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Updated: June 8, 2025
The Judge knew something of wines, and could tell all the famous old Madeiras from each other, "Eclipse," "Juno," the almost fabulously scarce and precious "White-top," and the rest. He struck the nativity of the Mediterranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened his lip. "A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think of a genuine vintage. Your very good health."
The latest and most accurate map, marking the Portuguese discoveries, would really have been helpful to any one who had not the "Go West" idea so firmly fixed in his mind; but in that one direction it marked no routes farther than the Madeiras and the Azores. All beyond these islands was wholly imagination. It was the same with the sea-charts; no soundings or currents were marked.
Long before this time the good Prince Henry had died; and though he did not live to learn of this sea route to India, he died knowing that the Madeiras and the Azores existed out in the open sea, while Africa stretched far south of the Equator.
They were now gotten a long way to the southward and being greatly disappointed, and in want of water as well as wine, they resolved to stand away for the Madeiras, which they knew were not far off; so they accordingly made the island in two days more, and keeping a large offing, they cruised for three or four days more, expecting to meet with some Portuguese vessel going in or coming out.
She home, and I to Sir G. Carteret's about business, and so home too, and Sarah having her fit we went to bed. 24th. Early Sir G. Carteret, both Sir Williams and I on board the Experiment, to dispatch her away, she being to carry things to the Madeiras with the East Indy fleet.
It is very little farther from North Wales to some parts of America, than to the Madeiras; and, upon the whole, it is more secure to sail in an open Sea, than among Shelves and Shoals on an unknown Coast.
Maloes; but being forced into Lisbon in bad weather, the ship received some damage by running aground in the mouth of the river Tagus, and was obliged to unload her cargo there: that finding a Portuguese ship there, bound to the Madeiras, and ready to sail, and supposing he should easily meet with a vessel there bound to Martinico, he went on board in order to sail to the Madeiras; but the master of the Portuguese ship being but an indifferent mariner, had been out in his reckoning, and they drove to Fyal; where, however, he happened to find a very good market for his cargo, which was corn, and therefore resolved not to go to the Madeiras, but to load salt at the isle of May, to go away to Newfoundland.
Malos, he was forced into Lisbon by bad weather, the vessel running aground in the mouth of the Tagus; that from thence he went on board a Portuguese ship, bound to the Madeiras, whose master being but an indifferent mariner, and out of his reckoning, they were drove to Fial, where selling their commodity, which was corn, they resolved to take in their loading at the Isle of May, and to sail to Newfoundland; at the banks of which, meeting a French ship bound to Quebec, in the river of Canada, and from thence to Martinico, in this ship he embarked; the master of which dying at Quebec, that voyage was suspended; and lastly, shipping himself for France, this last ship was destroyed by fire, as before has been related.
It is undoubted that the Canary Islands were never really altogether forgotten, and the same is probably true of the Madeiras and all three groups of Azores, though the knowledge that lingered in Ireland was a distorted glimmering tradition of old voyages, occasionally inciting to new ventures in the same field.
Beyond her were the sands of the bar and the Atlantic Ocean stretching unbroken to the Madeiras and a flawless sky against which the gulls dipped and screamed. She was straight and vivid, and his pulses quickened, taking fire. Sun, air and water; sparkle, radiance and color these things were about him filling his senses with delight and she seemed to epitomize them all in a personal incarnation.
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