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History of the United States of America (1); From the Discovery of the Continent [to 1789]
History of the United States of America From the Discovery of the Continent - 1 - to 1789 Author:George Bancroft Volume: 1 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1895 Original Publisher: Appleton Subjects: United States History / United States / General History / United States / Colonial Period (1600-1775) History / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800) Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the or... more »iginal. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER H. THE SPANIARDS IN FLOBTOA AND ON THE PACIFIC COAST. I Have traced the course of events which established France in Acadia and Canada. The same power extended its claims indefinitely towards the south; but the right to Florida, on the ground of discovery, belonged to the Spanish, and was successfully asserted. No sooner had the New World revealed itself to Castile and Aragon than the Spanish chivalry of the ocean despised the range of Europe as too narrow, and offering to their extravagant ambition nothing beyond mediocrity. Blending avarice and religions zeal, they sailed to the west, as if they had been bound on a new crusade, for which infinite wealth was to reward their piety. America was the region of romance, where the heated imagination could indulge in the boldest delusions ; where the simple natives ignorantly wore the most precious ornaments; and, by the side of the clear runnels of water, the sands sparkled with gold. To carve out provinces with the sword; to plunder the accumulated treasures of some ancient Indian dynasty; to return from a roving expedition with a crowd of enslaved captives and a profusion of spoils -- became their ordinary dreams. Ease, fortune, life -- all were squandered in the pursuit where, if the issue was uncertain, success was sometimes obtained, greater than the boldest desires had dared to anticipate. Is it strange that these adventurers were ...« less