The first adventure of the kind, in which we hear of Verrazzano, was in 1521.  At this time a valuable commerce had grown up between Spain and her conquests in the West Indies, and large amounts in gold, pearls, sugar, hides and other articles were sent home.  A ship, on her way from Hispaniola, was captured by him, in the year just mentioned, having on board eighty thousand ducats in gold, six hundred pounds weight—­eight ounces to the pound, of pearls and two thousand arrobas, of twenty-five pounds each, of sugar.

[Footnote:  Peter Martyr, Dec. v. c. 8.  Epistola 771 (ed. 1671).  In this letter which is dated at Valladolid 19th November 1522, Martyr writes:  “Anuo quippe superiore Florinus quidam Gallus pirata navim unam ab Hispaniola venientem, auro ad sommam octoginta millium dragmarum, unionum vero libris octuolibus sexcentis & ruborum saecari duobus millibus rapuit.”]

In the following year, he took possession of seven vessels bound from Cadiz to the Canary islands, with emigrants, but being overhauled off the point of Gando, by vessels sent in pursuit, was compelled to relinquish his prizes. [Footnote:  Don Bartholome Garcia del Castillo in Noticias de la historia de las islas de Canaria, by Don Joseph de Viera y Clavijo. (Madrid 1772-84).]

He is next found apparently meditating an expedition against the Portuguese possessions in Brazil, upon the pretext of discovering other countries in the east, which that nation had not found.  The mention of this project is positive, and becomes curious and interesting in the history of his life, as it affords the only authentic evidence extant of any suggestion of a voyage of discovery, contemplated by him towards Cathay.  The design, if really entertained, appears, however, to have fallen through and to have been abandoned; but it may, nevertheless, have been the foundation of the story of the alleged voyage.  It is related by Francisco d’Andrade, in his Chronicle of John III, the then reigning king of Portugal.  After referring to the death of Magellan, as an event which removed a cause of difference between the crowns of Portugal and Castile, growing out of the famous expedition of that navigator, Andrade thus speaks of the state of affairs between the crowns of France and Portugal.

“At that time, the king was told by some Portuguese, doing business in France, that one Joao Varezano, a Florentine, offered himself to Francis, to discover other kingdoms in the East, which the Portuguese had not found, and that in the ports of Normandy a fleet was being made ready under the favor of the admirals of the coast, and the dissimulation of Francis, to colonize the land of Santa Cruz, called Brazil, discovered and laid down by the Portuguese in the second voyage to India.  This, and the complaints every where made of the injuries inflicted by French corsairs, rendered the early attention of the king necessary.