the reprint in the latter work.]

In the name of God.

4 August, 1524.

Honorable Father:

Considering that when I was in the armada in Barbary at Garbich the
news were advised you daily from the illustrious Sig. Don Hugo de
Moncada, Captain General of the Caesarean Majesty in those barbarous
parts, [of what] happened in contending with the Moors of that
island; by which it appears you caused pleasure to many of our
patrons and friends and congratulated yourselves on the victory
achieved: so there being here news recently of the arrival of
Captain Giovanni da Verrazzano, our Florentine, at the port of
Dieppe, in Normandy, with his ship, the Dauphiny, with which he
sailed from the Canary islands the end of last January, to go in
search of new lands for this most serene crown of France, in which
he displayed very noble and great courage in undertaking such an
unknown voyage with only one ship, which was a caravel of hardly--
tons, with only fifty men, with the intention, if possible, of
discovering Cathay, taking a course through other climates than
those the Portuguese use in reaching it by the way of Calicut, but
going towards the northwest and north, entirely believing that,
although Ptolemy, Aristotle and other cosmographers affirm that no
land is to be found towards such climates, he would find it there
nevertheless. And so God has vouchsafed him as he distinctly
describes in a letter of his to this S. M.; OF WHICH, IN THIS, THERE
IS A COPY. And for want of provisions, after many months spent in