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SELECT MEMOIRS.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

THE claims of Columbus to the discovery of the fourth quarter of the globe, though so long and almost universally acknowledged, are powerfully controverted in the Biographical Dictionary by Dr. Chalmers, in favour of Martin Behem, a native of Nuremberg. And certain it is, that the public records of Nuremberg state the fact of the discovery by their towns-man in 1484, which was eight years prior to the expedition of Columbus. Yet every one will admit, that Behem must have been gifted with either taciturnity or modesty to an extraordinary degree, if, having made such a discovery, he allowed the knowledge of it to slumber during those eight years; which, allowing the justice of his claims, he must be supposed to have done, since neither Columbus, the court of Spain, nor Europe in general, appear to have had any information of the wonderful event. We are therefore content to take the opinion of the world at large upon the point; conceiving as we do besides, that

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the facts detailed in the following narrative contain much inherent testimony to their truth.

Christopher Columbus was born in the year 1442. Though nothing is certainly known with regard to his connections, it is generally believed that his family were in indigent circumstances, and that his father was a wool-comber. After applying himself in his boyhood to the study of geography and astronomy at Pavia, he entered upon the sea-faring profession at the age of fourteen, and made his first voyage in the Mediterranean. Nothing remarkable occurred for the six years following: but, at twenty, he undertook a voyage to the northern seas, and displayed his enterprising spirit by penetrating the Arctic ocean to the distance of many degrees beyond what had been attempted by any previous navigator. Soon after his return, he entered into the service of a famous sea-captain of his own name and family, who at that time commanded a squadron against the Turks and Venetians; and at this period he established his character for skill in naval affairs, bravery in action, and coolness and presence of mind in crises of danger. During an engagement which took place near the harbour of Lisbon, the ship in which he served took fire: destruction to all on board appeared inevitable: but Columbus plunged into the sea,

and, partly by swimming, partly by the assistance of an oar which he found within his reach, gained the shore in safety.

Quitting his warlike employments, he now became a resident at Lisbon, and there married the daughter of Bartholomew Perestrello, a young lady of good fortune. At this period the Portuguese were anxious to establish a regular communication by sea with the East Indies, in order to avoid their tedious over-land journies with the produce of the Spice Islands; and they proposed to accomplish this object by sailing eastward, after doubling the southern point of the continent of Africa. It occurred to Columbus, from considerations of the spherical shape of the globe, and the vast distance eastward at which those islands are placed, that a course due west would be the nearer of the two; imagining that he could sail in this latter direction in a straight line, whereas no method could be found of obviating the difficulties and delays that must result from the opposite passage round the coast of Africa.

He communicated his ideas on this subject successively to the governments of Portugal, Genoa, Spain, and England; but he had the mortification to find them treated as chimerical by all. At length, however, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain consented to furnish him with

three ships, upon a compact signed between them, by the articles of which he was constituted viceroy of the countries, and admiral of the seas he should discover, and granted an eighth part of the commodities he should bring back with him, in consideration of his paying an eighth of the expence of the equipments. He set sail on Friday the third of August, in the year 1492, a little before sun-set, from the port of Palos, in the presence of a crowd of spectators, who offered up their prayers for the happy issue of the voyage, though they rather wished than dared to hope for his success. The fleet reached the Canaries on the eleventh ; and, after some delay, its voyage of discovery commenced, Columbus then stretching into unknown seas, and leaving the track of all former navigators by shaping his course due

west.

Every method that could be devised to secure a prosperous event to his enterprise, was now adopted, and with matchless constancy persevered in, by Columbus. He regulated every thing by his sole authority; superintended in person the execution of every order; and, devoting a very few hours to repose, was at all other times on deck. The sounding line was continually in his hands; he paid minute attention to the tides and currents; watched the flight

of birds, the appearance of fishes, of sea-weeds, and of every thing that floated on the waves; and still, though so incessantly occupied, found time to make a regular entry of the most apparently trifling occurrences in his journal.

On the twelfth of September, he was one hundred and fifty leagues west of Ferro, and the next day, having run fifty leagues farther, he perceived the needle varying half a point towards the north-east; a discovery which gave him some alarm, and struck terror into the hearts of his sailors. Considering themselves in the midst of a boundless ocean, whose trackless waves no ship had till then traversed, their only friend and guide had seemed the compass, and that appeared as if about to forsake them. Columbus, however, with no less quietness than ingenuity, invented a reason for this appearance, which, though it did not satisfy himself, seemed so plausible to his crew as to dispel their fears.

Numerous were the subsequent apprehensions of the Spaniards, and repeated their manifestations of a mutinous disposition, ere Columbus arrived in sight-not of the Spice Islands to which he had formed an idea of penetrating by a western passage-but of the island by him called St. Salvador, one of the group now generally denominated the West

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