has asserted, contrary to all probability, that Verazzano was taken by
the Spaniards, and hung as a pirate.--D. Andres Gonzalez de Barcia,
_Ensayo Chronologico para la Historia della Florida_.]

[Footnote 67: Tiraboschi, _Storia della Literatura Italiana_, vol. vii.,
p. 261, 262.--Quoted in the _Picture of Quebec_, to which valuable work
J.C. Fisher, Esq., president of the Literary and Historical Society of
Quebec, largely contributed.]

[Footnote 68: Signifying "here is nothing." The insatiable thirst of the
Spanish discoverers for gold is justified by the greatest of all
discoverers, the disinterested Columbus himself, on high religious
principles. When acquainting their Castilian majesties with the
abundance of gold[69] to be procured in the newly-found countries, he
thus speaks, "El oro es excelentisimo, del oro se hace tesoro; y con el
quien lo tiene hace quanto quiere en el mundo, y elega a que echa las
animas al paraiso." (Navarrete, _Coleccion de los Viages_, vol. i., p.
309.) A passage which the modern editor of his papers affirms to be in
conformity with many texts of Scripture.]

[Footnote 69: The historian Herrera, writing in the light of experience,
makes use of the strong expression, that "mines were a lure devised by
the evil spirit to draw the Spaniards on to destruction." "L'Espagne,"
says Montesquieu, "a fait comme ce roi insense, qui demanda que tout ce
qu'il toucheroit se convertit en or, et qui fut oblige de revenir aux
Dieux, pour les prier de finir sa misere."--_Esprit des Loix_, lib.
xxi., cap. 22.

"Les mines du Perou et du Mexique ne valoient pas meme pour l'Espagne ce
qu'elle auroit tire du son propre fonds en los cultivant. Avec tant de
tresors Philippe II. fit banqueroute."--Millot. "Paturage et labourage,"
said the wise Sully, "valent mieux que tout l'or du Perou."]

[Footnote 70: Father Hennepin asserts that the Spaniards were the first
discoverers of Canada, and that, finding nothing there to gratify their
extensive desires for gold, they bestowed upon it the appellation of El
Capo di Nada, "Cape Nothing," whence, by corruption, its present
name.--_Nouvelle Description d'un tres grand pays situe dans l'Amerique
entre le Nouveau Mexique et la Mer Glaciale, depuis l'an_ 1667 _jusqu'
en_ 1670. _Par le Pere Louis Hennepin, Missionaire Recollet a Utrecht_,
1697.

La Potherie gives the same derivation. _Histoire de l'Amerique
Septentrionale par M. de Bacqueville de la Potherie, a Paris_,