e at last from the east.

About the end of the fifteenth century there was a strong desire among
the maritime nations of Europe to find a short passage to China and the
East Indies. It was for that reason that Columbus set out on his
expedition; but with his story we have nothing to do, for he did not
discover the continent of North America, and in fact never saw it. But
after John Cabot and his son Sebastian, then looking for a passage to
Cathay in the interest of the King of England, made a voyage to North
America, and had contented themselves with discovering Newfoundland,
Sebastian came back again, and accomplished a great deal more. He sailed
along the coast from Labrador to the southern end of Florida, and in the
course of this voyage discovered New Jersey. He made a map of the whole
coast, and claimed all the country back of it for the King of England.

There is no proof that Cabot knew whether this country had inhabitants
or not. He saw it from his ships; but he did not make any attempt to
settle it, and thus establish a legal right to the soil. He simply
declared it the property of the Crown of England, and it is upon this
claim that England afterward based her right to the eastern coast of
North America.

And so New Jersey was discovered from the east.

About a quarter of a century after Sebastian Cabot's voyage, the French
took up the idea that they would like to discover something, and Francis
I. sent an Italian mariner, named John Verrazano, across the Atlantic
Ocean.

After having sailed far enough, John Verrazano discovered the coast of
North America, which he called "a new land never before seen by any man,
ancient or modern." He took possession of it in the name of his king,
and, in order to settle the matter, called the whole coast New France.
There is reason to believe that Verrazano discovered the southern part
of New Jersey, for in sailing northward he probably entered Delaware
Bay.

But it appears that New Jersey was not yet sufficiently discovered, and
after having been left for a long time in the possession of its true
owners, the Lenni-Lenape, it was again visited by Europeans. In 1609 the
celebrated Henry Hudson, then in the service of the Dutch East India
Company, started westward to try to find a northwest passage to China.
In those bygone days, whenever a European explorer set out to find an
easy passage to the East, he was very apt to discover New Jersey; and
this is what happened to