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The other early voyages of the English to the New World, were all for the purpose of discovering a N.W. passage by sea to India, or for colonizing the provinces of North America, and will fail to be particularly noticed in other divisions of our work. Novus Orbis, p. 111. Vol. I. 262, and Vol. Nov. Orb. 87. Mod. Geogr. Harris, Col. of Voy. and Trav. Harris, Coll. of Voy. and Trav. Id.
To these four letters we have added a short account of several curious circumstances relative to the trade of the Europeans with India at the commencement of the sixteenth century, or three hundred years ago; which, though not very accurately expressed, contains some curious information. Novus Orbis Grynæi, p. 94-102. Bibl. Univ. des Voy. I. 55, and V. 486.
Various early editions of the voyages of this navigator are mentioned in the Bibliotheque Universelle des Voyages , a recent work of much research, published at Paris in 1808. In the titles of these he is named Americo Vespucio, and Alberico Vespucio. In the NOVUS ORBIS of Simon Grynaeus, from which our present article is translated, he is called Americus Vesputius.
Laet, who wrote his Orbis Novus in 1633, and who had some excellent notions respecting these coasts, expressly states, that the lagoon was separated from the sea by an isthmus above the level of high water. In 1726, an impetuous hurricane destroyed the salt-works of Araya, and rendered the fort, the construction of which had cost more than a million of piastres, useless.
'Tis cowardice, not virtue, to lie squat in a furrow, under a tomb, to evade the blows of fortune; virtue never stops nor goes out of her path, for the greatest storm that blows: "Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruinae."
But the same man may, at various periods of his life, and on various days at the same period, be scrupulous and unscrupulous, impractical and practical, as the circumstances of the occasion may affect him. At one moment the rule of simple honesty will prevail with him. "Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinæ."
It has preserved to us the judgment of the men of that time, and there is a certain relative sense in which the maxim, 'Securus judicat orbis terrarum, is true. The decisions of an age, especially decisions such as this where quite as much depended upon pious feeling as upon logical reasoning, are usually sounder than the arguments that are put forward to defend them.
It may be doubted perhaps whether this realism in love and war is quite so sensible as it looks. Securus judicat orbis terrarum; the world is wiser than the moderns. The world has kept sentimentalities simply because they are the most practical things in the world. They alone make men do things.
To the utter astonishment of all the passengers but myself, who knew that he could talk upon any side of a question, he defended the Inquisition, and maintained, that 'false doctrine should be checked on its first appearance; that the civil power should unite with the church in punishing those who dared to attack the established religion, and that such only were punished by the Inquisition. He had in his pocket Pomponius Mela de situ Orbis, in which he read occasionally, and seemed very intent upon ancient geography.
My house will be full; I cannot therefore give you any aid; but I am not sorry for it, for if the arrears were at all reduced, nothing would be done in the appointment of a permanent tribunal, with a proper staff of judges. You must still be Atlas staggering under the weight of your huge Orbis Causarum. Around your feet must be millions of Hindoos, crying aloud for justice.
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