of a similar structure, undoubtedly much older. The place is still known as "the old fort," and formerly had in the neighborhood the name of "the pirate fort." The late Hon. T. C. Haliburton stated to his son that it was the fixed tradition of the Micmacs that these works were constructed by a people who had been there before the French. This is confirmed by the fact that about fifty years ago some persons in pursuit of money, digging at one angle, unearthed a small cannon made as the early ones were, of bars of wrought iron bound together by iron hoops or bands. As guns of this kind were not used later than the sixteenth century it indicates the establishment here of Europeans long before the date of any French settlement. And as the Portuguese had at this period commenced a settlement in Cape Breton, as attested by their own and French writers, while history makes no mention of any attempt of the kind by any other nation, we think that the finding of this cannon, together with the agreement of the situation with the description given by De Lonza of the locality, conclusively shows that this was the site of their settlement, the first attempt by Europeans at colonization in the northern parts of the American continent.

Do

What became of this settlement? About this little is known. Canto tells us, and refers to the Lisbon Geographical Society as his authority, that the heirs of Fagundez sold out all their rights to the English; and Mr. R. G. Haliburton was informed by a gentleman in Vianna that the tradition in that town was to the same effect, the settlers being dissatisfied with the country in consequence of the cold. This seems to be confirmed by the manner in which the Portuguese received Sir Humphrey Gilbert on his arrival in Newfoundland in 1583. He came under a commission from Queen Elizabeth to take possession of the country in her name, which he did at St. John on the 5th August. On that occasion there were in the harbor vessels belonging to different nations, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English. But singular to say the historian has to praise "the Portugal fishermen for their kindness above those of other nations." They presented him with "wines, marmalades, most fine ruske and bisket, sweat oyles, and sundry delicacies." Again, on leaving he says, "they put aboorde our provision, which was wines, bread or ruske, fish wette and drie, sweete oyles, beside many other, as marmalades, figs, lymmons barrelled and such like. Also wee had other necessary provisions for trimming our shippes, nettes, and lines to fish withal, boates or pinnesses fit for discoveries. In brief wee were supplied of our wants commodiously, as if we had been in a countrey or some citie populous and plenty of all things."

Until this time the Portuguese had claimed the sovereignty of these regions. In 1538 Manuel Cortereal was appointed governor in succession to his father, and his authority was confirmed by King Sebastian on the 12th July, 1570. But he had died and was succeeded by his son Vasqueanes, the fourth of the name, who, on the 26th May, 1579, was confirmed by the king as governor of Terra Nova. This was the year previous to the annexation of Portugal to Spain. Even after that event the office was still claimed as hereditary in the family, so that when Vasqueanes died it was claimed as having passed to his widow, Marguerite Cortereal. When an agent of the British government comes to take possession of the land and inaugurates the new authority by solemn public ceremonies the Portuguese give him a royal welcome. This can be explained only on the supposition that arrangements had been made for the transfer of their claims. Their power may have been for some time nominal, but still it was such as family pride and national honor alike would make them unwilling to relinquish, particularly in favor of a nation from whom they had hitherto been so separated in race and religion. Probably their relation at this time to the Spaniards as their conquerors, and the known feelings of the English toward that people, may have rendered them willing to concur as they actually do in a rival's taking possession of the rights granted to both Fagundez and the Cortereals.

The result of our whole investigation is to show that the Portuguese occupied a foremost place in the exploration of this part of the continent; that for a long period they exercised a commanding influence along its shores and derived from its waters if not also from the land an important addition to their national wealth; and that they were even the first Europeans to attempt colonization on our shores, and for a time seemed likely to rule the destiny of these lands.

Portuguese influence in this quarter has passed away as an exhalation of the night, the first and great reason being what they call "the sixty years' captivity" (1580–1640), when they were subject to Spain. By this their genius was repressed, their maritime power destroyed, and their energies paralyzed. During the same period England and France entered on their career of colonization in America, and when Portugal recovered her independence the field was occupied, and she was in no condition to reclaim her position against such powerful competitors. Thus her people disappeared, and a few names are all that remain to tell of their former presence.

Georgs Pattersons

THE FIRST AMERICAN SHIP

The tablet erected by the Holland Society of New York in September, 1890, at numbers 41 to 45 Broadway, New York city, bears an inscription to the effect that the Restless, launched at Manhattan Island in the spring of 1614, was the first vessel built by Europeans in this country.* statement as it stands is somewhat misleading.

This

In 1607 a pinnace called the Virginia which crossed the Atlantic several times was built by the adventurers under Popham and Gilbert, at Sagadahoc.t

In 1611 a pinnace of some eighty tons called the Deliverance, and another of twenty-nine foot keel measure called the Patience, were built at Bermuda by the Virginia colonists to take the place of the Sea Venture, the account of whose wreck is supposed to have suggested to Shakespeare the plot of "The Tempest."+

In 1594 a small bark of some eighteen tons was built at Bermuda by the crew of a French vessel commanded by M. de la Barbotière, which had been wrecked on the islands in December, 1593.8

In 1526 a small vessel called a gavarra was built by Ayllin's company to replace the loss of a brigantine with which he had sailed from Puerta de la Plata in June. The place of building this vessel was the mouth of

* One cold night in November, 1613, the Tiger, a Dutch vessel under the command of Captain Adriaen Block, took fire at its anchorage just off the southern point of Manhattan island, and the officers and crew escaped with much difficulty to the shore. The vessel burned to the water's edge, and as there was no other ship in the harbor the unfortunate seamen had no alternative but to make friends with the Indians and provide such habitations, probably of the wigwam family, as would protect them from the storms and cold of an American winter. Captain Block was a plain man of no inconsiderable tact and capacity, who had left the profession of the law to study the science of navigation, in which he had become an expert; and with the slender materials at command in such a desolate wilderness he constructed, during the lonely winter days, a small yacht of sixteen tons burden, which was named the Restless. When this craft was found seaworthy, in the spring of 1614, it was launched off the southeasterly shore of Manhattan island, and Block with his heroic crew sailed in it to explore the tidal channels to the northeast, where no large ship had yet ventured, passing the islands in the East river and the foaming strait called Hell Gate, and then were charmed to find themselves in a "beautiful inland sea," now called Long Island sound. The Restless was the first vessel, as far as known, to glide over these blue waters.-EDITOR. Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xviii.; Winsor's History, iii., p. 177.

49, 50

Swackey's Narrative, Jourdan's Narrative, and Lefroy's Memorials of the Bermudas, pp.

§ Henry May's Narrative, Lefroy's Bermudas, p. 7.

the "Jordan," in latitude 33° 40', and in the vicinity of the present site of Georgetown, South Carolina. This same company proceeded northward to the Chesapeake, and according to John Gilman Shea began the settlement of San Miguel at the place where, eighty years later, the Virginia colonists founded Jamestown.*

It is almost certain that the Spaniards built many other vessels in America in the period of more than a century before the Dutch settlement at New York, during which they maintained a prosperous system of colonies in America.

The New York tablet might be modified in either of two ways. It might bear witness to the fact that it marks the spot where was built the first vessel in this country by Dutch navigators, or that the Restless was the first ship built by Europeans on the coast between Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras. The phrase "this country " will inevitably be interpreted to mean America, or North America, at the very least, and will thus perpetuate a mistaken apprehension of historical fact.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D. C.

G

BrownGoods

*Shea's Ancient Florida, in Winsor, ii., p. 241.

SOME CALIFORNIA DOCUMENTS

No race of people preserve letters and documents of every sort with more scrupulous care than the Spaniards. Even the poorest and most broken-down descendant of the proud native California families of the last century has possession of materials that will be of much value to the future historian. The remarkable collections of family papers accumulated by Mr. Hubert Howe Bancroft were possible in few other countries except California. Having passed the period of great collections, though more is left than most people imagine, we are now entering upon a period when the publication of neglected materials will add many interesting details to the larger outlines that have already been completed by the specialists.

I have lately spent some months in looking over papers that were in the possession of General Manuel Castro, whose portrait appears in the January Century. The general is an old man, of extremely dignified, even grand, personal appearance. He is in reduced circumstances like many of his class, having lost all his lands after being involved in endless litigations and visionary schemes of almost every description. He always has a story for every occasion, and if California history were to be written in accordance with the magnificent results of his picturesque imagination it would out-Mexico all the stories of New Spain. It has always seemed to me that at least three or four mute, inglorious romances of a high order were buried by lack of education and opportunity in this group of SpanishCalifornian leaders of the period between 1830 and 1848. They mingle the most impossible narratives, full of subtle literary effects, with the everyday events of the time. The California of their youth looms up as strange and full of legends as some floating island of the seas in the veracious chronicles of mediæval navigators who wrote on their maps, “Hereabouts there be Mermayds."

But every one of the interesting group of which old General Manuel Castro is a type reverences the written paper; the smallest scrap of correspondence is scrupulously kept and either accompanies his wanderings or is concealed in some secure hiding-place. Some of the Spanish pioneers think there is money in their documentas, and they always need money badly; others seem to hold these things in almost superstitious reverence, as all that is left to them of the ancient splendors of their fallen familythe casual memoranda of league-wide estates, long ago passed from their