( u 3 



fe,a, the difcovery of the Streights of Le Maire 

 having Iriewn its utter impracticability. The error 

 of Father de Acofta, if it is one, was, however, 

 excufable, as, at the time when he wrote Le Maire 

 had not as yet difcovered the Streights which bear 

 his name. 



Thirdly, That he makes the peopling of Ame- 

 rica too late ; and that it is contrary to all probabi- 

 lity, that this vaft Continent, and fome of the 

 iflands which furround it, mould have fo great a 

 number of inhabitants at the end of the fifteenth 

 century, had they only begun to be inhabited two 

 hundred years fince. John de Laet pretends, that 

 there is no reafon to think, that the Deluge, the 

 tradition of which is ftill preferved amongft the A- 

 mericans, is not the univerfal deluge which Mofes 

 mentions in the book of Genefis. 



Befides the Spanifh Jefuit, three other writers, a 

 Frenchman, an Englifhman, and a Dutchman, who 

 have handled the lame topick, have pafled under 

 the examination of this learned Fleming. Thefe 

 are Lefcarbot, Brerewood, and the famous Grotius. 

 He probably knew nothing of the work of Father 

 Garcia, whereof I have already fpoken, no more 

 than of that of John de Solorzano Pereyra, a Spa- 

 nifh lawyer, entituled, De Jure Indiarum ; whereof 

 the firft volume, in which the author relates all the, 

 opinions of the learned on the origin of the Ame- 

 ricans, was printed in 1625. 



Be this as it will, Mark Lefcarbot, advocate in 

 the parliament of Paris, was a man of fenfe and 

 learning, but a little addicted to the marvellous. I 

 have fpoken of him in feveral places of my hiftory. 

 In relating the different opinions on the prefent quef- 



