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Page 22
That the French and especially the Normands had soon afterwards
resorted to Newfoundland for the purpose of taking fish, and were
actually so engaged there at the time of the Verrazzano voyage, is
evident from the letter of John Rut, who commanded one of the ships
sent out on a voyage of discovery by Henry VIII of England in 1527.
That voyager states that, driven from the north by the ice, he
arrived at St. Johns in Newfoundland on the third of August in that
year, and found there eleven Normand, one Breton and two Portuguese
vessels, "all a fishing." [Footnote: Purchas, III, 809. Memoir of
Sebastian Cabot, pp. 108, 268, and the authorities there cited.]
This was at a single point on the coast, and in latitude 47 Degrees
30' N.; and so large a number of vessels there denotes a growth of
many years, at that time, of those fisheries.
These facts not only prove that Newfoundland and Cape Breton were
well known in France and Portugal before the Verrazzano voyage and
therefore that he did not discover them, but that he must have known
of them before, and that the letter is intentionally false in that
respect. It might perhaps be insisted with some plausibility under
other circumstances, that he ran along the coast, believing that it
was a new land, and therefore made the representation of having
discovered it in good faith. But admitting that it was even possible
for him to have sailed along those shores without encountering a
single fishing craft which would have assured him that he was not in
unknown waters, it is impossible that he could have sailed from
Dieppe and returned to that port where, of all the places in France
or Europe, the knowledge of these facts most existed, and where they
were as familiar as household words, and where they must have
entered into the thoughts and hopes of many of its inhabitants,
without their being known to him; and that he could have written the
letter from that same port, claiming the discovery of the country
for himself, without intending a fraud. It was the port to which
Aubert belonged and where he landed the Indians he brought from
Newfoundland. It was the principal port of Normandy from which the
fishing vessels made their annual voyages to that country. It was
the port from whence he manned and equipped his own fleet of four
ships, with crews which must have been largely composed of Normand
sailors who were familiar with the navigation and the coast. And
there was not a citizen of Dieppe, probably, who had not an interest
of some nature in one or more of the fishing vessels, and could have
told him what country it was that he had explored.
It bears unequivocal testimony to the fictitious character of this
claim, that Ramusio thought it necessary to interpolate in his
version a passage representing the discovery of Verrazzano as
terminating where the discoveries of the Bretons began, and to omit
the cosmography which states it was at the point where those of the
Portuguese towards the Arctic circle commenced. By this alteration
the letter is made to acknowledge the prior discoveries by the
Bretons, which are entirely excluded in the original version, and to
adopt the latitude of 50 Degrees N. for the Verrazzano limit thus
making the false statement, as to the extent of the discovery, a
mistake as it were of nautical observation. The following parallel
passages in two versions will best explain the character and effect
of the alteration.
VERSION OF CARLI,
Narrative.
Navicando infra 'l subsolano ed
aquilone in spatio di leghe CL et
de gia avendo consumato tutte le
nostre substantie navale et vettovaglie,
avendo discopruto leghe DII
cive leghe 700, piu do nuova terra
fornendoci di acque et legne
deliberammo di tornare in Francia.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Cosmography.
In questa nostra navigatione
fatta per ordine du V. S. M.,
oltre i gradi 92 che dal detto
meridiano verso lo occidente della
prima terra trovamo gradi 34
navigando leghe 300 infra oriente
e settentrione leghe 400, quasi allo
oriente continuo el lito della terra
siamo pervenuti per infino a gradi
50, lasciando la terra che piu
tempe fa trovorno li Lusitani,
quali seguirno piu al septentrione,
pervenendo sino al circulo
artico e'l fine lasciendo incognito.
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