or other benefactors of mankind, receive their proper meed of praise in their own times. Envy, jealousy, and honest rivalry, all interfere to stop the current of honest fame; but there is a redeeming spirit in mankind, that sooner or later shows itself, and turns and overturns public opinion, until all things, in a measure, come right. Columbus, in the end, lost nothing of his fame; but has had, and ever will have, his just share of glory.

But neither Columbus, nor Vespucci, nor Ojeda had in truth, and fact, the honor of discovering this continent. John Cabot, a Venetian, who had often been in England and was well known in that country as a pilot, as he was then called, meaning a distinguished mariner and navigator, made a proposition to Henry VII to make an exploring expedition, and take a more northern course in order to find the way to India. These proposals were acceded to by the king, who with the aid of several merchants of Bristol, fitted out an expedition for discovery. The letters patent were signed 1497, by Henry VII, empowering Cabot and his three sons to discover, conquer and settle lands then unknown; yet it was nearly two years before their small vessels could be got ready for the enterprize. The king furnished one ship and he merchants three, and the fleet sailed in the spring of 1499. In July the island of Newfoundland was discovered. The great navigator then coasted down to Florida. He was truly the discoverer of this continent, for he anticipated Columbus the space of several days..

Sebastian Cabot, son of John, was born in Bristol, England, and of course was attached to the land of his birth.

He was young when he accompanied his father

on his first voyage. In the eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII, Sebastian Cabot was sent out again on a voyage of discovery, but from some disaffection he returned, and left the service of England and went to Spain. By this time all maritime nations, feeling not a little jealous of each other, were ready to employ any great navigator who might offer his services, Spain made him up a fine fleet, and he pushed for South America, and made some advances towards a settlement. This was in 1525. He had spent twenty years on shore, previous to his last voyage from England. He had high Spanish titles, but as every seaman is somewhat restless, if not exactly capricious, he soon after his return left Spain for England. This was at the close of the reign of Henry VIII; but notwithstanding he had been in the service of foreign powers, he was cordially received in England-retained his hold on public opinion and died in quiet, at the good old age of eighty years, highly honored and respected.

In 1500, Cabral, à Portuguese, in wending his way to the East Indies, fearing the dangers of the African coast, swept off into the expanse of the Atlantic, and was by force of a storm driven on to the South American coast. He took possession of that part of the continent in the name of the Portuguese government, and called the place Brazil. This name the country has retained until this day. Thus most of the maritime countries of that day had some claim to the discovery of the new world. The pope had encouraged the voyages of discovery from Prince Henry of Portugal, and the see of Rome holds some ecclesiastical jurisdiction over every part of it now.

It has been regretted by many historians that Co

lumbus had not, through the intervention of his brother, succeeded with Henry VII in getting up a voyage of discovery; as if that would have changed the destinies of this continent. For my own part, I can say that I have no such feelings. England at that period had no surplus population for colonies; nor had man become sufficiently enlightened to have commenced a new population that would have done much honor to the human race. The impulse given to the world by Luther and Calvin, and other reformers, and the freedom of thinking consequent on that impulse, were necessary in planting a nursery of freemen. All the South American colonists brought with them the superstitions of their native land: nor for ages was there the slightest amelioration of it. If the settlers of North America had not improved on the scanty doctrines of civil liberty which were known and practised upon in the days of Henry VII, we should not now have been in the possession of all our free institutions, which we so greatly enjoy. In fact, the finger of heaven directed the hour, more than a hundred years after this period, for the settlement of North America. The germ of civil liberty was swelling and bursting into life at that period of her settlement, not only in England, but also in Holland, and all those countries that furnished colonists for the new region. The Waldenses and the Hugonots, who came next after the very first settlers, were those, or a remnant of those oppressed at home. They made good recruits for the new field of thought, action, intention, and purpose. The new doctrines of the rights of man found here a congenial soil; the bosom of the new earth cherished them, and the sun of the new heavens beamed upon

them his fructifying ray. From a seedling, the tree of liberty became a mighty oak, under whose shade nations were to repose; whose leaves were to emit the vital air, to be breathed by all, and from whose boughs were to drop the germinating principles of freedom that were one day to be planted in other soils.

The superb character of Columbus, full of genius, science, patience, piety, and all that honor the man and adorn the Christian, should never be lost sight of by the American people. They should raise his monument, and read his history.

The Florentine should also be a subject of our admiration; he was a high-spirited and intelligent character, and did nothing unfair or unjust. If he was destined to give a name to our birth-place, it was no fault of his. Spain kept the voyages of Columbus a secret in their details for many years, but the Florentines wished all things to be open and free as air. The Venetians, father and son, under the auspices of England, gave all their discoveries to the world most freely. These navigators broke the egg and set it on end; they plucked from the expanse of the ocean its terrors, which arose from distance, uncertainty, storms, currents, trade winds, and unaccountable tides, and made it, vast as it was, as harmless as the smooth waters of a placid lake. The mind of man had now a wider range; he did not feel as though pent up in the narrow confines of one world, but threw his glance to another, and indulged in visions of new glories which might result from enterprize.

The century that passed after the discovery of this continent, before the settlement of that part of it now called the United States, was fraught with the deepest

interests, as to South America. Ferdinand Cortes had sailed from Cuba in February, 1519, with an army of only five hundred and eight common soldiers, sixteen horsemen, and one hundred and nine mechanics, pilots, and mariners, to conquer the great kingdom of Mexico. Of all the stories of romance the history of Cortes is the most wonderful. With this handful of heroes, he marched to Cholula, fought, and conquered myriads of Flascalons, and made them vassals to his master, the king of Spain; and bade them follow him to assist, as they did, in subjugating the Mexicans. The conquest of Montezuma, and his dominion over the high-spirited monarch, is a tale of wonder on a tide of blood. The history of Gautimozin is, in the moral world, what Ossa upon Pelion was in the fabled world; it was an effort never before equalled, nor, perhaps, ever will be again. The royal standard of Mexico fell into the hands of Cortes, and he arrayed one party of those ignorant natives to destroy another. Cortes left Mexico "the skin of an immolated victim," and his name to be associated with rapine and cruelty; but if you could wash him of the stains of unnecessary blood, he would be unrivalled for military prowess in the annals of his time.

In twenty-two years after the conquest of Mexico, Pizarro conquered the Peruvian empire. The Incas had been a race of men distinguished for ages. From the time of Pizarro, until the last of the exiled Incas, a term of twenty-five years, there is nothing but perfidy and murder on the side of the Spaniards, and generous and high feeling confidence on the part of the sovereigns of Peru. "The exiled Incas preferred the scanty bread found in the wilds of the Andes to the pro-.