



AMKI.ANH 



AVi U( \ 



AMELAXD. a small uland belonging to the Dutch prormo. of 

 FrieaUnd: it b in tbe North Sea, 4 mfle* from the mainland, in 

 boot * V N. lat., 5' 40' K. long., i* about 18 mile, in length from 

 am* to weat, and aheot S mfle* broad. It contain* aonie good parture- 

 laod. Some of the inhabitant* make lime of the *ea-hells found on 

 Ik* -mm. and many of them are fiehermen : the population U about 

 MM. Tlu 111***!* b*U**n Amf*** *~* the FrUian coart i* dangerou* 

 from iu *boala. Tbe channel i* called a mittr, or ford. 



AMKHK'A. one of the great division* of the earth, inferior only to 

 AM* m area, extenda from about 80* N. lat to 55* 8. lat and is 

 avparated by the Atlantic from Europe and Africa, and by the Pacific 

 from Asia and Australia. 



/Ntreew*. During the latter part of the 15th century there wa* 

 aa ardent apirit of dioovery in Europe, tbe principal object of which 

 wa* to find a fumfi by **a to the Ea*t Indie*. The Cape de Verde 

 laUnd*. the Asorca, much of the western coart of Africa, and the 

 Cape of Good Hope were nooamrrety diacovered by the Portugueae, 

 and the probability of reaching India by tea wa* gradually becoming 

 The .late* of Venice end Genoa concentrated the commerce 



of Italy, but tbe overland trade with India wa* engroeaed by Venice. 

 In thi* state of thing* a project wa* formed by Christopher Colomb, 

 or Colnmbu*, a ritizeo of the rival state of Genoa, to sail westward to 

 the Indie* -an i.lea which chows Columbus'* knowledge of the figure 

 of the earth to bar* been cuperior to the general notion* of hi* age. 

 He ugaied hi* aarrioe* for th purpose to the governmente of Genoa, 

 France, England, and Portugal, by whom the proposal wa* successively 

 rejected; but after eight year* hi* offer wa* accepted by Ferdinand 

 and Isabella, king and queen of the united kingdom* of Castile and 

 Aragon. The expenae* of the expedition were defrayed by the crown 

 of Caetile, the property of Isabella, and it wa* to the influence of 

 thi* princes* that the furtherance of Columbus'* view* appears to have 

 been mainly owing. The expedition, counting of three vessels, 

 ailed from Spain on the 3rd of August, 1492 ; and on Friday, the 

 IJth of October following, an inland waa descried, upon which 

 Columbu* landed on the eame day. The ialand wa* named by him 

 San Salvador, and i* otherwise known a* Quanahani, one of the 

 Bahama Uland*. Colnmbu* then visited other adjacent inlands, and 

 re ended to Cuba and Hayti, to which Utter he gave the name of 

 Eapanol*. Here he left a few of his companion* a* the groundwork 

 of a colony, and returned to Spain to procure reinforcement*. The 

 court wa* then at Barcelona, and the entrance of Columbu*, with 

 aome of the native*, and the gold, the arm*, and utensils of the 

 diacovered ialand*, was a triumph at once more striking and more 

 truly glorious than that of any conqueror. In this voyage he had 

 acquired a general knowledge of the island* in the sea between 

 North and South America, but he had no notion that there was an 

 ocean between them and China ; they were considered a* part of 

 India, from whence aroee the appellation of Wart Indies, aa well as 

 that of Indiana, which ha* ever since been given to the original 

 inhabitant, of the whole continent of America. The succe** of 

 Columbu* now rendered the court of Spain eager to forward hi* designs, 

 and be (ailed, on hi* second voyage for Eapauola, with a fleet of 

 seventeen sail, accompanied by aeveral person* of rank and fortune. 

 In thi* voyage the principal discovery waa the island of Jamaica. 

 Columbus wa* icon called back to Spain to aniwer accusations which 

 had been made against him by hi* enemiea. A third expedition 

 followed, in which the Uland of Trinidad wa* found, and the admiral 

 viaited the month of the river Orinoco, and landed on the coasts of 

 South America which now form part of Venezuela, before reaching 

 nannl* After having thu* discovered the continent of America, 

 and made ettiemente in the ialand*, it wa* the hard fate of Columbu* 

 to be ami bom. in iron* and treated with indignity owing to the 

 aartimiHnin of hi* enemie*. He notwithstanding undertook a fourth 

 voyage, and returning to Spain, died at Valladolid in 1506, having had 

 the glory of making one-half of the world known to the other a 

 glory untainted by cruelty or rapacity on hi* part, though the 

 March for gold wa* pursued by the Spaniard* with most unscrupulous 

 avidity. 



The succee* of Columbu* *oon gave encouragement to private 

 adteutuiei* to the New World, one of the firrt of whom wa* Alonzo 

 de Ojeda, who in 1499 followed the course of Columbu* to the coast 

 of Paria, and, (tending to the we*t, ranged along* considerable extent 

 of ooaet beyond that on which Columbu* had touched, and thu* 

 ascertained that thi* country wa* part of the continent Amerigo 

 Vajpnooi, a Florentine gentleman, accompanied Ojeda in thi* voyage; 

 and having had a chwf .hare in the direction of it, and having 

 poMUhed an account of it on hi* return, the country of which he 

 a. .opposed to be the divoverer cam* gradually to be called by hi* 

 ?: T universal usage the name of America ha* bean bestowed 

 ? "**. ."V^ 00 * *" " ob * II a " too late to redress the 

 Nfe* Jfc U. reived the .notion of time. 



NJ * * world in the wwt wa* an event at once 

 It wa* accidental, because the object 



-V paaaajr* to India nor are there an v 



Kl"f the innaWtenU of the Old TWortd had?.^ 

 t approach to a knowledge of the wertem 

 !! rr^T 'T"**' rf Greenland, and of part of 

 coa*t by the Norwegian*, in the 9th oeatoifb. *o 



considered. They had gradually reached the Shetland and Faroe 

 Islands, and advanced to Iceland, in all which they had planted 

 colonies, and they certainly arrived at Greenland and aome part of the 

 high latitude* of the North American continent ; but it doe* not 

 appear that thi* gave the European* any notion or *uspicion of the 

 exHtenoe of a new continent stretching so far from north to couth, 

 and this Norwegian discovery i* a very different thing from discovery 

 in the southern latitude*. Part of Asis, Europe, and Africa constituted 

 the earth known to the ancient*. To thi* World alone all ancient 

 tradition* and writing* have reference ; and to it were confined all 

 enterpriae* of gain or ambition and all philosophical speculation*. 

 The discovery of America, therefore, wa* the opening of a new ti. 1.1 

 to wealth, glory, and knowledge. It* influence upon the (M.I World 

 ha* been, perhap*, scarcely lea* important than that of the ( >1<1 \V, ,rl.l 

 upon the New, and the memory of the immortal Columbu* will be 

 held in perpetual honour alike by the old continent which gave him 

 birth, and by the new one which ought to have borne hi* name. 



Although the ialand of San Salvador waa discovered, a* already 

 stated, in 1492, the existence of the continent of South America waa 

 not ascertained by Columbus until 30th May, 1498. Now, almost a 

 year before, namely, on 24th June, 1497, the coast of North America 

 had been reached by an English vessel commanded by Giovanni 

 Gaboto, or Cabot, a Venetian, settled in Bristol, who undertook an 

 expedition in company with his son Sebastian, and explored a 

 long line of the North American coast In 1498, Sebastian Cabot, 

 in another expedition, visited Newfoundland. In 1600, Gaspar 

 Cortoreal, a Portuguese, touched at Labrador; and Brazil wa* 

 accidentally discovered by a Portugueae fleet under Cabral, which had 

 been fitted out for purpose* of trade and conquest in the East, in 

 consequence of the success of Vanco de Gama, who had recently 

 accomplished the passage to the East Indie* by the Cape of Good 

 Hope. [AFRICA.] The northern coast of the province of Nueva 

 Granada, from Cape de Vela to the Gulf of Darien, was first visited 

 by Bastidas, a Spaniard, in 1501. Yucatan wa* discovered by Diaz 

 do Soli* and Pinzon in 1508, and Florida by Ponce de Leon in 

 1512. In the same year Sebastian Cabot reached the bay since called 

 Hudson's Bay. The Pacific, or Southern Ocean, was first Been from 

 the mountain-tops near Panama by Balboa in 1513 ; and two yean 

 after, a landing was effected on the south-east coast of South America, 

 about the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, by De Soils, who, a* well a* 

 several of hi* crew, was killed, roosted, and eaten by the natives. Thu 

 Spanish government, which had been foremost in discovery, was the 

 first also to make conquest* in America. Early in the 16th century 

 Fernando Cortez was dispatched to subdue Mexico, the most 

 powerful state in the new continent, and very rich and extensive. 

 Notwithstanding the efforts of its chief, Montezuma, it Boon fell under 

 the dominion of Spain, and this conquest was followed by another 

 almost equally valuable that of Peru, whose subjugation to the 

 Spanish yoke was effected by Pizarro. The French now began to 

 participate in the zeal for adventure, and in 1524 on expedition was 

 dispatched by Francis I. under Giovanni Verozzano, a Florentine, 

 who surveyed a line of coast of TOO leagues, comprising the United 

 States and part of British America. But in 1508 Aubert, a French- 

 man, hod already discovered the River St. Lawrence. Jacques Cartier, 

 also a Frenchman, in 1534, nearly circumnavigated Newfoundland, 

 and entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In hi* second voyage, the 

 next year, Cartier Bailed up the St. Lawrence, to the village of 

 Hochelaga, on the site of Montreal, and brought away a native 

 king to France. The coast of California, on the west side of the 

 northern division of the continent wa* discovered by Ximenes, a pilot, 

 who bad murdered Mendoza, a captain dispatched by Cortez on a 

 voyage of discovery; the Gulf of California was first entered by 

 Francisco de Ulloa, another captain sent out by Cortez in 1539. The 

 Spaniards subsequently undertook several unsuccessful voyages, but 

 they did not abandon their hopes, and at the close of the 16th century 

 Sebastian Viscaino advanced along the coast of California as far as the 

 Columbia River. During the reign of Henry VIII. attempt* were 

 made by the English to find the North-Went Paasage to India, without 

 success ; and in the next reign Sir Henry Willoughby foiled in search 

 of a north-east passage. Three successive voyage* in search of the 

 North-Wort Passage were made in the next reign by Martin Frobisher, 

 who in 1676 and the two following years explored Labrador and 

 Greenland, but without any further result. Among our early north- 

 went voyage* of discovery, may be mentioned those of Davis in 1585 ; 

 of Weymouth in 1602; of Knight in 1606 ; of Hudson in 1610 

 (from whom is named the great inland sea called Hudson'* Bay, and 

 the Hudson'* River, New York) ; of Button in 1612 ; and particularly 

 those of Bylot and Baffin in 1615, from the latter of whom Baffin's 

 Bay ha* been named. After thi* year there seems a pause in the 

 progress of northern discovery ; but in the meantime colonisation in 

 North America had been begun by England. Sir Humphry Gilbert 

 wa* the first to attempt it. though he merely took formal possession of 

 Newfoundland in 1583 ; his half-brother, the celebrated Sir Walter 

 Raleigh in 1584 dispatched an expedition which discovered the 

 country then called Virginia, and he made several attempts to colonise 

 it without effect The colonies of Virginia and New England were 

 respectively established in 1607 and 1620, under James I., and it is 

 not a little remarkable that 106 year* elapsed after Nmh America 



