The story of Columbus inspired the cupidity and territorial ambition of
England, France, Spain, and Italy; and in the year 1497 John Cabot, a
Venetian by birth, but long a resident of Bristol, England, set out
thence across the Atlantic. He was accompanied by his son Sebastian.
On the 24th of June he came in sight of Newfoundland, and then of Nova
Scotia; then he sailed southward and reached Florida. As this was a year
before the third voyage of Columbus, in which he saw the coast of the
mainland, to John Cabot belongs the honor of having landed upon the
American continent before Columbus.

[Sidenote: Amerigo Vespucci.]

Voyages to the new land now followed each other in quick succession
for many years. It was in 1499 that the accomplished but unscrupulous
Amerigo Vespucci made his first voyage to Hispaniola, following it up by
voyages along the coast of South America. He returned thence to claim,
after the death of Columbus, the honors due to the great Genoese.

[Sidenote: Verrazzani.]

Portugal and France, jealous of the success of the Spanish and English
expeditions, lost no time in entering into this perilous and brilliant
competition for maritime honor and western possession. Portugal sent out
Cortereal, and France Verrazzani. The former skirted the coast for six
hundred miles, kidnapping Indians, and spending some time at Labrador,
where he came to his death. Verrazzani, in 1524, sailed for the Western
Continent in the _Dolphin_, ranged along the coast of North Carolina,
and so northward until he espied the beautiful harbor of New York, and
anchored for a brief rest in that of Newport. Verrazzani returned to
France with glowing accounts of the beauty, fertility, and noble harbors