de industria lo 

 hizo . . . persisilo en el engano .... de falsedad esta claramentc con- 

 vencido). Bartholome de las Casas takes pains, moreover, in two pas- 

 sages, to show especially that Amerigo, in his accounts, falsified the 

 succession of the occurrences of his first two voyages, placing many 

 things which belonged to the second voyage in the first, and vice versa. 

 It seems very strange to me that the accuser does not appear to have 

 felt liow much the weight of his accusations is diminished by the cir- 

 cumstance that he himself speaks of the opposite opinion, and of the 

 indifference of the person who would have been most interested in at- 

 tacking Vespucci, if he had believed him guilty and ho?tilely disposed 

 agaiust his father and himself. " I can not but wonder," says Las Casaa 

 (cap. 164), "that Hernando Colon, a clear-sighted man, who, as I cer- 

 tainly know, had in his hands Amerigo's accounts of his travels, should 

 not have remarked in them any deceit or injustice toward the admi- 

 ral." As I had LI fie-h o[»port!ii ity, a few months ago, of examining i}ie 



