Evidence of French Discoveries of New York, etc. 



31.3 



France; but they continued to retain a great portion thereof, con- 

 trary to the obligation imposed on them to restore all they occupied. 

 Not content with retaining a great portion of New France, that is 

 to say., the entire coast., from the country by them called Virginia 

 to the country called also by them New England, having given 

 new names to all that coast in order to erase the recollection that 

 the whole of the countries from the 32d to the 50th degree was 

 called New France from the year 1524, they have since 1632 always 

 enlarged their usurpations, and made encroachments on the coasts and 

 territories of New France. (New York Colonial History, vol. 9, p. 

 913.) 



There is one more witness I wish to summon on this question. It is 

 Johann De Laet, the famous Dutch historian. Whatever lie may admit 

 as a Hollander should not certainly be questioned by an American. 

 The History of the New World was issued by him in 1640. He says: 

 •• We have now treated of that part of North America of which the 

 French have been the first discoverers and even some time the pos- 

 sessors, having introduced colonists there; and which the English have 

 attempted to usurp after having since called it Nova Scotia and New 

 England." (N. Y. Col. Hist., v. 9, p. 914.) 



Sufficient has been said to show an uninterrupted claim of France, 

 based on the right by discovery, to the territory from Florida to Nova- 

 Scotia, until the claims were extinguished by the superior title of a 

 cosmopolitan people sprung from the dominant nationalities of all 

 Europe, a title they had matured by possession, by conquest, by pur- 

 chase, one or all, and by turning the wilderness into towns, cultivated 

 fields and gardens. 



Now let us see what is the testimony of the maps of North America 

 made previous to the voyage of Hudson in 1609. Opposite page 305 

 of Weise's Discoveries of America to 1525, you will find a copy of a 

 map by Andre Thevet, published in his " Cosmographie Universelle," 

 in the year 1575, thirty-four years before Hudson made his first voyage 

 up the North river. Here is a fairly correct picture of the river up to 

 the inflow of the Mohawk. Turn again to page 360 of the same 

 work and you will find a map still older, published by Gerard Merca- 

 tor in 1569. Here also is the Hudson with the Mohawk as its affluent, 

 correctly inserted. As maps are not made by chance or by guess, a 

 fairly correct picture of a country shows it has been visited. 



1 have given Dutch, Spanish and French testimony by verbal state- 

 ments and by maps. I now call your attention to a map of North and 

 South America made by the Viscount de Maiollo in Genoa, in 1527. 



