Side by side with the discussion as to the name, and sometimes making a part of it, is the question whether Columbus himself was really the first discoverer of the mainland.  The reader has seen that he first saw the mainland of South America in the beginning of August, 1498.  It was on the fifth, sixth or seventh day, according to Mr. Harrisse’s accurate study of the letters.  Was this the first discovery by a European of the mainland?

It is known that Ojeda, with whom the reader is familiar, also saw this coast.  With him, as passenger on his vessel, was Alberico Vespucci, and at one time it was supposed that Vespucci had made some claim to be the discoverer of the continent, on account of this voyage.  But in truth Ojeda himself says that before he sailed he had seen the map of the Gulf of Paria which Columbus had sent home to the sovereigns after he made that discovery.  It also seems to be proved that Alberico Vespucci, as he was then called, never made for himself any claim to the great discovery.

Another question, of a certain interest to people proud of English maritime science, is the question whether the Cabots did not see the mainland before Columbus.  It is admitted on all hands that they did not make their first voyage till they knew of Columbus’s first discoveries; but it is supposed that in the first or second voyage of the Cabots, they saw the mainland of North America.  The dates of the Cabots’ voyages are unfortunately badly entangled.  One of them is as early as 1494, but this is generally rejected.  It is more probable that the king’s letters patent, authorizing John Cabot and his three sons to go, with five vessels, under the English flag, for the discovery of islands and countries yet unknown, was dated the fifth of March, 1496.  Whether, however, they sailed in that year or in the next year is a question.  The first record of a discovery is in the account-book of the privy purse of Henry VII, in the words, “August 10th, 1497.  To him who discovered the new island, ten pounds.”  This is clearly not a claim on which the discovery of the mainland can be based.

A manuscript known as the Cotton Manuscript says that John Cabot had sailed, but had not returned, at the moment when the manuscript was written.  This period was “the thirteenth year of Henry VII.”  The thirteenth year of Henry began on the twenty-second of August, 1497, and ended in 1498.  On the third of February, 1498, Henry VII granted permission to Cabot to take six English ships “to the lands and islands recently found by the said Cabot, in the name of the king and by his orders.”  Strictly speaking, this would mean that the mainland had then been discovered; but it is impossible to establish the claim of England on these terms.