and bay were objects of actual observation, and are therefore to be
regarded as they are described. After leaving Long Island, which
forms the coast in an easterly direction for a little over an
hundred miles from the Hudson, only three islands occur, except some
insignificant ones and the group of the Elizabeth islands all near
the shore, in the entire distance to the easterly shore of Cape Cod,
when the coast turns directly north. They are all three somewhat of
a triangular shape, and in that respect are equally entitled to
consideration in connection with the description of the island of
Louise, but are all incompatible with it in other particulars.
Louise is represented as being a very large island, equal in size to
the famous island of Rhodes, which has an area of four hundred
square miles, and as being situated ten leagues distant from the
main land. The first of the three islands met with, eastward of Long
Island, is Block island. It contains less than twenty square miles
of territory and lies only three leagues from the land; and thus
both by its smallness and position cannot be taken as the island of
Louise. It has, however, been so regarded by some writers, because
on the main land, about five leagues distant, are found Narraganset
bay and the harbor of Newport, which, it is imagined, bear some
resemblance to the bay and harbor which the explorers entered
fifteen leagues beyond the island of Louise, and which cannot be
elsewhere found.

But Narraganset bay does not correspond in any particular with the
bay described in the letter, except as to its southern exposure and
its latitude, and as to them it has no more claim to consideration
than Buzzard's bay, three leagues further east, and in other
respects not so much. Newport harbor, several miles inside of
Narraganset bay, faces the north and west, and not the south. The