ANNALS 



OF 



COMMERCE. 



A. D. 1492. 



It is not our intention to tranfcribe all the relations, which have been 

 fo often publifhed in every part of Europe on the fubjed of the difco- 

 very of America, nor to enter minutely into the motives which induced 

 the Genoefe navigator, Chriftopher Colon (commonly called Columbus), 

 to attempt fo great an enterprise. The opinion of moft authors is, that, 

 he founded his fcheme upon his knowlege of the ftrudure of the globe, 

 in which he certainly furpafled the navigatorsr of his age. But others, 

 with greater probability, tell us, that he was affifled by the difcoveries 

 adually made by preceding navigators, and particularly by thofe of Mar- 

 tin Behem of Nurenberg. It is alTerted, that the whalc-fifliers of Bifcay 

 had difcovered the cod banks near Newfoundland about a century be- 

 fore the age of Columbus, of which he was informed. Canes, canoes, 

 and dead bodies, refembling none of the people of Europe, were found 

 floating in the fea, and were fometimes driven on the lliores of the 

 Azores (or Weftern iilands) by flrong wefterly winds. It is faid, that 

 Columbus met with a failor, who informed him, that having been driv- 

 en by a florm about 450 leagues to the weftward of Cape St. Vincent, 

 he had found a piece of timber floating on the water, curioufly wrought, 

 but apparently without the ufe of any tool made of iron ; and that a 

 Portuguefe veflel had actually been driven on the coafl; of fome part of 

 America in the year 1484, the pilot of which afterwards lodged and died 

 in the houfe of Columbus, who then lived in the Azores; and that from 

 that man's converfation, and his charts and journals, Columbus found 

 fufficient aflurance of the exiftence of a weftern land. At any rate, he 

 Vol. II. A 



