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Page 18
This island is a mere fancy; none such exists any where upon this
coast. The distance which they thus ran easterly, of eighty leagues,
would have carried them more than an hundred miles into the ocean
beyond Cape Cod. That distance, however, may be regarded only as
approximate, because they possessed no means of determining
longitude with accuracy, and therefore this, like all statements in
the letter, of distances running east and west, is to be considered
an estimate only, formed from the circumstances attending the
sailing of the vessel, and liable to serious error. But the island
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
whole length of that bay, including the harbor of Newport from the
ocean to Providence river, is less than five leagues, and its
greatest breadth not more than three. But the harbor described in
the letter first as extending twelve leagues and then enlarging
itself, formed a large bay of twenty leagues in circumference. The
two, it is clear, are essentially unlike. The great rock rising out
of the sea at the entrance of the harbor, has no existence in this
bay or harbor. Narraganset bay, therefore, affords no support to the
idea that Block island, or any other, is the island of Louise.
Martha's Vineyard, the second of the three islands before mentioned,
is the largest of them, but it contains only one hundred and twenty
square miles of land, and is within two leagues of the main land.
Nantucket, the last of the three, is less than half the size of
Martha's Vineyard, and is about thirty miles from Cape Cod, the
nearest part of the continent. From neither of them is any harbor to
be reached corresponding with that mentioned in the letter. It is
incontrovertible, therefore, that there is neither island nor bay on
this coast answering the description. It is not difficult to
perceive that the island of Louise was a mere invention and artifice
on the part of the writer to give consistency to the pretension that
the voyage originated with Francis. This island is the only one of
which particular mention is made in the whole exploration. Yet it
was not visited or seen except, in sailing by it, at a distance. Its
pretended hills and trees disclosed nothing of its character; and,
under such circumstances, its alleged dimensions were all that could
have entitled it to such particular notice and made it worthy of so
exalted a designation; and to those no island on this coast has any
claim.
There is little room to doubt from the description itself, and the
fact will be confirmed by other evidence hereafter, that the bay
intended to be described was the great bay of Massachusetts and
Maine terminating in the bay of Fundy. It is represented as making
an offset in the coast of twelve leagues towards the north, and then
swelling into an enclosed bay beyond, of twenty leagues in
circumference, indicating those bays, in their form. The distances,
it is true, do not conform to those belonging to that part of the
coast; but it is to be borne in mind that they may have been taken,
according to the only view which can reconcile the contradictions of
the letter, from an imperfect delineation of the coast by another
hand. The identity of the two is, however, proven, without recourse
to this explanation, by the description of the coast beyond, which
is given as follows:
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