ii INTRODUCTION.^ 



one, becaufe the internal part of tliefe vaft regions cannot be fo 

 accurately treated of, from a deficiency of intelligence fo minute 

 and well attefted as is to be wiliied for, the Spaniard being rather 

 cautious in this particular ; the other, from confidering the'fea- 

 ports and places bordering upon, or not far removed from the 

 fliores, as the main and moft convenient objedls of naval expe- 

 ditions, and confecpently, mofc likely to become the theatre of 

 Britijh enterprize. The Spa?iiJJj empire in America^ as likewife the 

 whole fouthern continent, connected by the ifthmus of Panama^ 

 together with all the illands below the tropic of 6'^z;z^:^r thereto 

 belonging, are commonly called the Weji-Ltdies^ which appel- 

 lation is faid to have arifen from a miftake of Columbtcs^ the tirft 

 difcoverer of the new world j who, concluding the Indies which 

 the Fortuguefe had a little before difcovered in the eafl:, to be 

 fome great continent, balancing thofe parts of the univerfe already 

 known, imagined that whoever failed weftward, mufi: at length 

 arrive at the moft eaftward bounds of that continent, and in con- 

 fequence of this fuppofition, called the iflands he difcovered , the 

 Weft-Indies. Under his condu6b one of the iL^i:^/^?^ iflands, named 

 Guanahani, or Cat IJland, was the part of America firft defcried by 

 the Europeans^ on the iithof OSlober, 1492, from which place 

 he proceeded to Haitu^ now Hifpaniola \ and having fixed a fet- 

 tlement upon that ifland, returned to Spain. Soon after this, he 

 made a fecond voyage, when the firft land he fell in with was 

 the ifland of Defeada ; hence he failed again to Hifpaniola, where 



at 



