345
APPENDIX.
distinguished countryman.
This zeal is laudable when kept within proper
limits ; but it is to be regretted that some of them have so far been heated by controversy as to become irascible against the very memory of Colum足 bus, and to seek to disparage his general fame, as if the ruin of it would add any thing to the reputation of Vespucci.
This is discreditable to
their discernment and their liberality ; it injures their cause, and shocks the feelings of mankind, who will not willingly see a name like that of Columbus, lightly or petulantly assailed in the course of these literary contests.
It is a name consecrated in history, and is no longer the
property of a city, or a state, or a nation, but of the whole world. Neither should those who have a proper sense of the merit of Columbus put
any part of his great renown at issue upon this minor dispute.
Whether or not he was the discoverer of Paria, was a question of interest to his heirs, as a share of the government and revenues of that country depended upon it ; but it is of no importance to his fame.
In fact, the
European who first reached the main-land of the N e w W o r l d was most probably Sebastian Cabot, a native of Venice, sailing in the employ of England.
In 1497 he coasted its shores from Labrador to Florida ; yet
the English have never set up any pretensions on his account. The glory of Columbus does not depend upon the parts of the country he visited or the extent of coast along which he sailed, it embraces the discovery of the whole western world.
W i t h respect to him, Vespucci is
as Yafiez Pinzon, Bastides, Ojeda, Cabot, and the crowd of secondary discoverers, who followed in his track, and explored the realms to which he had led the way.
W h e n Columbus first touched a shore of the N e w
World, even though a frontier island, he had achieved his enterprises ; he had accomplished all that was necessary to his fame : the great problem of the ocean was solved ; the world which lay beyond its western waters was discovered.
No. X L MARTIN
ALONZO
PINZON.
I N the course ol the trial in the fiscal court, between D o n Diego and the crown, an attempt was made to depreciate the merit of Columbus, and to ascribe the success of the great enterprise of discovery to the intelligence