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In 1956 dr. louis andre vigneras published a letter he had found in the archives at Simancas which has greatly affected and will continue to affect consideration of the circumstances of the discovery of America. One passage in it goes beyond the Cabot voyages themselves and raises the question of the priority of the discovery of America in a novel form. Could the discovery have taken place before 1480? Clearly it could have done so, but no evidence whatever of specific English voyages of discovery into the Atlantic before that date has yet come to light. The years between 1483 and 1490 are as blank of even the suggestion of evidence for a voyage as those before 1480, but they are still within the period of discovery appropriate to the Day letter. One of the Spanish representatives in England provides a well-known piece of evidence about English western voyages which reaches back, perhaps, to 1490.

Contents: Preface Introduction Gabriel Archer's account of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold's voyage to 'North Virginia' in 1602 John Brereton: a briefe and true relation...1602 Contemporary correspondence on the 1602 voyage Martin Pring's voyage to 'North Virginia' in 1603 Preludes to the Waymouth voyage of 1605 James Rosier, a true relation, 1605 Abortive North Virginia projects, 1605-1607 The North Virginia voyages under the 1606 Virginia Company charter: general accounts The first expedition to North Virginia under the 1606 charter the fate of the Richard, Henry Challons captain The preliminaries to the 1607 voyage The Davies journal of the 1607 North Virginia voyage Incidental documents on the 1607-1608 voyages Evidence on New England from Indian sources, 1605-1614 Appendices Bibliography Index.

If Champlain has often been called the "Maker" of the New France there is no doubt that Henry IV can be entitled to the name of "Creator." By continuous planning and improvisation during the last thirteen years of his reign, Henry brought what had been an amorphous French claim to a large part of eastern North Am~rica into a substantial presence on the map, even if, at the time of his premature death at the hands of an assassin, the reality of New France still remained tenuous, in that no population movement had taken place to pin down the area which France claimed and her outposts there were only nominal ones. It is true that Henry suffered many disabilities in putting New France on the map. Until 1589 he was powerless to effect anything, though his mind was already opened to the opportunities the overseas world presented for French trade and territory. Between 1589 and 1598 he was handicapped by the civil war, though he had some measure of freedom to experiment in this field after his crowning at Chartres had removed most, if far from all, of the obstacles to his exercise of authority. Throughout his active life he had hopes of weakening Spain and the Treaty of Vervins (1598) and, most of all, the Dutch Truce of 1609 had some effect in doing so. But he always lacked the naval power to challenge Spain in the Caribbean, even if French privateers (or pirates) remained active in that area both before and after 1598. He proved able to export French traders to the East Indies but not to maintain a French presence there, as the English contrived to do. The task of reconstruction and development in France absorbed his controller-general of finances, the duc de Sully, and led him to decry and resist overseas activities as a waste of effort in not being productive in the short run: to him France and France in Europe required all the resources that Henry could mobilize. There was too, in Paris and in the interior of France, little enthusiasm for colonial ventures. What there was resided in the ports, Rouen and its satellites in particular, St. Malo, St. Jean de Luz and, to a lesser extent, in La Rochelle, Bordeaux and Bayonne. But they too were more interested in short-term commercial results than in the long-term fatigue of creating a colonial French society, while French men and women showed more reluctance than Spanish

In 1680, a band of English buccaneers marched across the Isthmus of Darien from the Atlantic to the Pacific and, off Panama, captured several Spanish vessels, one of which they made their flagship. From this vessel they terrorized Spanish possessions on the west coast of the Americas. On July 29, 1681, they captured another Spanish ship, from which they obtained a derrotero, or book of charts and sailing directions. Their depredations over, the pirates sailed eastward around Cape Horn to the Caribbean, where they distributed their booty. When they arrived in England, the Spanish ambassador demanded that the buccaneers be brought to trial. The derrotero was ordered to be brought to King Charles II, who apparently appreciated its great intelligence value. The buccaneers were acquitted; as a result the English ambassador to Spain was expelled from Madrid. The derrotero was subsequently translated, and one of the buccaneers, Basil Ringrose, added a text to the compilation and information to the Spanish charts. The resulting atlas, consisting of 106 pages of charts and 106 pages of text, is published in full for the first time in this volume. Covering the area from California to Tierra del Fuego, the Galapagos, and Juan Fernandez, Basil Ringrose's south sea waggoner is a rich source of geographical information, with observations on navigational, physical, biological, and cultural features as well as on ethnography, customs, and folklore. After almost exactly three hundred years, this secret atlas is now made available to libraries and individuals. The editors have provided an extensive introduction on historical, geographical, and navigational aspects of the atlas, as well as annotations tothe charts and text, and they have plotted the coverage of the charts on modern map bases.

S o many aspects of the life and activities of Christopher Columbus have come under intensive scrutiny that it is a matter of some surprise that certain areas have never been completely clarified. This, in many cases, is due to conflicting interpretations of the evidence and, in some, to idiosyncrasies of the writers. In still other cases, the evidence remaining is too slight for a clear solution to be possible. In such instances, attempts to obtain a solution have provoked controversy because they are, of their nature, tentative and incomplete. This is especially true of the years between Columbus's departure from Genoa and his decisive voyage in 1492. Of his earlier life Paulo Emilio Taviani and Jacques Heers1 have written with some conclusiveness, but even they show a reluctance to define to what extent Columbus was a seaman before 1475 and how far a merchant. It is reasonable to assume that he was involved in both capacities. It is also reasonably clear that he was brought up as much a merchant as a seaman (in spite of his own and of Samuel Eliot Morison's assertions to the contrary).2 His role in his expedition to Chios in 1475, for example, is best seen as that of a supercargo, engaged in fostering his family's trade in wool and woolen articles in a venture sponsored by two major trading families, the Spinola and the Centurione di Negro (we should probably use the word "clan" to describe their widespread ramifications). This association continued into the 1480s and may be considered one of Columbus's principal links with commerce in Genoa, in Portugal, and in Madeira as well as, it will be suggested here, intermediately, in the year 1477 in England, Iceland, and Ireland. One question cannot, apparently, be answered at all-that is, when his interest in the written word began. Was he sufficiently educated in Genoa to launch him in the career of amateur scholarship which was to be the

The discovery of what proved to be a Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows, an isolated location on the north coast of Newfoundland, near the eastern opening of the Strait of Belle Isle, in i960 brought a new dimension to the history and archaeology of European contacts with North America, apart from the long-debated literary-historical authority of the Sagas. Helge Ingstad, lawyer, traveller and scholar, and his wife, the archaeologist, Anne Stine Ingstad, found it in i960, and presided over its excavation during seven seasons between 1962 and 1968. To their skill, scholarship and tenacity lasting credit is due. Helge provided the drive in getting resources for the project and searching for comparable materials with which to assist in its identification, while Anne Stine carefully worked over the ground, organizing the excavation professionally and commanding successive teams of helpers during a long and arduous dig. Initial scepticism gradually gave way to acceptance of the discovery as what the Ingstads claimed it to be, and by 1968 it had been almost universally accepted as the first authenticated indication of the Norse presence in North America in the early years of the eleventh century, and proving that something, at least, of the Sagas was history rather than fiction. At last Vinland had a presence and a name. Anne Stine Ingstad published a preliminary report on the excavations in 19701 and a