4 A. D. 1492. 



coafls of Africa, which, lying fo near to Brafil, any ftrong eafterly wind 

 would have brought them on that coafl, as was ad;ually the cafe in the 

 year 1500. There is alfo one part of our old continent which lies yet 

 nearer to America than the mofl weflerly part of Africa does to Brafil, 

 viz. the north part of Norway-Lapland, oppofite to New-Greenland, 

 which is now known to be a part of the American continent : But the 

 ifland of Iceland, known and peopled from Norway many centuries prior 

 to the difcovery in queftion, is yet nearer to another part of America. 



Thus have we endeavoured, as briefly as confifted with perfpicuity, 

 to exhibit the original grounds and actual accomplilhment of the difco- 

 very of America by Columbus. 



1493. — Loaded with honours, titles, and applaufe, that now great man 

 fet out in the following year on his fecond voyage to Hifpaniola, which 

 continued to be the principal colony of Spain in America, until Cortes 

 conquered the kingdom of Mexico in the year 1519. Thither Columbus 

 now carried fifteen hundred men in feventeen fliips, with provifions and 

 ammunition in abundance, and alfo feeds of various kinds, horfes, cows, 

 hogs, &c. implements of hufijandry, and tools for working filver and 

 gold mines ; commodities for barter, and many other neceflary things. 

 And as his forty-nine men, with their fort, were deflroyed, he now built 

 feveral new forts, and founded the prefent capital city of that ifland, 

 which he named St. Domingo ; but the numbers he brought with him 

 now excited a jealoufy in the minds of the Indian caciques or princes, 

 which engaged him in a bloody war with the numerous natives, a third 

 part of whom were, it feems, deflroyed by the Spaniards in three or 

 four years. By a tax of gold-duft, to be gathered by the natives out of 

 their rivers and brooks, he amafled a good deal of treaiure, which he 

 fent home to his Catholic Majefty ; and he returned home in 1496, to 

 anfvver the accufations raifed againft him by the Spanifti fettlers at Hif- 

 paniola ; which ifland, however, had not hitherto made Spain gainers 

 upon the whole, by reafon of the very expenfive embarkations to it, and 

 the maintenance of garrifons, &c. Pope Alexander VI, upon applica- 

 tion from King Ferdinand the Catholic, granted him the fovereignty ot 

 this new world ; and to prevent difputes between Spain and Portugal, 

 he particularly confirmed to the 'Spanifli crown all the countries which 

 they already had, or which they afterward fliould difcover, weftward of 

 a line drawn from pole to pole, at the diftarice of one hundred leagues 

 wefl; of the Azores and Cape Verd ifles ; but the king of Portugal, ob- 

 jefting to that divifion, it was this fame year agreed between the two 

 crowns, that the line of divifion fliould (according to Herrera, &c.) be 

 I'emoved 270 leagues farther weft ; and that all that fliould be difcover- 

 ed eaft of it fliould belong to Portugal, and all wefl of it to Spain ; thofe 

 two nations thus modeftly claiming an exclufive right to both the In- 

 dies, and thereby effedually barring the reft of Chriftendom from all 



