FALKLAND ISLANDS. 



229 



employed by the King of Portugal, sailed 600 leagues south 

 and 150 leagues west from Cape San Agostinho (lat. 8° 20' S.) 

 along the coast of a country then named Terra Sancte Crucis.* 

 His account of longitude may be very erroneous, but how 

 could his latitude have erred thirteen degrees in this his 

 southernmost voyage ? 



The south shore of the Plata is low, and appears to be 

 woody, though it is not ; the depth of water off it is moderate, 

 and the currents are strong — all which peculiarities have been 

 remarked on the northern coasts of the Falklands; therefore 

 the ' description' alluded to by De Bougainville would apply 

 equally well to the right bank of the Plata. The late Mr- 

 Dalrymple published an extract from a chart printed at Rome, 

 in 1508, in which it is said, that ships of Portugal dis- 

 covered a continuation of land as far south as fifty degrees,-|- 

 which did not there terminate. In that chart the name Ame- 

 rica is not to be found. Brazil is there called TerraJ Sancte 

 Crucis. 



If the Portuguese or any other people actually traced or 

 even discovered portions of coast south of the Plata before 

 1512, it appears strange that so remarkable an estuary, one 

 hundred and twenty miles across, should have been overlooked ; 

 especially as soundings extend two hundred miles seaward of 

 its entrance : — and that the world should have no clear record of 

 its having been discovered prior to the voyage of Juan de Solis, 

 in 1512. Vespucius has already robbed Columbus and his 

 predecessor, Cabot, of the great honour of affixing their names 

 to the New World — shall he also be tacitly permitted to claim 



* The name America was not given before the year 1507. (Herrera, 

 Dec. 1,7, 5.) 



t The Falklands are beyond fifty- one degrees of south latitude. 



X In 1507 (the admiral Christopher Columbus being dead), Americus 

 Vespucius was taken into the service of the King of Spain, with the title 

 of ' Pilote mayor,' and was employed in making charts of the new disco- 

 veries, which gave him an opportunity to affix his own name to the land of 

 South America. (Herrera, Dec. 1, 7j 5.) 



