The English Rediscovery and Colonisation of America. By John B.
and Marie A. Shipley. (Elliot Stock.)—This is a curious book, and worth reading, even if, after reading, one does not see one's way to agree altogether with the authors, who regard the United States as a portion of Greater Britain, and look forward to their union with the smaller Britain of to.day, on the ground that, " with a common language, common ideas, common aims, and their forces united to secure the peace and progress of mankind, the two great Powers would form a governing force for the world, leading it on to higher progress, and repressing acts of injustice, wherever perpetrated." Briefly, the object of this little book is the demolition of the popular belief that Columbus was the true discoverer of America. This title is claimed for the Icelandic Erikson who is declared to have found his way to America in A.D. 1000. As for Columbus, he is but " a Roman Catholic missionary and devotee who was sent out by the Church of Rome to convert the natives of a land whose locality he knew, having ascertained it definitely in Iceland before he started forth on his voyage to the Western Continent." After Erikson, the authors of this polemical work give the place of honour in connection with the other Hemisphere to John and Sebastian Cabot, who in May, 1497, started on that voyage in which, on Midsummer Day, they discovered Newfoundland, and subsequently North America. This is a strange, interesting, earnest book, and deserves to be studied on both sides of the Atlantic.
Previous page
