find inside of Cape Henry ample and safe anchorage. [Footnote:  Blunt’s American Coast Pilot, p. 340.] That an actual explorer could not have failed to have discovered this bay and found a secure harbor at that time, is shown by the account of the expedition, which the Adelantado, Pedro Menendes, of infamous memory, despatched under the command of Pedro Menendez Marquez, for the survey of this coast in 1573; when the means and facilities of navigators for exploration were not different from what existed at the date of the Verrazzano voyage.  Menendez Marquez was the first to enter the Chesapeake after Gomez, who gave it the name of the bay of Santa Maria. [Footnote:  This name occurs on the map of Ribero on this part of the coast, which establishes its application by Gomez; but its position is evidently misplaced and carried too far south.] Barcia thus summarizes the result of the expedition, so far as it relates to this bay.

“Pedro Menendez Marquez, governor of Florida for his uncle the Adelantado reduced many Indians to obedience and took possession of the provinces particularly in the name of the king, in the presence of Rodrigo de Carrion, notary of the government of Santa Elena.  Afterwards, he, being a great seaman, inasmuch as he had formerly been admiral of the fleet, as Francisco Cano relates, Lib. 3, de la Histor. de las Ordenes Militares, fol. 184, went, by order of the Adelantado, to explore the coast, which exploration commenced at the cape of the Martyrs, and the peninsula Tequesta [point of Florida], where the coast begins to run north and south, at the outlet of the Bahama channel, and extended along the coast to beyond the harbor and bay of Santa Maria, which is three leagues wide and which is entered towards the northwest; and within it are many rivers and harbors where, on both sides of it, they can anchor.  At the entrance, near the shore, on the south, there are from nine to thirteen fathoms of water, and on the north, from five to seven.  Two leagues outside, in the sea, the depth is the same, north and south, but more sandy than inside.  Going through the channel there are from nine to thirteen fathom; and in the harbor about fifteen, ten and six fathoms were found in places where the lead was thrown.”

“The bay of Santa Maria is in thirty-seven degrees and a half. [Footnote:  Ensayo Chronologico, pp. 146, 8.]”

To ignore the existence of this great bay, the most important hydrographical feature of our coast, as Verrazzano, according to the letter, does, and to pretend that no harbor could be found there, in which the diminutive Dauphiny could lie, is, under the circumstances under which this exploration is alleged to have been conducted, to admit that he was never on that part of the coast.

Suddenly leaving the river of the hills, in consequence of an approaching storm, they continued their course directly east for a distance of ninety-five leagues, passing in sight of the island and arriving finally at the bay, which are the only ones described, and that very briefly, in the whole voyage along the coast.