regard to its authenticity at this late day, has, however, been due
more to the peculiar circumstances of its publication than to any
evidence of its truth. The only account of it which exists, is
contained in a letter purporting to have been written by the
discoverer himself, and is not corroborated by the testimony of any
other person, or sustained by any documentary proof. It was not
published to the world until it appeared for the first time in
Italy, the birth place of the navigator, more than thirty years
after the transactions to which it relates are alleged to have taken
place; and it has not, up to the present time, received any
confirmation in the history of France, whose sovereign, it is
asserted, sent forth the expedition, and to whose crown the right of
the discovery accordingly attached. Yet it is not difficult to
comprehend how the story, appealing to the patriotic sympathies of
Ramusio, was inconsiderately adopted by him, and inserted in his
famous collection of voyages, and thus receiving his sanction, was
not unwillingly accepted, upon his authority, by the French nation,
whose glory it advanced, without possibly its having any real
foundation. And as there never was any colonization or attempt at
possession of the country in consequence of the alleged discovery,
or any assertion of title under it, except in a single instance of a
comparatively modern date, and with no important hearing, it is no
less easy to understand, how thus adopted and promulgated by the
only countries interested in the question, the claim was admitted by
other nations without challenge or dispute, and has thus become
incorporated into modern history without investigation.

Although the claim has never been regarded of any practical
importance in the settlement of the country, it has nevertheless
possessed an historical and geographical interest in connection with