There is little room to doubt from the description itself, and the fact will be confirmed by other evidence hereafter, that the bay intended to be described was the great bay of Massachusetts and Maine terminating in the bay of Fundy.  It is represented as making an offset in the coast of twelve leagues towards the north, and then swelling into an enclosed bay beyond, of twenty leagues in circumference, indicating those bays, in their form.  The distances, it is true, do not conform to those belonging to that part of the coast; but it is to be borne in mind that they may have been taken, according to the only view which can reconcile the contradictions of the letter, from an imperfect delineation of the coast by another hand.  The identity of the two is, however, proven, without recourse to this explanation, by the description of the coast beyond, which is given as follows: 

“Having supplied ourselves with every thing necessary, we departed, on the sixth [Footnote:  According to the Archivio Storico Italiano, and not the fifth, as given in N. Y. Hist.  Coll.] of May, from this port [where they had remained fifteen days] and sailed one hundred and fifty leagues, keeping so near to the coast as never to lose it from our sight; the nature of the country appeared much the same as before, but the mountains were a little higher and all in appearance rich in minerals.  We did not stop to land, as the weather was very favorable for pursuing our voyage, and the country presented no variety.  The shore stretched to the east, and fifty leagues beyond more to the north, where we found a more elevated country full of very thick woods of fir trees, cypresses and the like, indicative of a cold climate.  The people were entirely different from the others we had seen, whom we had found kind and gentle, but these were so rude and barbarous that we were unable by any signs we could make to hold communication with them.”

This is all that is mentioned in regard to the entire coast of New England and Nova Scotia, embracing a distance of eight hundred miles according to this computation, but in fact much more.  It is here stated, however, distinctly, that from the time of leaving the harbor, near the island of Louise, they kept close to the land, which ran in an easterly direction, and constantly in sight of it, for one hundred and fifty leagues.  This they could not have done if that harbor were on any part of the coast, west of Massachusetts bay.  If they sailed from Narraganset bay, or Buzzard’s bay, or from any harbor on that coast, east of Long Island, they would in the course of twenty leagues at the furthest, in an easterly direction, have reached