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The Valley of the La Plata River, 358. Guiana, 363. The Revolution in the North-

west, 366. Peru and Chile, 367.

'ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of the La Plata Country, 359; Plan of Auchmuty's Attack on

Montevideo, 361; Sir Samuel Auchmuty, 362; Map of the Island of Cayenne,

364; Plan of the Town of Cayenne, 365; Father Toribio, 368.

THE HISTORICAL CHOROGRAPHY OF SOUTH AMERICA. The Editor

369

ILLUSTRATIONS: Sketch Map of South America, 370; Monte Pascoal, 371; Map of

the Brazil Coast (1504) by Lorenz Friess, 373; View of Cape Frio, 376; Schö-

ner's Globe-map (1515) of South America, compared with the actual outline,

378; Sixteenth-century Gore-map, 379; An Antwerp Ship, 381; Bordone's

Northern Coast of South America (1521), 382; Pigafetta's Magellan's Straits,

383; Recent Survey of the Straits, 383; Cabot's South America (1544), 385;

Ribero's Magellan's Straits (1529), 386; Martines' Brazil (1578), 386; Finæus'

Southern Hemisphere (1531), 387; Schöner's Southern Hemisphere (1533), 388;

French Map of South America (1540?), 389; South America by Joannes à Doete-

chum (1585), 390; De Léry's View of the Brazil Coast, 392; Juan Freire's Map of.

South America (1546), 393; Nicolas Vallard's Map (1547) of Magellan's Straits,

394; Medina's America (1549), 395; The Carta Marina of the Ptolemy of 1548,

396; Bellero's America (1554), 397; Homem's Valley of the Amazon (1558), 398;

Gutierrez's South America (1562), 399; Forlani's South America (1570?), 400;

View of Du Noort's Fleet at Rotterdam (1598), 401; Brazil in Wolfe's Linscho-

ten (1598), 401; Oliverius a Nort, 402; Bay of Rio Janeiro (1599), 402; View of

São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro (1722), 403; Map of the West Indies and Peru

in Wolfe's Linschoten (1598), 404; Patagonia (1599), 405; Magellan's Straits and

adjacent lands in Wolfe's Linschoten (1598), 406; Map of Brazil in Hulsius'

Schmidel (1599), 408; Frontispiece of Hulsius' Schmidel, 409; Schouten's Track

round Cape Horn, 410; Bougainville's Map of Magellan's Straits (1766), 411.

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HISTORY OF AMERICA

CHAPTER I.

THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY.1

BY GEORGE E. ELLIS, D. D., LL. D.,

President Massachusetts Historical Society.

HE most lavish liberality or generosity exhibited in this world of men is shown in the bestowal of a gift which does not belong to the donor of it. In such cases there is generally a very slight knowledge, if not an absolute ignorance, of the quality and value of the gift; so the terms of it are likely to be not only very general but very loose and vague. Indeed, part of the charm of such a gift will consist in the undefined possibilities, the imagined revelations, which may go with it. The burdens and responsibilities attending the acceptance of it, and the trespasses upon the rights of others, the injuries likely to be inflicted upon them, and the struggles, animosities, and controversies, with the risk of final discomfiture, in the maintenance of such a possession, are either not taken into account, or are winked out of sight.

These familiar truths were signally illustrated, on a very grand scale too, in the gifts made by ecclesiastics and monarchs of the old world of expanses of territory on this western hemisphere, when opened by the early navigators. Under the latest advances of astronomical science, spaces in the moon might now be almost as definitely assigned to claimants for them as were the regions of this new world. Before it was known whether what had been discovered here were an island, an archipelago, or a continent, it was made over in a lump by the Pope to the monarchs of Spain. It was under the famous Bull of Demarcation that Spain was shortly after, by a convention with Portugal, forced to divide to a small extent with that power. Notwithstanding such papal partiality,2 Francis of France soon claimed his

1

[Dr. Ellis has given a summary of this chapter in the Bulletin of the Amer. Geog. Soc., 1886, No. 2, pp. 127-136. — ED.] [See Vol. II. ED.]

2

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share in the real estate left by Adam. Then the Henrys and the Charleses. of England announced themselves also as heirs. These rival sovereigns all wore the complimentary title of "Christian princes." As such they could take rightful possession of all heathendom, of territory or of

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people. The sighting of a space of ocean shore by their respective navigators gave a title to the utmost reaches of land bounding upon it. The gifts bestowed were of princely largeness. Of course the boundaries of

[NOTE. The opposite map is from the Zwölffte Schiffahrt of the Hulsius Sammlung (Oppenheim, 1614), being Hessel Gerritsz's Kurtze Beschreibung der Newen Schiffahrt gegen Nord-osten über die Americanische inseln, etc., in Hochteutscher Sprach beschrieben durch M. Gothardam Arthusen.

The above cut is a fac-simile of a map in Drage's Account of a Voyage (London, 1849), vol. ii. — ED.]

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