west passage, blundered instead
upon the mighty river which bears his name, explored it as far north as
the present city of Albany, and paved the way for that picturesque
Dutch settlement which grew into the greatest city of the New World. He
did more than that, for, persevering in the search and sailing far to
the north, he came, at last, into the great bay also named for him,
where tragic fate lay waiting. For there, in that icy fastness of the
north, his mutinous crew bound him, set him adrift in a small boat, and
sailed away and left him.

So, by the beginning of the seventeenth century, the New World was
fairly well defined upon the maps which the map-makers were always
industriously drawing; and so were the spheres of influence where each
nation was to be for a time paramount; the Spaniards in the Gulf of
Mexico, the Dutch along the Hudson, the French on the St. Lawrence, and
the English on the long coast to the south. But in all the leagues and
leagues from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf, nowhere had the white man as
yet succeeded in gaining a permanent foothold.

* * * * *

Although the continent of North America had been discovered by John
Cabot in 1497, nearly a century elapsed before England made any serious
attempt to take possession of it. Cabot's voyages had created little
impression, for he had returned from them empty-handed; instead of
finding the passage to the Indies which he sought, he had discovered
nothing but an inconvenient and apparently worthless barrier stretching
across the way, and for many years the great continent was regarded only
in that light, and such explorations as were made were with the one
object of getting through it or around it. In fact, as late as 1787,
opinion in Europe was divided as to whether the discovery of the New
World had been a blessing or a curse.

But Spain had been working industriously. The honor of giving America to
the world was hers, and she followed that first discovery by centuries
of such pioneering as the world had never seen. Her explorers overran
Mexico and Peru, discovered the Mississippi, the Pacific, carved their
way up into the interior of the continent, looked down upon the wonders
of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, founded settlements up and down the
land from Kansas to Chili--yes, and did more than that. They opened the
first churches, set up the first presses, printed the first books, wrote
the first histories,