300 coSiMos. 



py the eastern shores of the Atlantic, the boundaries of which 

 appear to be 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 navigator 

 spread. In tiie preface {Prolongo) which was written first, Las Casas 

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

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

 edly (a 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 pronounced 

 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 imprimiiroii) the Qualuor Navigationes, 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 eloqriente), 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 

 (Jiombre eiitendido en las cosas de la mar y dodo en Cosmograiphia). . . . 

 In the world the belief prevails that he was the first to set foot on the 

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

 wickedness; and if it was not done intentionally, it looks like it (c/ara 

 fareze la falsedad : y si fue de industria hecha maldad grande fu4 ; y 

 ya que no la fuese, al menos parezelo'). . . . Amei'igo is i-epresented 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 firme America, como si America solo y no otro con il y antes que 

 todos la oviera desciibierto. 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 is 

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

 hlzo . . . persisito en el engano . . . . de falsedad esta claramente 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 how 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 hostilely disposed 

 against his father and himself. " I can not but wonder," says Las Casas 

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

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

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

 ral." As I bad a fresh opportunity, a few months ago. of examining the 



