( 27S ) 



tentrionales des deux Cabot et des deux Cortereal : il 

 nefaut pas que \I. de Varnhagen, qui u'est pas en de- 

 faut sur ce point (1), trop sonvent encore meconnu, 

 laisse arriyer jusqu'.a lui cette reclamation un peu 

 aggressive d'un ecrhain anglais assez recent : 



« Upon these voyages of the Cortereals, the Portu- 

 gueze attempted to establish a claim to the discovery of 

 Newfoundland and the adjacent coasts of north Ame- 

 rica, though there is ample historical evidence that 

 both had been visited by the two Cabots three [read 

 seven] years prior to the departure of Cortereal from 

 Lisbon. Maps appear to have been forged to support 

 this unfair assumption: and in a volume published by 

 Madrignano at Milan in 1508, which represents itself to 

 be a translation of the Italian work entitled Paesi mio- 

 vamente ritrovati, the original letter of Pasquiligi des- 

 cribing the arrival of Gaspard Cortereal, is disgrace- 

 fully garbled and corrupted, for the purpose, as it would 

 seem, of keeping the prior discoveries of the Cabots in 

 the back-ground, and advancing a fabricated claim for 

 the Portuguese. It is unfortunate that this desinge- 

 nious process of poisoning the sources of historic truth 

 has succeeded, and that many authors, not aware of 

 its apocryphal character, which has been acutely expo- 

 sed by the biographer of Cabot, have given currency to 

 the fable of Madrignano 2). » 



(1) Historia do Branl, pp. 27, et 434 note 18. 



(2) The northern Coasts of America, and the Hudson's Bay terri- 

 tories, Loudres 1853, post 8" : pp. 20-21. — Cc volume est attribue 

 a M. Patrick Fraser Tytler. 



