University of Virginia Library

3. CHAP. III.

Noah, who is the first sea-faring man we read
of, begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Authors
it is true, are not wanting, who affirm that the
patriarch had a number of other children. Thus
Berosus makes him father of the gigantic Titans,
Methodius gives him a son called Jonithus, or Jonicus,
(who was the first inventor of Johnny cakes,)
and others have mentioned a son, named Thuiscon,
from whom descended the Teutons or Teutonic, or
in other words, the Dutch nation.

I regret exceedingly that the nature of my plan
will not permit me to gratify the laudable curiosity
of my readers, by investigating minutely the history
of the great Noah. Indeed such an undertaking
would be attended with more trouble than many
people would imagine; for the good old patriarch
seems to have been a great traveller in his day, and
to have passed under a different name in every
country that he visited. The Chaldeans for instance
give us his story, merely altering his name into
Xisuthrus—a trivial alteration, which to an historian

skilled in etymologies, will appear wholly unimportant.
It appears likewise, that he had exchanged
his tarpawlin and quadrant among the Chaldeans,
for the gorgeous insignia of royalty, and appears as
a monarch in their annals. The Egyptians celebrate
him under the name of Osiris; the Indians as
Menu; the Greek and Roman writers confound
him with Ogyges, and the Theban with Deucalion
and Saturn. But the Chinese, who deservedly rank
among the most extensive and authentic historians,
inasmuch as they have known the world ever since
some millions of years before it was created, declare
that Noah was no other than Fohi, a worthy gentleman,
descended from an ancient and respectable
family of Hong merchants, that flourished in the
middle ages of the empire. What gives this assertion
some air of credibility is, that it is a fact, admitted
by the most enlightened literati, that Noah
travelled into China, at the time of the building of
the Tower of Babel (probably to improve himself
in the study of languages) and the learned Dr.
Shackford gives us the additional information, that
the ark rested upon a mountain on the frontiers of
China.

From this mass of rational conjectures and sage
hypotheses, many satisfactory deductions might be
drawn; but I shall content myself with the unquestionable
fact stated in the Bible, that Noah begat
three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japhet.

It may be asked by some inquisitive readers,
not much conversant with the art of history writing,
what have Noah and his sons to do with the subject
of this work? Now though, in strict justice, I am
not bound to satisfy such querulous spirits, yet as
I have determined to accommodate my book to
every capacity, so that it shall not only delight the
learned, but likewise instruct the simple, and edify
the vulgar; I shall never hesitate for a moment to
explain any matter that may appear obscure.

Noah we are told by sundry very credible historians,
becoming sole surviving heir and proprietor
of the earth, in fee simple, after the deluge, like a
good father portioned out his estate among his
children. To Shem he gave Asia, to Ham, Africa,
and to Japhet, Europe. Now it is a thousand times
to be lamented that he had but three sons, for had
there been a fourth, he would doubtless have inherited
America; which of course would have been
dragged forth from its obscurity on the occasion;
and thus many a hard working historian and philosopher,
would have been spared a prodigious mass
of weary conjecture, respecting the first discovery
and population of this country. Noah, however,
having provided for his three sons, looked in all probability,
upon our country as mere wild unsettled
land, and said nothing about it, and to this unpardonable
taciturnity of the patriarch may we ascribe

the misfortune, that America did not come into the
world, as early as the other quarters of the globe.

It is true some writers have vindicated him
from this misconduct towards posterity, and asserted
that he really did discover America. Thus it
was the opinion of Mark Lescarbot, a French
writer possessed of that ponderosity of thought, and
profoundness of reflection, so peculiar to his nation,
that the immediate descendants of Noah peopled
this quarter of the globe, and that the old patriarch
himself, who still retained a passion for the sea-faring
life, superintended the transmigration. The
pious and enlightened father Charlevoix, a French
Jesuit, remarkable for his veracity and an aversion
to the marvellous, common to all great travellers,
is conclusively of the same opinion; nay, he goes
still further, and decides upon the manner in which
the discovery was effected, which was by sea, and
under the immediate direction of the great Noah.
“I have already observed, exclaims the good father
in a tone of becoming indignation, that it is an
arbitrary supposition that the grand children of
Noah were not able to penetrate into the new world,
or that they never thought of it. In effect, I can
see no reason that can justify such a notion. Who
can seriously believe, that Noah and his immediate
descendants knew less than we do, and that the
builder and pilot of the greatest ship that ever was,
a ship which was formed to traverse an unbounded

ocean, and had so many shoals and quicksands to
guard against, should be ignorant of, or should not
have communicated to his descendants the art of
sailing on the ocean?” Therefore they did sail on
the ocean—therefore they sailed to America—therefore
America was discovered by Noah!

Now all this exquisite chain of reasoning, which
is so strikingly characteristic of the good father,
being addressed to the faith, rather than the understanding,
is flatly opposed by Hans De Laet,
who declares it a real and most ridiculous paradox,
to suppose that Noah ever entertained the thought
of discovering America; and as Hans is a Dutch
writer, I am inclined to believe he must have been
much better acquainted with the worthy crew of
the ark than his competitors, and of course possessed
of more accurate sources of information. It is
astonishing how intimate historians daily become
with the patriarchs and other great men of antiquity.
As intimacy improves with time, and as the learned
are particularly inquisitive and familiar in their
acquaintance with the ancients, I should not be
surprised, if some future writers should gravely
give us a picture of men and manners as they existed
before the flood, far more copious and accurate
than the Bible; and that, in the course of another
century, the log book of old Noah should be as
current among historians, as the voyages of Captain
Cook, or the renowned history of Robinson Crusoe.

I shall not occupy my time by discussing the
huge mass of additional suppositions, conjectures
and probabilities respecting the first discovery of
this country, with which unhappy historians overload
themselves, in their endeavours to satisfy the
doubts of an incredulous world. It is painful to
see these laborious wights panting and toiling, and
sweating under an enormous burthen, at the very
outset of their works, which on being opened, turns
out to be nothing but a mighty bundle of straw.
As, however, by unwearied assiduity, they seem to
have established the fact, to the satisfaction of all
the world, that this country has been discovered,
I shall avail myself of their useful labours to be
extremely brief upon this point.

I shall not therefore stop to enquire, whether
America was first discovered by a wandering vessel
of that celebrated Phœnecian fleet, which, according
to Herodotus, circumnavigated Africa; or
by that Carthagenian expedition, which Pliny, the
naturalist, informs us, discovered the Canary Islands;
or whether it was settled by a temporary
colony from Tyre, as hinted by Aristotle and Seneca.
I shall neither enquire whether it was first
discovered by the Chinese, as Vossius with great
shrewdness advances, nor by the Norwegians in
1002, under Biorn; nor by Behem, the German
navigator, as Mr. Otto has endeavoured to prove
to the Sçavans of the learned city of Philadelphia.

Nor shall I investigate the more modern claims
of the Welsh, founded on the voyage of Prince
Madoc in the eleventh century, who having never
returned, it has since been wisely concluded that
he must have gone to America, and that for a plain
reason—if he did not go there, where else could he
have gone?—a question which most Socratically
shuts out all further dispute.

Laying aside, therefore, all the conjectures
above mentioned, with a multitude of others, equally
satisfactory, I shall take for granted, the vulgar
opinion that America was discovered on the 12th
of October, 1492, by Christovallo Colon, a Genoese,
who has been clumsily nick-named Columbus,
but for what reason I cannot discern. Of the voyages
and adventures of this Colon, I shall say nothing,
seeing that they are already sufficiently
known. Nor shall I undertake to prove that this
country should have been called Colonia, after his
name, that being notoriously self evident.

Having thus happily got my readers on this side
of the Atlantic, I picture them to myself, all impatience
to enter upon the enjoyment of the land of
promise, and in full expectation that I will immediately
deliver it into their possession. But if I
do, may I ever forfeit the reputation of a regular
bred historian. No—no—most curious and thrice
learned readers, (for thrice learned ye are if ye
have read all that goes before, and nine times

learned shall ye be, if ye read all that comes after)
we have yet a world of work before us. Think
you the first discoverers of this fair quarter of the
globe, had nothing to do but go on shore and find
a country ready laid out and cultivated like a garden,
wherein they might revel at their ease? No
such thing—they had forests to cut down, underwood
to grub up, marshes to drain, and savages to
exterminate.

In like manner, I have sundry doubts to clear
away, questions to resolve, and paradoxes to explain,
before I permit you to range at random;
but these difficulties, once overcome, we shall be
enabled to jog on right merrily through the rest of
our history. Thus my work shall, in a manner,
echo the nature of the subject, in the same manner
as the sound of poetry has been found by certain
shrewd critics, to echo the sense—this being an
improvement in history, which I claim the merit
of having invented.