mbus'
property.

CHAPTER VI.

PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS WAS ROBBED OF THE HONOUR OF GIVING HIS NAME TO
AMERICA.

I have told you that Columbus, as soon as he arrived at Hispaniola,
after discovering the new continent, sent a ship to Spain with a journal
of the voyage he had made, and a description of the new continent which
he had discovered, together with a chart of the coast of Paria and
Cumana, along which he had sailed.

This journal, with the charts and description, and Columbus' letters on
the subject, were placed in the custody of Fonseca, he being minister
for Indian affairs.

No sooner had the particulars of this discovery been communicated by
Columbus, than a separate commission of discovery, signed by Fonseca,
but not by the sovereigns, was granted to Alonzo de Ojeda, who had
accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, and whom Columbus had
instructed in all his plans. Ojeda was accompanied on this voyage by a
Florentine, whose name was Amerigo Vespucci.

To these adventurers Fonseca communicated Columbus' journal, his
description of the country, his charts, and all his private letters.

This expedition sailed from Spain while Columbus was still at
Hispaniola, and wholly ignorant of what was taking place; and Ojeda,
without touching at the colony, steered his course direct for Paria,
following the very track which Columbus had marked out.

Having extended their discoveries very little farther than Columbus had
gone before them, Vespucci, on returning to Spain, published an account
of his adventures and discoveries, and had the address and confidence
so to frame his narrative, as to make it appear that the glory of having
discovered the new continent belonged to him.

Thus the bold pretensions of an impostor have robbed the discoverer of
his just reward, and the caprice of fame has unjustly assigned to him an
honour far above the renown of the greatest conquerors--that of
indelibly impressing his name upon this vast portion of the earth, which
ought in justice to have been called Columbia.

Two years had now been spent in soliciting the favour of an ungrateful
court, and notwithstanding all his merits and services, he solicited in
vain; but even this ungracious return did not lessen his ardour in his
favourite pursuits, and his anxiety to pursue those discoveries in which
he felt he had yet only made a beginning.

Ferdinand at last consented to grant him four small vessels, the largest
of