FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[199]Feyjoo,Theatro Critico, tom. iv., ch. x., s. xx.[200]Lib. iv. de la Chancelaria del Rey Don Juan II., fol. 101.[201]Torre di Tombo,Lib. das Yihas, fol. 119.[202]Fr. Gregorio Garcia,Origen de los Indios, lib. i., cap. ix.[203]Sigeberto,Epist. ad Fritmar Abbat.[204]Nunez de la Pena,Conquist. de la Gran Canaria.[205]Ptolemy, tom. iv., lib. iv.[206]Fr. D. Philipo, lib. viii., fol. 25.[207]Hist. Isl. Can., lib. i., cap. xxviii.[208]Nunez de la Pena, lib. i., cap. i.; Viera,Hist. Isl. Can., tom. i., cap. xxviii.[209]Nunez,Conquist. de la Gran Canaria; Viera,Hist. Isl. Can.[210]Viera,Hist. Isl. Can., lib. i., cap. xxvi.[211]Id. ib., tom. i., cap. xxviii.[212]Id. ib.[213]Viera,Hist. Isl. Can.[214]Theatro Critico, tom. lv., d. x.

[199]Feyjoo,Theatro Critico, tom. iv., ch. x., s. xx.

[200]Lib. iv. de la Chancelaria del Rey Don Juan II., fol. 101.

[201]Torre di Tombo,Lib. das Yihas, fol. 119.

[202]Fr. Gregorio Garcia,Origen de los Indios, lib. i., cap. ix.

[203]Sigeberto,Epist. ad Fritmar Abbat.

[204]Nunez de la Pena,Conquist. de la Gran Canaria.

[205]Ptolemy, tom. iv., lib. iv.

[206]Fr. D. Philipo, lib. viii., fol. 25.

[207]Hist. Isl. Can., lib. i., cap. xxviii.

[208]Nunez de la Pena, lib. i., cap. i.; Viera,Hist. Isl. Can., tom. i., cap. xxviii.

[209]Nunez,Conquist. de la Gran Canaria; Viera,Hist. Isl. Can.

[210]Viera,Hist. Isl. Can., lib. i., cap. xxvi.

[211]Id. ib., tom. i., cap. xxviii.

[212]Id. ib.

[213]Viera,Hist. Isl. Can.

[214]Theatro Critico, tom. lv., d. x.

No. III.

The following lines in Pulci's "Morgante Maggiore" afford probably the most circumstantial prediction that is to be found of the existence of a Western World. The devil, alluding to the vulgar superstition respecting the Pillars of Hercules, thus addresses Rinaldo:

"Know that this theory is false; his barkThe daring mariner shall urge far o'erThe western wave, a smooth and level plain,Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel.Man was in ancient days of grosser mold,And Hercules might blush to learn how farBeyond the limits he had vainly set,The dullest sea-bird soon shall wing her way.Men shall descry another hemisphere,Since to one common center all things tend.So earth, by curious mystery divine,Well-balanced hangs amid the starry spheres.At our antipodes are cities, states,And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore.But see, the sun speeds on his western path,To glad the nations with expected light."

Cantoxxv., st. 229, 230.

Dante, two centuries before, had indicated more vaguely his belief in an undiscovered quarter of the globe:

"De' vostri sensi, ch'é del rimanenteNon vogliate negar l'esperienzaDiretro al sol, del mondo senza gente."

Inferno, Cantoxxvi., st. 115.

The prophetic lines of Seneca are well known:

"Nil, qua fuerat sede, reliquitPervius orbis.Indus gelidum potat Araxem,Albim Persæ, Rhenumque bibuntVenient annis sæcula serisQuibus Oceanus vincula rerumLaxet, et ingens pateat tellus,Tethysque novos detegat orbes,Nec sit terris ultima Thule."

Medea, Act II., v. 371,et seq.Chorus in Fine.Ed. Bip.

On which the learned Acosta remarks:

"Sed utrum divinarit Seneca, an fortuito ac temere cecinerit, quæri potest. Mihi verò divinasse videtur, sed eo genere divinationis, quod prudentes viri familiare habent."

Acosta further on writes thus:

"Scribit Hieronymus in epistolam ad Ephesios—'Quærirmus quoque quid sit. In quibus aliquando ambulastis secundum sæculum sit mundi hujus utrumnam et aliud quod non pertineat ad mundum istum, sed ad mundos alios, de quibus et Clemens in epistolâ suâ scribit, oceanus et mundi qui transipsum sunt.'"—J. Acosta, Societatis Jesu,De Naturâ Novi Orbis, lib. i., cap. xi.

"Lorsq' Alfonso V. permit en 1461 à Dom Henry de peupler les îles Açores, on trouva en celle de Cuervo une statue représentant un cavalier qui, de la main gauche, tenoit la bride de son cheval, et de la droite montroit l'occident, précisément du côte d'Amerique—on voyoit sur le roc une inscription en caractères inconnus, dont il seroit à souhaiter qu'on eût pris soin d'aporter l'empreinte en Europe; mais ces premiers navigateurs cherchoient des trésors et non des nouvelles lumières."—Histoire de France, par M. de Villaret, vol. xvi., p. 376.

No. IV.

The fable of Welsh Indians is of very old date. In the time of Sir Walter Raleigh, a confused report was spread over England that on the coast of Virginia the Welsh salutation had been heard; has, honi, iach. Owen Chapelain relates that in 1669, by pronouncing some Celtic words, he saved himself from the hands of the Indians of Tuscarora, by whom he was on the point of being scalped. The same thing, it is pretended, happened to Benjamin Beatty, in going from Virginia to Carolina. This Beatty asserts that he found a whole Welsh tribe, who preserved the tradition of the voyage of Madoc ap Owen, which took place in 1170. John Filson, in his "History of Kentucky," has revived these tales of the first travelers. According to him, Captain Abraham Chaplain saw Indians arrive at the post of Kaskasky, and converse in the Welsh language with some soldiers, who were natives of Wales. Captain Isaac Stewart asserts that on the Red River of Natchitoches, at the distance of 700 miles above its mouth, in the Mississippi, he discovered Indians with a fair skin and red hair, who conversed in Welsh, and possessed the titles of their origin. "They produced, in proof of what they said of their arrival on the eastern coast, rolls of parchment, carefully wrapped up in otter skins, and on which great characters were written in blue, which neither Stewart, nor his fellow-traveler, Davey, a native of Wales, could decipher." We may observe, first, that all these testimonies are extremely vague for the indication of places. The last letter of Mr. Owen, repeated in the journals of Europe (of the 11th February, 1819), places the posts of the Welsh Indians on the Madwaga, and divides them into two tribes, the Brydones and the Chadogians. "They speak Welsh with greater purity than it is spoken in the principality of Wales(!), since it is exempt from Anglicisms; they profess Christianity, strongly mixed with Druidism." We can not read such assertions without recollecting that all those fabulous stories which flatter the imagination are renewed periodically under new forms. The learned and judicious geographer of the United States, Mr. Warden, inquires justly, why all the traces of Welsh colonies and the Celtic tongue have disappeared, since less credulous travelers, and who, in some sort, control one another, have visited the country situated between the Ohio and the Rocky Mountains. Mackenzie, Barton, Clarke, Lewis, Pike, Drake, Mitchill, and the editors of the "New Archæologia Americana," have found nothing, absolutely nothing, which denotes the remains of European colonies of the 12th century.—Humboldt'sPersonal Narrative, vol. vi., p. 326. See Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 1; Powell'sHistory of Wales, p. 196, &c.

Lord Lyttleton, in his notes to the 5th book of his "History of Henry II.," p. 371, has invalidated the story of Madoc's discoveries by arguments of great weight; and Mr. Pennant, in "Philosophical Transactions," vol. lviii., p. 91, has overthrown many of the arguments upon which the existence of a Welsh settlement among the Indians was founded. General Bowles, the Cherokee, was questioned when in England as to the locality of the supposed descendants of Madoc: he laid his finger on one of the branches of the Missouri. Pike's "Travels" had lessened the probability of finding such a tribe; and Lewis and Clarke's "Travels to the Source of the Missouri" have entirely destroyed it, as acknowledged by Mr. Southey in his "Madoc."—See note to the Preface ofMadoc.

"It is much to be wished, that in our days, when a healthy tone of criticism is very much in use, without assuming a scornful character, the ancient inquiries of Powell ('Powell's History of Wales,' p. 196) and Richard Hakluyt ('Voyages and Navigations,' vol. iii., p. 4) might again be taken up in England. I do not participate in the notion of rejecting inquiries, by which the traditions of nations are frequently observed; I prefer much to hold the firm conviction that, with more diligence and perseverance, many of the historical problems which have hitherto remained unknown to us will one day be cleared up by actual discoveries."—Humboldt'sCosmos, vol. ii., p. 456.

By some antiquarians traces have been supposed to have been found of the discovery of America by the Irish before the year 1000. The Esquimaux related to the Normans who were settled in Winland, that further southward, on the other side of Chesapeake Bay, there dwelt "white men, who walked about in long white clothes, before them sticks to which white cloths were attached, and crying with a loud voice." This account was interpreted by the Christian Normans to signify processions, in which they carried flags and sang hymns. In the oldest traditions, and in the historical narrative of Thorfinn Karlsefue, and the Iceland Landnama Book, these southern coasts, between Virginia and Florida, are indicated by the name of "Whiteman's Land." They were, in the country itself, certainly called "Great Ireland" (Irland it Mikla), and it was supposed that they were peopled by the Irish. According to testimony extending as far back as the year 1064, before Leif discovered Winland, Ari Marsson, of the powerful Iceland race of Ulf, on a voyage southward from Iceland, was driven by a storm upon the coasts of "Great Ireland," and there baptized as a Christian, and not being allowed to go away, was subsequently recognized there by people from the Orkneys and Iceland. It is the present opinion of some northern antiquarians that Iceland was not peopled immediately from Europe, but from Virginia and Carolina (that is, from Great Ireland), by the Irish, who had early migrated to America.... The assiduous attempt to diffuse religious doctrines paved the way, at one time, for warlike undertakings, at another for the spread of peaceful ideas and commercial intercourse. The zeal which is so peculiar to the religions systems of India, Palestine, and Arabia, and which is altogether free from the indifference of Grecian and Roman polytheism, kept alive the study of geography in the first half of the Middle Ages. Letronne, the commentator of the Irish monk Dicuil, has proved, in an acute way, that after the Irish missionaries were driven out of the Färöe Islands by the Normans, they began to visit Iceland about the year 795. The Normans, when they came to Iceland, found there Irish books, bells for ringing for mass, and other objects, which former strangers, who were called Papar, had left behind. These Papæ (fathers) were the Clerici of Dicuil. Now if, as we must suppose from his testimony, those objects belonged to the Irish monks, who came from the Färöe Islands, the question is, why are the monks (Papar) called in their native traditions "Westmen"—men who have come from the west over the sea? Respecting the connection of Prince Madoc's voyage to a great western country in 1170, with the "Great Ireland" of the Iceland traditions, all accounts are enveloped in deep obscurity. Compare the inquiries inRafn Antiq. Amer., p. 203, 206, 446, 451; and Wilhelmi upon Iceland,Hvitramannaland, the Land of White Men, p. 75, 81; Letronne,Récherches Géog. et Crit. sur le Livre de Mensurâ Orbis Terræ, composé en Irelande par Dicuil, 1814, p. 129, 146.

The celebrated stone of Taunton River may date its hieroglyphics from the time that Norwegian navigators visited the shores of "Great Ireland." "Anglo-American antiquaries have made known an inscription, supposed to be Phœnician, and which is engraved on the rocks of Dighton, near the banks of Taunton River, twelve leagues south of Boston.... The natives who inhabited these countries at the time of the first European settlements preserved an ancient tradition, according to which strangers in wooden houses had sailed up Taunton River, formerly called Assoonet. These strangers, having conquered the red men, had engraved marks on the rock, which is now covered by the waters of the river. Count de Gebelin does not hesitate, with the learned Dr. Stiles, to regard these marks as a Carthaginian inscription. He says, with that enthusiasm which is natural to him, but which is highly injurious in discussions of this kind, that this inscription comes happily at the moment from the New World to confirm his ideas on the origin of nations, and that it is clearly demonstrated to be a Phœnician monument, a picture which in the foreground represents an alliance between the American people and the foreign nation, coming by the winds of the north from a rich and industrious country. I have carefully examined the four drawings of the celebrated stone of Taunton River, which M. Loot published in England in the Memoirs of the Antiquarian Society." (Archæologia, vol. viii., p. 296.) "Far from recognizing a symmetrical arrangement of simple letters and syllabic characters, I discover a drawing scarcely traced, like those that have been found on the rocks of Norway, and in almost all the countries inhabited by the Scandinavian nations." (Suhm,Samlinger til ten Danske Historic, b. ii., p. 215.) "In the sketch we distinguish, from the form of the heads, five human figures surrounding an animal with horns, much higher in the fore than in the hind part of the body."—Humboldt'sResearches in America, vol. i., p. 153.

No. V.

"The great and splendid work of Marco Polo (Il Milione di Messer Marco Polo), as we see in the corrected edition of Count Baldelli, is wrongly called a book of travels: it is chiefly a descriptive, and, we may add, a statistical work, in which it is difficult to distinguish what the traveler himself saw and what he derived from others, or gathered from the topographical descriptions which are so plenty in Chinese literature, and which he had an opportunity of attaining through his Persian interpreter. The striking similarity of the report of the travels of Hinan-tschang, the Buddhist pilgrim of the seventh century, with that of Marco Polo, of the Pamir Highlands, in 1277, early attracted my attention.... However much the more recent travelers have been inclined to enter into an account of their own personal adventures, Marco Polo, on the other hand, endeavors to mix up his own observations with the official accounts communicated to him, which were probably numerous, as he held the post of governor of the town of Zangui. The plan of compiling adopted by the famous traveler renders it intelligible how he was able to dictate his book to his fellow-prisoner and friend, Messer Rustigielo, of Pisa, from the documents before him, while in prison in Genoa in 1295."—Humboldt'sCosmos, vol. ii., p. 400.

Humboldt elsewhere says, that "it has frequently been supposed, and declared with remarkable decision, that the truthful Marco Polo had a great influence upon Columbus, and even that he was in possession of a copy of Marco Polo's work upon his first voyage of discovery."—Navarrete,Collecion de los Viajos y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Españoles, vol. i., p. 261.

Marco Polo is called by Malte Brun "the creator of modern Oriental geography—the Humboldt of the thirteenth century."

"The work of Marco Polo is stated by some to have been originally written in Latin, though the most probable opinion is that it was written in Italian. Copies of it in manuscript were multiplied, and rapidly circulated; translations were made into various languages, until the invention of printing enabled it to be widely diffused throughout Europe. In the course of these translations and successive editions, the original text, according to Purchas, has been much vitiated, and it is probable many extravagances in numbers and measurements with which Marco Polo is charged may be the errors of translators and printers. Francis Pepin, author of the Brandenburgh version, styles Polo a man commendable for his devoutness, prudence, and fidelity. Athanasius Kircher, in his account of China, says that none of the ancients have described the kingdoms of the remote parts of the East with more exactness. Various other learned men have borne testimony to his character, and most of the substantial points of his work have been authenticated by subsequent travelers. It is manifest, however, that he dealt much in exaggeration. The historical part of his work is full of errors and fables. He confuses the names of places, is very inexact as to distances, and gives no latitude of the places he visited."—Washington Irving'sColumbus, vol. iv., p. 294.

Marco Polo returned from Tartary to his native city, Venice, in 1295, having pursued his mercantile peregrinations in Asia upward of twenty-six years.

No. VI.

"Sir John Mandeville was born in the town of St. Alban's. He was devoted to study from his earliest childhood, and, after finishing his general education, applied himself to medicine. He left England in 1332, and, according to his own account, visited Turkey, Armenia, Egypt, Upper and Lower Libya, Syria, Persia, Chaldea, Ethiopia, Tartary, Amazonia, and the Indies, residing in their principal cities. He wrote a history of his travels in three languages, English, French, and Latin. The descriptions given by Mandeville of the Grand Khan, of the province of Cathay, and the city of Camhalee, are scarcely less extravagant than those of Marco Polo. The royal palace was more than two leagues in circumference; the grand hall had twenty-four columns of copper and gold; there were more than 300,000 men occupied, and living in and about the palace, of which more than 100,000 were employed in taking care of the elephants, of which there were 10,000, &c., &c.

"Mandeville has become proverbial for indulging in a traveler's exaggerations; yet his accounts of the countries which he visited have been found far more veracious than had been imagined. His descriptions of Cathay and the wealthy province of Mangi, agreeing with those of Marco Polo, had great authority with Columbus."—Washington Irving'sColumbus, vol. iv., p. 308.

No. VII.

"The Western nations, the Greeks, and the Romans, knew that magnetism could be communicated for a length of time to iron ('sola hæc materia ferri vires à magneti lapide accipit, retinetque longo tempore.'—Plin., xxxiv., 14). The great discovery of the terrestrial directive force, therefore, depended alone on this, that no one in the West happened to observe that a longish piece of magnetic iron ore, or a magnetized iron rod, floated at liberty upon water by means of a piece of wood, or balanced and suspended freely in the air by means of a thread. But a thousand years and more before the commencement of our era, in the dark epoch of Codru, and the return of the Heraclidæ to the Peloponnesus, the Chinese had already magnetic cars, upon which the movable arm of a human figure pointed invariably to the south, as a means of finding the way through the boundless grassy plains of Tartary. In the third century, indeed, of the Christian era, at least 700 years, therefore, before the introduction of the ship's compass upon European seas, Chinese craft were sailing the Indian Ocean under the guidance of magnetic southern indication. This early knowledge and application of the magnetic needle gave the Chinese geographers great advantages over those of early Greece and Rome, to whom, for example, the true course of the Apennines and Pyrenees was never known.

"Magnetism is one of the numerous forms in which electricity manifests itself. The ancient suspicion of the identity of electrical and magnetical attraction has been demonstrated in the present age. 'If electrum (amber),' says Pliny, in the sense of the Ionic natural philosophy of Thales, 'becomes inspired by friction and warmth, it attracts bark and dried leaves, exactly like the magnetic iron stone.'[215]The same words occur in the discourse laudatory of the magnet of the Chinese natural philosopher Kuopho, who lived in the fourth century. It was not without surprise that I myself observed, among the children at play on the woody banks of the Orinoco, the offspring of native tribes in the lowest grade of civilization, that the excitement of electricity by friction was known. The boys rubbed the dry, flat, and shining seeds of a creeping leguminous plant (probably a negretia) until they attracted fibers of cotton wool and chips of the bamboo. This amusement of these coppery children is calculated to leave a deep and solemn impression behind it. What a chasm lies between the electrical play of these savages and the discovery of the lightning conductor, of the chemically decompounding pile, of the light-evoking mechanical apparatus! In such gulfs, millenniums in the history of the intellectual progress of mankind lie buried."—Humboldt'sCosmos, vol. i., p. 180; Klaproth,Lettre à M.A. de Humboldt, sur l'Invention de la Boussole, p. 125. 1834.

"The application of the magnetic needle's direction toward the north and south, that is, the use of the mariner's compass in Europe, is probably due to the Arabs, who have to thank the Chinese for their knowledge of it. The Arabic words 'Zohron' and 'Aphron,' meaning north and south, like the numerous Arabic names of the stars in use at the present day, testify the route through which the West became acquainted with it. In European Christendom, the use of the magnetic needle is spoken of as something well known, first in a political and satirical poem, entitled 'La Bible,' written by Guyot of Provence in 1190, and in the description of Palestine, by Jacob of Vitry, bishop of Ptolemais, between the years 1204 and 1215. Also Dante (Paradiso, xii., 29) mentions in a simile the needle (ajo) 'which points southward.' The discovery of the mariner's compass was for a long time attributed to Flavius Gioja: he probably made some improvements in the apparatus for managing it in 1302. A much earlier employment of the compass in the European seas is seen in a naval work by Raymundus Lullus of Majorca, a wonderfully talented and scientific man. In his book, entitled 'Fenix de las Maravillas del Orbe,' published in 1286, Lullus says that the mariners of his times made use of the magnetic needle. Navarrete, in his 'Discurso Historico sobre los Progressos del Arte de Navegar en Espana,' p. 28, 1802, records a remarkable passage in the Leyes de las Partidas of the middle of the thirteenth century: 'The needle which guides the mariner in the dark night, and shows him in good and bad weather the direction which he must take, is the mediatrix (medianera) between the magnetic stone (la piedra) and the north star."—Humboldt'sCosmos, vol. ii., p. 291, 462.

FOOTNOTES:[215]Plin., lib. xxxvii., p. 3; Plato, inTimao, p. 80; Martin,Études sur le Timée, tom. II., p. 343-346; Strabo, lib. xv., p. 703, Casaub.; Clemens Alex.,Strom., li., p. 370. When Thales, in Aristot.,De Animá, lib. i., p. 2, and Hippias, inDiag. Laertio, lib. i., p. 24, attribute a soul to the magnet and to amber, this animation only refers to a moving principle.

[215]Plin., lib. xxxvii., p. 3; Plato, inTimao, p. 80; Martin,Études sur le Timée, tom. II., p. 343-346; Strabo, lib. xv., p. 703, Casaub.; Clemens Alex.,Strom., li., p. 370. When Thales, in Aristot.,De Animá, lib. i., p. 2, and Hippias, inDiag. Laertio, lib. i., p. 24, attribute a soul to the magnet and to amber, this animation only refers to a moving principle.

No. VIII.

"In the fifteenth century almost all the mercantile nations sought for slaves at the Canary Islands, as we seek them at present on the Coast of Guinea. Every individual made prisoner before he received the rite of baptism was a slave. At this period no attempt had yet been made to prove that the blacks were an intermediary race between men and animals. The swarthy Guanche and the African negro were sold simultaneously in the market of Seville, without a question whether slavery ought to weigh only on men with a black skin and frizzled hair. The archipelago of the Canaries was divided into several small states hostile to each other. The trading nations kept up intestine warfare; one Guanche then became the property of another, who sold him to the Europeans; several, who preferred death to slavery, killed themselves and their children. What remained of the Guanches perished mostly in 1494, in the terrible pestilence called themodorra, which was attributed to the quantity of dead bodies left exposed to the air by the Spaniards after the battle of La Laguna. The nation of the Guanches was therefore extinct at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is very certain that no native of pure race exists in the whole island; and some travelers, who may otherwise be relied upon, are mistaken when they assert that their guides to the Peak were some of those slender and nimble-footed Guanches. (It is asserted that they could seize the rabbit or wild goat in its course.) It is true that a few Canarian families boast of their relationship to the last shepherd king of Guimar; but these pretensions do not rest on very solid foundations, and are renewed from time to time, when some Canarian of a more dusky hue than his countrymen is prompted to solicit a commission in the service of the King of Spain.

"The Guanches, famed for their tall stature, were the Patagonians of the Old World. I never saw Guanche mummies but in the cabinets of Europe. A considerable number, however, might be found, if miners were employed to open the sepulchral caverns which are cut in the rock on the eastern slope of the Peak. These mummies are in a state of desiccation so singular, that whole bodies with their integuments, frequently do not weigh above six or seven pounds, or a third less than the skeleton of an individual of the same size recently stripped of the muscular flesh. The conformation of the skull has some slight resemblance to that of the white race of the ancient Egyptians.... The only monument that can throw some light on the origin of the Guanches is their language; but, unhappily, there are not above 150 words remaining. It has long been imagined that the language of the Guanches had no analogy with the living tongues; but since the travels of Hornemann, and the ingenious researches of Marsden and Venturi, have drawn the attention of the learned to the Berbers, who, like the Sarmatic tribes, occupy an immense extent of country in the north of Africa, we find that several Guanche words have common roots with words of the Chilha and Gebali dialects. This is at least an indication of the ancient connection between the Guanches and Berbers, a tribe of mountaineers, in which the Numidians, the Getuli, and the Garamanti are confounded, and who extend themselves from the eastern extremity of Atlas by Harutsch and Fezzan, as far as the Oasis of Siwah and Angela. The description which Scylax gives in his 'Periplus' of the inhabitants of Cerne, a shepherd people of a tall stature and long hair, reminds us of the features which characterize the Canary Guanches.... The people who succeeded the Guanches descended from the Spaniards, and in a less degree from the Normans. Though these two races have been exposed during three centuries past to the same climate, the latter is distinguished by a whiter skin. The descendants of the Normans inhabit the Valley of the Teganana. The names of Grandville and Dampierre are still pretty common in this district. The whole archipelago does not contain 160,000 inhabitants, and the Islennos are perhaps more numerous in the Spanish settlements of America than in their own country."—Humboldt'sPersonal Narrative, vol. i., p. 280.

No. IX.

"Pomponius Mela, qui vivoit à une époque assez rapprochée du temps de Cornelius Nepos, raconte, et Pline répète que Metellus Celer, tandis qu'il étoit proconsul dans les Gaules, avoit reçu en cadeau, d'un roi des Boii (Pline le nomme roi des Suèves) quelques Indiens qui, chassés des mers de l'Inde par des tempêtes, avoient abordé sur les côtes de la Germanie...... Il ne peut rester aucun doute que Pomponius Mela n'ait cru que les Indiens étoient arrivés sur les côtes nord-est de l'Allemagne par la circumnavigation de l'Asie orientale et boréale. Il dit, 'Vi tempestatum ex Indieis æquoribus abrepti.'..... Comme il est reconnu que malgré le grand perfectionnement de la navigation moderne, l'accumulation des glaces s'oppose à toute navigation par le détroit de Behring le long des îles de la Nouvelle Zemble on a soulevé la question de savoir de quelle race peuvent avoir été les hommes de couleur que le proconsul Metellus Celer a pris pour des Indiens. Gomara dit que, 'Les Indiens de Quintus Metellus Celer etoient peut-être de la Terre du Laboureur, et l'on se trompe (sur leur vraie origine) à cause de leur couleur.'...... Il paraissoit peu probable que des Eskimaux fussent venus aux côtes d'Allemagne; et tandis que Vossius, le savant commentateur de Mela, ne voyait dans les Indiens de Cornelius Nepos que des Bretons, dont le corps étoit fardé de pastel, d'autres commentateurs adoptant l'explication de Gomara et de Wytfleet, substituoient au Suevorum Rex, un prince Scandinave qui avoit recueillé des naufragés sur les côtes de Norwège. L'analogie du fait non contesté de l'arrivée d'Eskimaux aux îles Orcades, semble jeter une vive lumière sur le fait que nous examinons ici; et quand on considère les nombreux exemples d'individus tombés entre les mains des barbares et traînés comme captifs de nation à nation loin du lieu du naufrage, on trouve moins surprenant que des étrangers aient été conduits dans les Gaules, en passant des îles Britanniques en Batavie et on Germanie: mais ce qui est bien étrange, c'est que dans des évènemens semblables et également énigmatiques, du moyen-âge, il ne soit toujours questions que de côtes Germaniques. Ces évènemens sont rapportés aux règnes des Othons et de Frédéric Barberousse; ils sont, par conséquent, du dixième et du douzième siècle. 'Nos apud Othonem legimus,' dit le pape Æneas Sylvius, 'sub imperatoribus teutonicis indicam navem et negotiatores Indos inGermanico littorefuisse deprehensos.' Et dans Gomara, on lit, 'On assure aussi que, du temps de l'empereur Frédéric Barberousse on amena à Lubec certains Indiens dans un canot.' Sir Humphrey Gilbert après avoir discutí prolixement en trois chapitres le passage de Cornelius Nepos, ajoute 'L'an 1160, quelques Indiens arrivèrent, sous le règne de Frédéric Barberousse,upon the coast of Germanie.' J'ai perdu beaucoup de temps dans de vaines recherches sur la première source de ces faits curieux. D'où Gomara, historien généralement très exact, a-t-il su que, 'Les Indiens ont été amenés à Lubec?' Comment les continuateurs des Annales d'Othon de Freising, et le Franciscain Ditmar, auteur de l'excellente Chronique de Lubec, n'ont ils rien sur de ces prétendus Indiens?... à la maison où se réunit la corporation des marins de Lubec on conserve un canot groenlandois dans lequel se trouve une figure d'Eskimau en bois. Le canot a été reparé plusieurs fois; la première inscription ne porte que l'année 1607; mais d'après une tradition très vague, un navire de Lubec doit avoir capturé ce pêcheur Eskimau, il y a trois cent ans, dans les mers de l'ouest. On agrandit la pensée, en renaissant, sous un pointe de vue général, les preuves de ces communications lointaines, favorisées par le hazard; on voit comment les mouvemens de l'océan et de l'atmosphère ont pu, dès les époques les plus reculées, contribuer à répandre les différentes races d'hommes sur la surface du globe; on comprend avec Colomb (sida del Almirante, cap. viii.) comme un continent a pu ses révéler a l'autre."—Humboldt'sExamen Critique du Géographie du Nouveau Continent, vol. ii., p. 278.

No. X.

Herodotus relates that a Phœnician fleet, fitted out by Necho, king of Egypt, took its departure about six hundred and four years before the Christian era, from a port in the Red Sea, doubled the southern promontory of Africa, and, after a voyage of three years, returned by the Straits of Gades to the mouth of the Nile. Eudoxus of Cyzicus is said to have held the same course, and to have accomplished the same arduous undertaking.—Herod., lib. iv., cap. xlii.; Plin.,Nat. Hist., lib. ii., cap. lxvii.

These voyages, if performed in the manner narrated, may justly be reckoned the greatest efforts of navigation in the ancient world; and if we attend to the imperfect state of the art at that time, it is difficult to determine whether we should most admire the courage and sagacity with which the design was formed, or the conduct and good fortune with which it was executed. But, unfortunately, all the original and authentic accounts of the Phœnician and Carthaginian voyages, whether undertaken by public authority or in prosecution of their private, have perished. Whatever acquaintance with the remote regions of the earth the Carthaginians or Phœnicians may have acquired, was concealed from the rest of mankind with a mercantile jealousy. Every thing relating to the course of their navigation was not only a mystery of trade, but a secret of state. Extraordinary facts are recorded concerning their solicitude to prevent other nations from penetrating into what they wished should remain undivulged (Strab., Geogr., lib. iii., p. 265; lib. xviii., p. 1154). Many of their discoveries seem accordingly to have been scarcely known beyond the precincts of their own states. The navigation round Africa, in particular, is recorded by the Greek and Roman writers rather as a strange, amusing tale, which they either did not comprehend or did not believe, than as a real transaction which enlarged their knowledge and influenced their opinion. As neither the progress of the Phœnician and Carthaginian discoveries, nor the extent of their navigation, were communicated to the rest of mankind, all memorials of their extraordinary skill in naval affairs seem, in a great measure, to have perished when the maritime power of the former was annihilated by Alexander's conquest of Tyre, and the empire of the latter was overturned by the Roman arms. The Periplus Hannonis is the only authentic monument of the Carthaginian skill in naval affairs, and one of the most curious fragments transmitted to us by antiquity. Montesquieu and De Bougainville have established its authenticity by arguments that appear to me unanswerable. Hanno sailed from Gades to the island of Cerne in twelve days. This is probably what is known to the moderns by the name of the island of Arguim. His furthest advance was to a promontory, which he named the South Horn, manifestly Cape de Tres Puntas, about five degrees north of the line.—Robertson'sAmerica, vol. i., p. 9-250.

No. XI.

The importance of this discovery, and of the European settlements consequent upon it, is chiefly interesting with regard to the intellectual and moral effects produced by the sudden increase in the stock of ideas upon the improvement and the social condition of mankind. Since that grand era, a new and active state of the intellect and feelings, bold wishes and hopes scarcely to be restrained, have gradually penetrated into the whole of civil society; the scanty population of a hemisphere, especially the coasts opposite Europe, favored the settlement of colonies, which, in rendering themselves extensive and independent in position, have overturned unlimited states by their choice of a free form of government; and, lastly, the Reformation, a forerunner of vast political revolutions, had to pass through different phases of its development in one country which had become the place of refuge for all religious opinions, and for the most varied ideas of divinity. The boldness of the Genoese mariner is the first link in the immeasurable chain of these pregnant events.... We might be induced to suppose that the value of these great discoveries, and of the double victory in the physical and intellectual world, was first acknowledged in our times, since the history of the civilization of the human race has been treated in a philosophical way. Such a supposition is refuted by Columbus's cotemporaries. The most talented of them anticipated the influence which the events of the latter years of the fifteenth century would exercise upon mankind. "Each day," says Peter Martyr, in his letters of the years 1493 and 1494, "bring us new wonders from a new world, from the Western antipodes, which a certain Genoese traveler has discovered.... Our friend Pomponius Lætus could scarcely restrain his tears of joy when I communicated to him the first accounts of so unexpected an event.... What aliment more delicious than such tidings can be set before an ingenious mind.... It is like an accession of wealth to a miser. Our minds, soiled with vices, become meliorated by contemplating such glorious events."

"Sebastian Cabot mentioned that he was in London when news was brought there of the discovery, and that it caused great talk and admiration in the court of Henry VII., being affirmed to be a thing more divine than human."—Hakluyt, p. 7.

"The mind of men became sharpened in order to comprehend the boundless store of new phenomena, to work them out, and by comparison to employ them for the attainment of general and higher views of the creation. If we carefully examine the original works of the earliest historians of theConquista, we are astonished at finding, in a Spanish author of the sixteenth century, the germs of so many important physical truths. Upon the occasion of the discovery of a continent, which appeared to be separated from all the other regions of the creation, in the distant solitude of the ocean, a great number of the same questions with which we are employed at the present day occurred to the excited curiosity of the travelers, and to those who were collected together by their narratives; these questions were, Of the unity of the human race, and the derivation of its varieties from a common original form; of the migration of nations, and the affinities of language; of the possibility of varieties in the species of plants and animals; of the causes of the trade winds, and of the constant currents in the ocean; of the regular decrease of temperature at the declivities of the Cordilleras, and in the various strata of water at different depths of the ocean; and of the respective effects of chains of volcanic mountains, and their influence upon the frequency of earthquakes, and the extension of the range of the volcanic forces. The foundation of what is at the present day called physical geography is, exclusive of mathematical considerations, found in the works of the Jesuit, Joseph Acosta, and in the work of Oviedo, which appeared scarcely twenty years after the death of Columbus. In no other period of time since the existence of man in a social condition has the range of ideas in respect to the external world, and the relations of different places, been so suddenly and so wonderfully extended, or the necessity of observing natural phenomena in different latitudes and at different elevations above the level of the sea, or of multiplying the means of examining them, so deeply felt."—Humboldt'sCosmos, vol. ii., p. 295-337.

No. XII.

More than ten places have disputed the glory of having given birth to Columbus: Genoa, Cogoleto (Cucchereto, Cugureo, Cogoreo, Cucurco d'Herrera, et Cugurco de Puffendorf), Bugiasco, Finale, Quinto et Nervi, dans la Riviera di Genova, Savone, Palestrella, et Arbizoli, Cosseria, la vallée d'Oneglia, Castello di Cuccaro, la ville de Plaisance, et Pradello. "Le nombre de ces lieux s'est accru progressivement avec l'illustration du héros, car ses contemporains, Pierre Martyr, le cura de los Palacios, Geraldine, Pietro Coppo da Isola, l'évêque Giustiniani, le chancelier Antonio Gallo et Senerega l'ont unanimement appellé Génois.... Un voyageur moderne, dit en parlant de Cogoleto: Ce lieu n'a pas renoncé à l'honneur d'avoir vu naître Colomb, malgré la multitude de recherches et de dissertations d'aprês lesquelles le grand homme paroît tout simplement Génois. On prétend même á Cogoleto indiquer sa maison, espèce de cabanne, sur le bord de la mer, que je trouvai assex convenablement occupée par un gardecôte, et sur laquelle on lit, à la suite d'autres inscriptions pitoyables, ce beau versimprovisépar M. Gagliuffi.

"Unus erat Mundus; Duo sint, nit iste: fuere."

Voyages Hist. et Littér. en Italie de M. Valery, tom. v., p. 73.

No. XIII.

"Christophe Colomb, Cortez et Raleigh ont eprouvé que le genie ne régne que sur l'avenir et que son pouvoir est tardive. Ils ont pendant quelques tems, excité au plus haut degré l'admiration de leurs contemporains; mais la bienveillance publique a abandonné leur viellesse, on ne s'est souvenu d'eux que pour les affliger dans leur isolement.[216]Le siècle qui les a vus naître n'a pas compris ce que leur action successive a produit et préparê de changements dans l'état des peuples de l'occident. L'influence que ces peuples exercent sur tous les points du globe ou leur présence se fait sentir simultanément, la prépondérance universelle qui en est la suite, ne datent que de la découverte de l'Amérique et du voyage de Gama. Les évènemens qui appartiennent à un petit group de six années (1492-1498) ont determiné pour ainsi dire le partage du pouvoir sur la terre. Dés-lors le pouvoir de l'intelligence, geographiquement limité, restreint dans des bornes étroites a pu prendre un libre essor; il a trouvé un moyen rapide d'étendre, d'entretenir, de perpétuer son action. Les migrations des peuples, les expéditions guerrières dans l'intérieur d'un continent, les communications par caravanes sur des routes invariablement suivies depuis des siècles, n'ont produit que des effets partiels et généralement moins durables. Les expéditions les plus lontaines ont été dévastatrice, et l'impulsion a été donnée par ceux qui n'avoient rien à ajouter aux trésors de l'intelligence déjà accumulés. Au contraire, les évènemens de la fin du quinzième siècle, qui ne sont séparés que par un intervalle de six ans, ont été longuement préparés dans le moyen-âge, qui à son tour avoit été fécondé par les idées des siècles antérieures, excité par les dogmes et les rêveries de la géographie systématique des Hellènes. C'est seulement depuis l'époque que nous venons de signaler que l'unité homérique de l'océan s'est fait sentir tous son heureuse influence sur la civilisation du genre humain. L'élément mobile qui baigne toutes les côtes en est devenu le lien moral et politique, et les peuples de l'occident, dont l'intelligence active a créé ce lien et qui ont compris son importance, se sont élevés à une universalité d'action qui détermine la prépondérance du pouvoir sur le globe."—Humboldt'sGéographie du Nouveau Continent, vol. iv., p. 23.

FOOTNOTES:[216]Ces Nouvelles Indesque Colomb nomma sa propriété (cosa que era suya) etoient inabordables pour celui qui les avoient refusées à la France, à l'Angleterre et au Portugal. Les lettres que l'amiral adresse à sa famille et ses amis depuis l'année 1502, ne respirent que la douleur.The following is an extract from one of Columbus's mournful appeals to Ferdinand and Isabella:"Such is my fate, that the twenty years of service through which I have passed with so much toil and danger have profited me nothing, and at this very day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own: if I wish to eat or sleep, I have nowhere to go but to the inn or tavern, and most times lack wherewith to pay the bill.... I was twenty-eight years old when I came into your highnesses' service, and now I have not a hair upon me that is not gray; my body is infirm, and all that was left to me, as well as to my brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonor.... The honest devotedness I have always shown to your majesties' service, and the so unmerited outrage with which it has been repaid, will not allow my soul to keep silence, however much I may wish it. I implore your highnesses to forgive my complaints. I am, indeed, in as ruined a condition as I have related. Hitherto I have wept over others: may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for me. Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth, and justice!"—Select Letters of Columbus, published by the Hakluyt Society.

[216]Ces Nouvelles Indesque Colomb nomma sa propriété (cosa que era suya) etoient inabordables pour celui qui les avoient refusées à la France, à l'Angleterre et au Portugal. Les lettres que l'amiral adresse à sa famille et ses amis depuis l'année 1502, ne respirent que la douleur.The following is an extract from one of Columbus's mournful appeals to Ferdinand and Isabella:"Such is my fate, that the twenty years of service through which I have passed with so much toil and danger have profited me nothing, and at this very day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own: if I wish to eat or sleep, I have nowhere to go but to the inn or tavern, and most times lack wherewith to pay the bill.... I was twenty-eight years old when I came into your highnesses' service, and now I have not a hair upon me that is not gray; my body is infirm, and all that was left to me, as well as to my brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonor.... The honest devotedness I have always shown to your majesties' service, and the so unmerited outrage with which it has been repaid, will not allow my soul to keep silence, however much I may wish it. I implore your highnesses to forgive my complaints. I am, indeed, in as ruined a condition as I have related. Hitherto I have wept over others: may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for me. Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth, and justice!"—Select Letters of Columbus, published by the Hakluyt Society.

The following is an extract from one of Columbus's mournful appeals to Ferdinand and Isabella:

"Such is my fate, that the twenty years of service through which I have passed with so much toil and danger have profited me nothing, and at this very day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own: if I wish to eat or sleep, I have nowhere to go but to the inn or tavern, and most times lack wherewith to pay the bill.... I was twenty-eight years old when I came into your highnesses' service, and now I have not a hair upon me that is not gray; my body is infirm, and all that was left to me, as well as to my brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonor.... The honest devotedness I have always shown to your majesties' service, and the so unmerited outrage with which it has been repaid, will not allow my soul to keep silence, however much I may wish it. I implore your highnesses to forgive my complaints. I am, indeed, in as ruined a condition as I have related. Hitherto I have wept over others: may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for me. Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth, and justice!"—Select Letters of Columbus, published by the Hakluyt Society.

No. XIV.

"Per necessità d'acque mandammo il battello a terra con venticinque huomini: dove per le grandissime e frequente onde che gettava il mare al lito per esser la spiaggia aperta, non fu possibile che alcuno potesse smontare in terra senza pericolo di perder il battello: vedemmo quivi molte genti che venivano al lito, facendo varij segni d'amicizia e dimostrando contentezza che andassimo a terra, e per pruova li conoscemmo molto umani e cortesi come per il successo caso V.M. intenderà. Per mandarli delle cose nostre, e da Indiani communimente molto desiderate, e apprezzate come sono fogli di charta, specchi, sonagli e altri simile cose, mandammo a terra un giovane de nostri marinari, quale ponendosi a nuoto, nell' approssimarsi (ritrovandosi in acqua da tre, o quattro braccia di terra lontano) di lor non confidandosi gliele getto nel lito, poi nel voler ritornar a dietro, dall onde con tanta furèa fu traportato alla riva, che vi si trovò di modo straccho, e sbattuto, che vi resto quasi morto. Il che veduto da gli Indiani corsero a pigliarlo, e tiratolo fuora lo portarono alquanto dal mare lontano. Risentito il giovane e vedendosi da lor portato, alla disgrazia prima vi s'aggiunse il spavento, per il quale metteva grandissimi gridi, e il simile facevano gl' Indiani che l'accompagnavano, nel volerlo assicurare e li davano cuore di non temere: di poi avendolo posto in terra al piè d'un picciolo colle in faccia del sole, con atti d'admirazione lo riguardavano, maravigliandosi della bianchezza della sua carne, e ignudo spogliatolo lo fecero ad un grandissimo fuoco restaurare, non senza timore di noi altri, che eramo nel battello restati, che a quel fuoco arrostendolo, lo volessero divorare. Riavute le forze il giovane, e con loro avendo alquanto dimorato, con segni li dimostrò voler alla nave far ritorno: da quali con grandissimo amore, tenendolo sempre stretto, con varij abbracciamenti, fu accompagnato sino al mare, e per più assicurarlo, allargandosi andarono sopra un colle eminente, e quivi fermatislo stellero a riguardare sino che nel battello fu entrato."—Verazzano in Ramusio, tom, iii., p. 420.

No. XV.

"Commission de François I. à Jacques Quartier, pour l'établissement du Canada, du 17eOctobre, 1540.[217]

"François, par la grace de Dieu, Roi de France: à tous ceux que ces présentes lettres verront, salut. Comme pour le désir d'entendre et avoir connoissance de plusieurs pays qu'on dit inhabités, et autres être possédés par gens sauvages, vivant sans connoissance de Dieu et sans usage de raison, eussions dès pie-ça, à grands frais et mises envoyé découvrir les dits pays par plusieurs bons pilotes, et autres nos sujets de bons entendement, savoir et expérience, qui d'iceux pays nous avoient amené divers hommes que nous avons par long-tems tenus en notre royaume, les faisant instruire en l'amour et crainte de Dieu et de sa sainte loix et doctrine Chrétienne en intention de les faire ramener ès dits pays en compagnie de bon nombre de nos sujets de bonne volonté, afin de plus facilement induire les autres peuples d'iceux pays à croire en notre sainte foi; et entr'autres y eussions envoyé notre cher et bien aimé Jacques Quartier, lequel auroit découvert grands pays des terres de Canada et Hochelaga faissant un bout de l'Asie du côte de l'Occident; lesquels pays il trouvé (comme il nous a rapporté), garnis de plusieurs bonnes commodités, et les peuples d'iceux bien fournis de corps et de membres; et bien disposé d'esprit et d'entendement; desquels il nous a semblablement amené aucun nombre, que nous avons par long-tems fait voir et instruire en notre dite sainte foi avec nos dits sujets: en considération de quoi, et de leur bonne inclination, nous avons avisé et delibéré de renvoyer le dit Quartier ès dits pays de Canada et Hochelaga, et jusques en la terre de Saguenai (s'il peut y aborder) avec bonne nombre de navires, et de toutes qualités, arts et industrie pour plus avant entrer ès dits pays, converser avec les peuples d'iceux, et avec eux habiter (si besoin est) afin de mieux parvenir à notre dite intention et à faire chose agréable à Dieu nôtre Créateur et Rédempteur, et que soit à l'augmentation de son saint et sacré nom, et de Nôtre Mère Sainte Église Catholique, de laquelle nous sommes dits et nommés premier fils; par quoi soit besoin pour meilleur ordre et expédition de la dite entreprise, députer et établir un Capitaine Général et Maître pilote des dits navires, qui ait regard à la conduite d'iceux, et sur les gens, officiers et soldats y ordonnés et établis; savoir faisons, que nous à plein confians de la personne du dit Jacques Quartier et de ses sens, suffisance, loyauté, prud'hommie hardiesse, grande diligence et bonne expérience, icelui pour ces causes et autres à ce nous, mouvans, avons faits constitué et ordonné, faisons, constituons, ordonnons et établissons par ces présentes, Capitaine Générale et Maître pilote de tous les navires et autres vaisseaux de mer, par nous ordonnés être menés pour la dite entreprise et expédition, pour le dit état et charge de Capitaine Générale et Maître Pilote d'iceux navires et vaisseaux, avoir tenir, et exercer par le dit Jacques Quartier aux honneurs, prérogatives, pré-éminences, franchises, libertés, gages et bienfaits tels que par nous lui seront pour ce ordonnés, tant qu'il nous plaira. Et lui avons donné, et donnons puissance et autorité de mettre, établir, et instituer aux dits navires tels lieutenants, patrons, pilotes et autres ministres nécessaires pour le fait et conduite d'iceux, en tel nombre qu'il verra et connoîtra être besoin et nécessaire pour le bien de la dite expédition. Si donnons en mandement par ces dites présentes, à nôtre Admiral au Vice Admiral que prins et reçue du dit Jacques Quartier le serment pour ce on est accoutumé, icelui mettent et instituent on fassent mettre et instituer de par nous en possession et saisine du dit état de Capitaine Générale et Maître Pilote; et d'icelui, ensemble des honneurs, prérogatives, pré-éminences, franchises, libertés, gages et bienfaits, tels que par nous lui seront pour ce ordonnés, le fassent, souffrent et laissent, jour et user pleinement et paisiblement et à lui obéir et entendre de tous ceux, et ainsi qu'il appartiendra ès choses touchant et concernant le dit état et charge: et outre lui fasse, souffre et permette prendre le petit galion, appellé l'Emérillon que de présent il a de nous, lequel est jà vieil et caduc, pour servir à l'adoub de ceux des navires qui en auront besoin, et lequel nous voulons être prins et appliqué par le dit Quartier pour l'effet dessus dit, sans qu'il soit tenus en rendre aucun autre compte et reliquat; et duquel compte et reliquat nous l'avons déchargé et déchargeons par icelles présentes: par lesquels nous mandons aussi à nos Prévôts de Paris; Bailliffs de Rouen, de Caen, d'Orleans, de Blois, et de Tours; Sénéchaux du Maine, d'Anjou, et Guienne, et à tous nos autres Bailliffs, Sénéchaux, Prévôts, Alloués, et autres nos Justiciers et officiers, tant de notre royaume que de notre pays de Brétagne uni à icelui pardevers lesquels sont aucuns prisonniers, accusés, ou prévenus d'aucuns crimes quels qu'ils soient, fors de crimes de lèze-Majesté divine et humaine envers nous, et de faux monnoyeurs qu'ils aient incontinent à délivrer, rendre et bailler ès mains du dit Quartier, ou ces commis ou députés partans ces présentés, on le duplicate d'icelles pour notre service en la dite entreprise et expédition, ceux des dits prisonniers qu'il connoîtra être propres, suffisans, et capables pour servir en icelle expédition jusqu'au nombre de cinquante personnes, et selon le choix que le dit Quartier en fera, iceux premièrement jugés et condamnés selon leur démérites et la gravité de leurs méfaits, si jugés et condamnés ne sont; et satisfaction aussi préalablement ordonnée aux parties civiles et intéressés, si fait n'avoit été: Pour laquelle toutefois nous ne voulons la déliverance de leur personne ès dites mains du dit Quartier (s'il les trouve de service) être rétardée ne retenue; mais se prendra la dite satisfaction sur leurs biens seulement: et laquelle délivrance des dits prisonniers accusés ou prévenus, nous voulons être faite ès dites mains du dit Quartier pour l'effet dessus dits par nos dits justiciers et officiers respectivement, et par chacun d'eux en leur regard, pouvoir et jurisdiction, nonobstant oppositions ou appellations quelconque faites ou à faire, relevées, ou à relever, et sans que par le moyen d'icelles, icelle délivrance en la manière dessus dite, soit aucunement différée; et afin que le plus grand nombre n'en soit tiré, outre les dits cinquante, nous voulons que la délivrance que chacun de nos dits officiers en fera au dit Quartier soit écrite et certifiée en la marge de ses présentes, et que neanmoins registre en soit par eux fait et envoyée incontinent pardevers notre âme et fial Chancellier, pour connoître le nombre et la qualité de ceux qui auront été baillé et délivrés: Car tel est notre plaisir. En témoin de ce, nous avons fait mettre notre scel à ces dites présentes. Donné à Saint Pris le dix septième jour d'Octobre, l'an de grâce, mil cinq cent quarante, et de notre règne le vingt-septième.

"Ainsi signé sur le repli, par le Roi, vous Monseigneur le Chancellier et autres persons.

"De la Chesnaie.

"Et scellé sur le repli à simple queue de cire jaune."

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