passage into the Atlantic, and crossed the Pacific to the Molucca islands.  In this long passage he discovered only a few islands in 20 deg. north latitude:  after an absence of 1501 days, he arrived at Plymouth.  The discoveries made by this circumnavigator, will, however, be deemed much more important, if the opinion of Fleurien, in his remarks on the austral lands of Drake, inserted in the Voyage of Marchand, in which opinion he is followed by Malte Brun, be correct; viz. that Drake discovered, under the name of the Isles of Elizabeth, the western part of the archipelago of Terra del Fuego; and that he reached even the southern extremity of America, which afterwards received, from the Dutch navigators, the name of Cape Horn.  These are all the well authenticated discoveries made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on the north-west coast of America.  Cape Mendocino, in about 40-1/2 degrees north latitude, is the extreme limit of the certain knowledge possessed at this period respecting this coast:  the information possessed respecting New Georgia and New Cornwall was very vague and obscure.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the coasts of the east side of North America, particularly those of Florida, Virginia, Acadia and Canada, were examined by navigators of different countries.  Florida was discovered in the year 1512, by the Spanish navigator, Ponce de Leon; but as it did not present any appearance of containing the precious metals, the Spaniards entirely neglected it.  In 1524, the French seem to have engaged in their first voyage of discovery to America.  Francis I. sent out a Florentine with four ships:  three of these were left at Madeira; with the fourth he reached Florida.  From this country he is said to have coasted till he arrived in fifty degrees of north latitude.  To this part he gave the name of New France; but he returned home without having formed any colony.  Towards the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, the English began to form settlements in these parts of North America.  Virginia was examined by the famous Sir Walter Raleigh:  this name was given to all the coast on which the English formed settlements.  That part of it now called Carolina, seems to have been first discovered by Raleigh.

The beginning of the seventeenth century was particularly distinguished by the voyage of La Maire and Schouten.  The States General of Holland, who had formed an East India Company, in order to secure to it the monopoly of the Indian trade, prohibited all individuals from navigating to the Indian Ocean, either round the Cape of Good Hope or through the Straits of Magellan.  It was therefore an object of great importance to discover, if practicable, any passage to India, which would enable the Dutch, without incurring the penalties of the law, to reach India.  This idea was first suggested by La Maire, a merchant of Amsterdam, and William Schouten, a merchant of Horn.  They had