AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 



183 



the first German book which spoke of the New World, did not 

 once mention the name of Columbus, but, translating the proper 

 name as if it were a common noun, calls him Christoffel DaW- 

 ber, which, being translated back again, signifies Christopher 

 Pigeon. 



We shall now speak of that signal instance of public in- 

 gratitude and national forgetfulness which is universally re- 

 gretted, yet will never be repaired, — the giving to the New 

 World the name of America and not that of Columbia, — a sub- 

 stitution due to an obscure and ignorant French publisher of St. 

 Die, in Lorraine. 



Amerigo Vespucci, born at Florence fifteen years after Co- 

 lumbus, and the third son of a notary, appears to have been 

 led by mercantile tastes to Spain in 1486, where he became a 

 factor in a wealthy house at Seville. He abandoned the counter, 

 however, for navigation and mathematics, and took to the sea 

 for a livelihood. He was at first a practical astronomer, and 

 finally a pilot-major. He went four times on expeditions to 

 the New World, in 1499, 1500, 1501, 1502. During the first, 

 he coasted along the land at the mouths of the Orinoco, which 

 had been discovered by Columbus the preceding year. Even 

 had he been the first to discover the mainland, — which he was 

 not, — there would have been no merit in it, for he was merely a 

 subordinate officer on board a ship following in the track of Co- 

 lumbus, seven years after the latter had traced it upon the ocean 

 and the charts of the marine. He published an account of his 

 voyage. But it does not appear that he ever claimed honor as 

 the first discoverer, and the friendly relations he maintained 

 with the family of Columbus after the death of the latter show 

 that they did not consider him as attempting to obtain a dis- 

 tinction which did not belong to him. The error flowed from 

 another and more distant source. 



Columbus had died in 1506, and had been forgotten. In 

 1507, a Frenchman of St. Die* republished Vespucci's narrative, 



