AMERICA. This great continent has been made known to Europeans partly by the eagerness which commercial nations skew to extend the sphere of their operations, partly by mere national glory, partly by a love for geographical science, and partly by missionary zeal. So far as the commercial incentive has been concerned, we may take a rapid glance at the progress of its discovery.
The whole career of Columbus was in effect a carrying out of the commercial spirit which in his days marked the courts of Spain and Portugal. The riches of India having become known, a wish was entertained to find a western route thither; and in searching for this western route, Columbus discovered America. In his first expedition, made in 1412, he discovered San Salvador, Cuba, Hayti, and other islands of the West Indies, which he in ignorance that the vast Pacific intervened between them and India proper. In the next expedition Columbus discovered Jamaica. In a third, his disco veries included Trinidad, and the coast of South America near the Orinoco. The suc cess of Columbus soon gave encouragement to private adventurers to the new world, one of the first of whom was Alonzo de Ojeda, who, in 1499, followed the course of Colum bus to the coast of. Pavia, and, standing to the west, ranged along a considerable extent of coast beyond that on which Columbus had touched, and thus ascertained that this country was part of the continent.
In 1497, while Columbus was engaged in his researches, the coast of North America had been reached by an English vessel, com manded by Giovanni Gaboto, or Cabot, a Venetian settled in Bristol, who undertook an expedition in company with his son Sebastian, and explored a long line of the North Ame rican coast. In 1498, Sebastian Cabot, in another expedition, visited Newfoundland. In 1500, Gaspar Cortereal, a Portuguese, touched at Labrador; and Brazil was accidentally dis covered by a Portuguese fleet under Cabral. The coast of the province of Tierra Firma, from Cape de Vela to the Gulf of Darien, was first visited by Bastidas, a Spaniard, in 1501. Yucatan was discovered by Diaz de Solis and Pinzon in 1508, and Florida by Ponce de Leon, in 1512. In the same year,
Sebastian Cabot reached the bay since called Hudson's Bay. The Pacific, or Southern Ocean, was first seen from the mountain tops near Panama, by Balboa, in 1513, and, two years after, a landing was effected on the south-east coast of South America, about the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, by De Solis.
The French now began to participate in the zeal for adventure, and in 1524 an expe dition was dispatched by Francis I., under Giovanni Verazzano, a Florentine, who sur veyed a line of coast of seven hundred leagues, comprising the United States, and part of British America. But in 1508, Aubert, a Frenchman, had already discovered the St. Lawrence River. Jacques Cartier, also a Frenchman, in 1531 nearly circumnavigated Newfoundland, and entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The coast of California, on the west side of the northern division of the con tinent, was discovered by Ximenes, a pilot, who had murdered Mendoza, a captain, dis patched by Cortez on a voyage of discovery; the Gulf of California, or Sea of Cortez, was first entered by Francisco de Ulloa, another captain sent out by Cortez in 1539. The Spaniards subsequently undertook several unsuccessful voyages, but they did not aban don their hopes, and at the close of the 16th century Sebastian Viscaino advanced along the coast of New Albion as far as the Oregon or Columbia River.
Colonization in North America by England commenced in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Sir Humphry Gilbert was the first to attempt it, though he merely took formal possession of Newfoundland, in 1583 ; his half-brother, the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1584, dispatched an expedition which discovered the country then called Virginia, and he made several attempts to colonize it without effect. The colonies of Virginia and New England were respectively planted in 1607 and 1620, under James I., and it is not a little remark able that one hundred and six years elapsed after North America was first visited by Cabot, before a single Englishman had effectually settled in the country.