Brazil, the River Plate, and the Falkland Islands

Brazil, the River Plate, and the Falkland Islands - With the Cape Horn route to Australia. Including notices of Lisbon, Madeira, the Canaries, and Cape Verde.

Cursory Retrospect of South American Discoveries.Their difficulties then, how to be estimated at present.Their interest to this age as compared with ancient conquests.Cruelties of the early invaders.Retributive visitations.Columbus and his cotemporaries.Cortez and the conquest of Mexico.Subsequent position of the country.Santa Anna, his antecedents and prospects.Pizarro in Peru, and his Lieutenant, Almagro, in Chili.Condition of those Republics since and now: their past gold and present guano.Modern commanders in those countries.Predominance of the Irish element in the fray.The OLearys and OHigginses in the Andes.San Martin and his aid-de-camp, OBrien, and his auxiliary, MCabe.The Portuguese discoverers.Magellan and his Straits, and Peacocks steaming to the Pacific three hundred years afterwards.Cabra, and Brazil.De Gama and the Cape, and Camoens celebration of the achievement.Enrichment of the Iberian Peninsula from these causesSubsequent impoverishment of mother countries and colonies.Exceptional position of Brazil in this respect, and reason thereof.Different results in North America, and why.Imperfect knowledge in Europe of South America.Works thereon.Characteristics of the several authorities: Prescott, Southey, Koster, Gardner, Humboldt, Dr. Dundas, Woodbine Parish, MCann, Edwards, Maury, and others.Want of information still on Paraguay and the region of the Amazon.Object of this Volume to supply that void.Aim of the Author not Political, but Commercial. Nearly four centuries have rolled past since the great discoveries of Columbus and his followers led to the establishment of Spanish and Portuguese dominion over the vast continent of South[9] America, and were succeeded somewhat later by the still more important settlement of the Anglo-Saxon race on the northern portion of the New World.[3] These events, marvellous in themselves and in their accessories, and momentous from the way in which they have affected the destinies of the human race, present a study singularly and enduringly interesting, differing so strongly as they do from the characteristics of ancient history. The latter are necessarily contemplated by the reader as types and symbols of the past, on which he has only the privilege of reflecting; whilst in the former case, in perusing the story of these comparatively modern discoveries of hitherto unknown continents, he feels himself almost a sharer in the adventures of those extraordinary men by whose deeds his own present destiny is so essentially influenced. He cannot desire to be a Lycurgus or a Phocion, a Csar or a Cato; but it is no tax on the imagination, no repulse to the feeling, to picture himself a Columbus in embryo, and his soul and being is wrapt up in the narrative of that great voyager. The English are proverbially a nautical people, nursed and cradled in the lap of that ocean with whose element their earliest sympathies are enlisted and identified. In these days it is a light matter indeed, with the facilities of progression abounding on all sides, and the great ministrant of celerity, steam, at our command in every form, to ramble from one extremity of the earth to the other; but the slightest retrospection suffices to[10] demonstrate how very different a state of things prevailed at the close of the fifteenth century. The mere existence of a western continent was a phantasy of dream-land, when the mysteries of that mighty waste of waters which separated the then known world from all beyond, was shrouded in obscurity as unfathomable as its deepest depths; when only frail barks and mariners who dreaded to lose sight of the land could be found to attempt the seemingly-desperate fate of exploring an unknown sea in search of what at best existed but in the imagination of those who were regarded as visionaries, and whose presumptuous rashness the very winds themselves seemed to rebuke by blowing with unprecedented constancy in the one direction, as if to proclaim the impossibility of return.[4] Taking these circumstances into our consideration, a most thrilling interest is attached to this recital that will endure to the latest posterity; and school-boys for generations to come will ponder over the amazing achievements of these wondrous knights-errant of the main with the same eager curiosity as the grown men of to-day. On the other hand, it must be as readily conceded that there is something painfully oppressive in the records of ancient history, with its never-ending conflict between nations for the aggrandisement of a few ambitious monarchs or republican leaders, in which the destruction of cities, towns, and countries, as well as of the lives of their inhabitants, is the theme perpetually dwelt upon, as if the annihilation of his kind were the only achievement entitling man to the admiration of humanity. War in all its horrors, and the military extirpation of our species, is the delight of the classic chroniclers, whether in poetry or[11] prose; and its accompaniments of battles, sieges, pillage, murder, and atrocities such as nature revolts at, are depicted with a species of barbaric satisfaction, calculated (as it no doubt often did) to evoke the vengeance of the Deity against enormities perpetrated in the mere wantonness of licentious ferocity, and too frequently lacking the miserable palliative of provocation. Infinitely is it to be deplored that this sanguinary animus was carried, in a large degree, by the Spaniards and Portuguese, but probably still more by the Dutch (with whom, however, we are not now concerned), into their conquests in the New World; but it brought with it its own retributive punishment; and finally, under Providence, became the most potent instrument that caused war to be looked upon as an enormous evil, and a curse upon any country unrighteously practising it. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 56402
Author: Hadfield, William
Release Date: Jan 19, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Hotham, Charles , Ouseley, William Gore, Sir, 1797-1866