A ROMANCE OF 1314 9 



Grant, and other British explorers of the nineteenth 

 century did but follow in the footsteps of earlier 

 Portuguese travellers and discover the already 

 known, have forgotten that it was an Englishman, 

 and not, as they claim, a Portuguese, who dis- 

 covered Madeira. According to the Portuguese 

 it was Jean Gonsalvez and Tristan Vaez who, in 

 1420 A.D., discovered Madeira, and Vaez and Joao 

 Zarco who found Port Santo in 1428. They omit 

 to record that one of their own historians, Antonio 

 Galvano, gives the credit of the discovery to the 

 English sailor Macham as early as 1344 A.D. 

 In Hakluyt's Voyages is the following translation 

 of Macham's discovery : 



" The voyage of Macham, an English Man, 

 wherein he first of any man discovered the Hand 

 of Madera, recorded verbatim in the Portugall 

 history written by Antonio Galvano. 



" In the year 1344, King Peter the fourth of 

 that name reigning in Aragon, the Chronicles of 

 his age write that about this time the Hand of 

 Madera, standing in 32 degrees, was discovered 

 by an English Man, which was named Macham, 

 who sailing out of England into Spaine, with a 

 woman that he stole, arrived by tempest in that 

 Hand and did cast anker in that haven or bay, 

 which now is called Machico after the name of 

 Macham. And because his lover was seasicke, 

 he w r eiit on land with some of his company, and 

 the shippe with a good winde made saile away, 

 and the woman died for thought. Macham, which 

 loved her dearly, built a chapell or hermitage, to 



