Vincent Yanez Pinzon, who had accompanied Columbus during his first and second voyages, sailed on a voyage of discovery about the close of the year 1499, with four stout vessels fitted out at his own expence.  In this voyage Pinzon appears to have sailed along the east coast of South America, and to have discovered Cape St Augustine in Brazil, to which he gave the name of Cape Consolation.  On his return to the northwards, he likewise appears to have discovered the great Maranon, or river of the Amazons, and the mouth of the Oronoko; which latter he named Rio Dulce, or Fresh River, because he took up fresh water twenty leagues out at sea.  He thence proceeded to the coast of Paria, where he took in a cargo of Brazil wood, and stood over to the islands between that coast and Hispaniola, losing two of his ships in a great storm.  With the two which remained he went to Hispaniola to refit, and returned thence into Spain about the end of September 1500[9].

In the immediately subsequent chapter a summary will be found of the discoveries and settlements of the Spaniards in the West Indies, from the death of the great Columbus to the commencement of the expedition under Cortes, by which the rich and populous empire of Mexico was added to the Spanish dominions in the New World.  The present chapter consists of voyages to the New World which were contemporary with those of the immortal Columbus, and all surreptitiously intended to abridge the vast privileges which he had stipulated for and obtained the grant of for his inestimable services; but which the court of Spain was anxious to procure pretexts for abrogating or circumscribing.

Of the other early voyages of discovery to America, very imperfect notices now remain.  England lays claim to have been the next nation in succession, after the Spaniards and Portuguese, to explore the New World; yet, like Spain, under the guidance of an Italian.  We have already seen that Columbus, when disappointed in his first views of patronage from the king of Portugal, and while he went himself to offer his services to the court of Spain, dispatched his brother Bartholomew into England, to lay his proposals for discovery before Henry VII. and the circumstances have been already detailed by which this scheme was disappointed, though Henry is said to have agreed to the proposals of Columbus four years before that archnavigator began his career in the service of the crown of Castile.  After the king of England had thus, as it were by accident, missed reaping the advantage and glory of patronizing the first discovery of the New World, he is said to have encouraged other seamen of reputation to exert their talents in his service, by prosecuting the faint light which had transpired respecting the grand discovery of Columbus.  Giovani Gabota, or John Cabot, a citizen of Venice, who had been long settled in Bristol, was among those who offered their services to the king of England on