words America and Bresilia as we do now, and delineates the geography of this continent with tolerable accuracy.* But the original signification was not immediately forgotten, as we perceive in Gaspar Ensl's History of the West Indies, where he says, that the name of America was originally given to the countries explored by Vespucci, although afterwards, on account of the dye-wood found there, common usage superadded the name of Brazil. We will only add to these citations the authority of Rocha Pitta and Barbosa, who, in noticing Pedro Alvares Cabral, remark that the name of Santa Cruz, which Cabral gave the country he accidentally discovered, was afterwards changed into America, on account of the charts of it delineated by Vespucci, and finally into Brazil, from its producing the brazil-wood.‡

In this view of the subject, we may conjecture with a great degree of certainty, that, on Vespucci's return from his last voyages, the coast, which he had visited, began to pass by his name. Two reasons may be given why this honor should have been conferred on him, rather than on his superior officers. One reason is, that, although he was not first in command, yet his pre-eminence in geographical and nautical knowledge gave him that control over the proceedings of the rest, which men of strong minds inevitably acquire in moments of difficulty and danger. Indeed we find that he came back from his fourth voyage, when Coelho with the greater part of the squadron had perished, and when he himself was no longer expected in which circumstances it would have been perfectly natural for the Portuguese to attribute to him the sole merit of the discovery of Brazil. The second reason is, that, as Vespucci was highly skilled in the construction of charts, and as those which he made were held in great esteem, he may, in depicting the coast of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, fol. Antuerpiæ, 1584, apud Christophor. Plantinum.

Gaspar Ensl, India Occidentalis Historia, Coloniæ 1612, 12mo. p. 130. Para eterno monumento da sua piedade, intitulou Pedro Alvares a nova terra com a religiosa antonomasia de S. Cruz, que depois se mudou em America, por ter demarcado as terras e costas maritimas della Americo Vespucci insigne cosmografo, e ultimamente Brasil, pela produçao da madeira, que tem côr de brazas.' Barbosa, Bibliotheca Lusitana, t. iii. p. 554. Rocha Pitta is no less explicit. Este foy,' says he, 'o primeiro descobrimento, este o primeiro nome desta regiao, que depois esquecida de titulo tao superior, se chamou America, por Americo Vespucio, e ulti mamente Brasil, pelo pao vermelho, ou côr de brazas, que produz. Hist. da America Portugueza, p. 6.

Brazil, have given it the name of America.* Vespucci would have had a still more inviting opportunity to do this when he became chief pilot to the king of Spain; and considering the foregoing explanation of the manner in which the name of America was originally understood, in doing this he would not have been guilty of any injustice to the memory of Columbus. The subsequent extension of the name of America to the whole western hemisphere was an event, which Vespucci could never foresee; and therefore it ought not to be imputed to him as a crime, that, according to the remark of Lipsius.† the name of one discoverer engrossed a distinction in which others deserved to participate. And knowing, as we do, the confined application of his name in the beginning, we have a complete answer to all those calumniators of Vespucci, who charge him with falsifying the narrative of his first voyage, in order to seem better entitled to the honor of naming America.

We have pursued this investigation as a matter of histortical curiosity, for the purpose of giving Vespucci's character its proper construction; but we think it as absurd as it is ungenerous in Canovai to endeavor to rob Columbus of his well-earned fame, on the pretence that he did not reach the continent until a few months after Vespucci. If Vespucci. excited by the success and instructed by the discoveries of Columbus, did penetrate a league or two farther into the great western ocean than his predecessor,-if Vespucci entered the track marked out by the keels of Columbus and continued it onward until he was stopped by the continent, -is any thing like this to cast a shadow over the glory of Columbus and degrade him into the mere finder of a petty islet, instead of the discoverer of the whole western world? If Vespucci's priority in discovering the southern continent was a valid reason for naming it America, there is equal reason, as Purchas observes, for denominating the northen Sebastiana or Cabotia; since it is notorious that the Cabots explored the coast from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, a full year before any portion of the continent was ever seen by Columbus. But the hand of chance has an

P. Martyr informs us he had seen a Portuguese chart of parts of the new world, of which construction Vespucci assisted. Ocean. Decad. p. 199. See likewise Memorias de Litteratura Portugueza, t. viii, p. 339. Lipsii Physiolog. Stoic. I. ii, dis. 19, in ejus Oper. t. iv, p. 947. New Series No. 6.

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influence so predominant in the assignment of honors by the world, that we can hardly feel surprised at the neglect of Columbus and the Cabots, to the exclusive distinction of Vespucci. The fortune of the name of America itself is not a little singular, as an instance of the mutations in human affairs; which, having been first given to a single province, next spread over the whole southern continent, then passed on to the northern, and now, from being the appellation of the whole new world, it seems about to be confined, by foreign nations at least, to our own youthful and aspiring republic.

Swi-2

a. H. Everett,

ART. XVIII.—The Speeches of Mr. Justice Story and of Mr. Webster, in the Massachusetts Convention, on the proposition of Mr. Dearborn for dividing the Commonwealth into districts for the choice of Senators, according to population. Journal of the Debates. Boston. 1821.

We believe it to be a general opinion, wherever the doings of the late convention in Massachusetts have attracted notice, that this assembly may enter into honorable comparison with any provincial assembly, which has ever been convened in our country, as well for the weight of personal character, as the high style of debate, with which it was marked. It is certainly a spectacle, too often occurring in our happy country to be called a novelty, but yet too honorable to be passed over without notice, to see so numerous an assembly, deputed from so considerable a population, and representing such conflicting interests, tranquilly discussing, settling, modifying principles and institutions, which cannot be touched in Europe without risk of property, liberty, and life. What may be the decision of the people of the state, upon any or all of the amendments of the Constitution submitted to them by the Convention. it is no part of our present purpose to conjecture.-Whatever it be, or whatever be the result of the doings of the Convention in the immediate light of a revision of the Constitution, we shall consider it as having answered one most important purpose, in having thus brought together the intelligence and political wisdom of all parts of our Commonwealth; and in having again sent out into Society in the reported debates, the most lumi

nous and powerful discussions of the fundamental principles of our popular representative governments. It has been often stated to be the principal mode of diffusing political information throughout France, since the restoration of the monarchy, that the written speeches of the deputies are allowed to be printed in the Paris Journals, without being subjected to the censure. We have, it is true, no such degrading cause as this to congratulate ourselves on the circulation of political knowledge through the medium of the debates of the Convention. Still, however, much is gained by imparting to abstract questions of government and general principles of leg slation the charm and attraction of a local immediate interest. Clothed with this interest, such questions and principles find much readier and wider access, than they can in any other possible way attain; and those fundamental maxims on which our institutions rest, are sent abroad in this way to our remotest villages, exemplified by an application to our own state of things, and enforced by the argument and eloquence of those whom we ourselves know, and see, and prize; which, but for this, would have continued to slumber on the shelves of the libraries.

Among the happy auspices, moreover, under which the late Convention assembled, ought certainly to be accounted the presence, as a member of it, of the illustrious person, who, forty years ago, was one of the principal framers of the constitution now to be revised. It is ever a matter of remark to meet with any one, who, at the age of eighty-six, still enjoys the vigorous possession of his faculties. If in addition to this rare felicity, such an individual has been engaged in public affairs for half a century; if he has filled a long sucsession of the most honourable offices, which the people can bestow. both at home and abroad; if he has been one of the founders of a nation, and afterwards called to preside over it; if such an one, surviving all his contemporaries, can yet come forward to make a lively, powerful, impressive speech, to an audience of a thousand persons, we may feel assured that we may pass millions of men in review before we shall meet another such example. Were there nothing else in commendation of our American institutions and character, we would rest their credit with an impartial posterity on this fact; that of those who have filled the first of

fice in the government of our country-the elected kings of ten millions of people, as impatient of control as any nation that ever existed-all, but he, who is gone to his reward on high, are living in honorable retirement, and looking safely and contentedly at the administration of their successor.

Among the questions agitated in the late Convention, there were two which excited a more lively interest and brought into debate a greater display of eloquence and argument than any other. These two were the third article of the declaration of rights, involving the subject of the support of religion by law, and the question of senatorial representation. On the former of these subjects we propose to say a few words in another article. With regard to the senatorial representation, we cannot forbear to pay a particular tribute of respect to the two speeches which we have named at the head of this article. It would be doing injustice to many gentlemen, on both sides of the question, to refer to these two speeches as those alone which are deserving of particular notice; for we have heard it asserted by persons of long experience in our national and state legislatures, that they have not the recollection of a debate more powerfully sustained in either. We think, however, that the public voice will be with us in the emphatic notice of the speeches of Messrs. Story and Webster, and in ascribing to them a full share of the credit of having produced the almost unprecedented reversal of the sentiments of a majority of the house. It would be doing equal injustice to the character of this debate to suppose that it turned on common topics of local interest. For the great and leading doctrines of representative government, and the weight to which property is entitled in such a government, were discussed with an extent of learning and a depth of view not often witnessed out of professed treatises, drawn up in the leisure of the closet. The following extract from Mr. Webster's speech will, we think, justify this remark:

But, sir, I take the principle to be well established by writers of the greatest authority. In the first place, those who have treated of natural law, have maintained, as a principle of that law, that as far as the object of society is the protection of something in which the members possess unequal shares, it is just that the weight of each person, in the common councils, should bear a re