THE HISTORICAL MAGAZINE. VOL. IV.] General Department. OLD NEW YORK PHYSICIANS. EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE. evening, I cheerfully comply. Walter W. Buchanan must be still well remembered by some of our oldest practitioners. I hold him most distinctly in my mind's eye, both bodily and mentally. He was of Scotch origin, and graduated A LETTER, with several details of biographical ginning of the present century. He was SecreM. D. at the University of Glasgow, at the beinterest, addressed by Dr. W. W. Buchanan, a tary to the County Medical Society of New physician of Greenock, to a gentleman of this York in 1808, succeeding to that trust his precity, was recently placed in our hands as a curi-decessor Dr. Archibald Bruce, the first Secreous note of the past. Dr. Buchanan is a native of America, having, as will appear by his note, State legislation in 1806. Dr. B., upon the restary after the organization of the institution by enjoyed the honor of being a godson of Wash-ignation of Dr. John R. B. Rodgers, was chosen ington. He has long lived abroad. His letter by the trustees of Columbia College, in 1808, contains several references to the physicians of Professor of Obstetrics, which appointment he New York of the last generation, which seemed to be well worthy of elucidation. We have, accordingly, called upon a valued contributor to the Historical Magazine to assist in our inquiries, and the result is the courteous and interesting reply which we now-with the references which called it forth-lay before our readers. Extract from Dr. Buchanan's Letter. I remain, gentlemen, very truly yours, LETTER OF DR. FRANCIS. To the Editor of the Historical Magazine. March 2, 1860. DEAR SIR:-With your kind request of last held some four or five years. I was present and listened to his introductory lecture upon opening his first course. He seemed to me not to possess the elements of longevity in his physical structure, but he has outlived nearly all his contemporaries, both young and old-doubtless owing to his cautious and prudent ethics and his rigid sanitary principles. At In reference to his fellow-laborers, Dr. Anthon (Charles Christian) died in this city in 1815, aged 81 years. He was a native of Germany, received his diploma at Amsterdam, and was some time in the service of the Dutch West India Company. He was appointed Garrison Surgeon at New York by Lord Amherst, and transferred thence to Detroit and appointed Surgeon-General at that post. He continued at Detroit during the French and Indian wars. the close of the revolutionary struggle he turned his attention to New York, and arrived in this city in 1784, where he continued in the practical exercise of his profession to the termination of his valuable, honorable, and patriotic life. He enjoys an enduring renown as the father of the great linguist and professor of Columbia College, Charles Anthon, the present Jay Professor of Languages. Of Dr. Moore, I need only say he long enriched practical medicine in this city by his devotion and skill. He was a brother of the the late Bishop of the diocese of the Episcopal Church of New York, and it would be difficult to determine in which of these two brothers the greater excellences of purity of life and profes tions than any other surgeon, he may be assured that chirurgical science will not fail of its duty in recording the man who laid the foundation in this metropolis of clinical instruction in the great art, and enlarged the boundaries of the profession by his original surgical achievements. The threescore and ten years of his laborious life have only enkindled new appliances and strengthened solicitude for the further promotion of chirurgical dexterity and sanative results. Mr. Thomas Suffern, the opulent merchant, still dwells with the triumphant corps of successful men in the responsible toils of commerce. Both he and Dr. Mott retain strong recollections of Dr. Buchanan. You will thus see that Dr. Buchanan's associates were of a high order. This letter will testify that the man who so circumstantially affirms the fact of his being a godson of Washington is not obliterated from my memory, either as teacher or practitioner. With due consideration of esteem, I subscribe myself a well wisher to your valuable work, JOHN W. FRANCIS. VESPUCIUS AND HIS FIRST VOYAGE. Primitive Discovery and Exploration of the Gulf of Mexico and the Coast of the United States, 1497-8. sional worth abounded,-in the doctor, William, or in the bishop, Benjamin. Dr. Moore's ample obstetric practice enabled him to publish some valuable statistical tables on Natural and Instrumental Labors. He doubtless furnished Buchanan (his intimate friend) with practical hints on the subject, the better to stamp value on his lectures. Dr. Moore died in New York in 1824, aged 71 years. Dr. Post (Wright) is still well recollected among us. He was for forty years pre-eminently distinguished as a physician and surgeon, and for a long period noted as the accomplished Professor of Anatomy in Columbia College, and in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in this city during its most triumphant career. He was for thirty-five years one of the surgeons of the New York Hospital. He was a great exemplar of professional dignity. He died at Throgsneck in 1820, aged 62 years. Of Dr. Tillary it deserves to be stated, that for a period of full forty years he practised the medical art in New York with acknowledged reputation. He was a native of Scotland, and came out to this country as a surgeon's mate at the commencement of hostilities between the colonies and the mother country. He was of a generous nature, kind to the poor and the afflictedbraved the yellow-fever pestilence, more particularly during its violent rages in 1795 and 1798 in this city-aided Bayley in his investigation into the nature of the disease in 1795-was an early President of the County Medical Society, and was long a popular President of the Saint Andrew's Society. He died in 1818, in this city, aged about 67 years. He had a cultivated taste for literature, and not unfrequently upon the presentation of his medical bill accompanied it with a poetic epistle to his restored patient. He was inoculated with the poetry of Burns, almost The first voyage of Vespucius in the service of amounting to a disease. Of the recently de- Spain, has generally been rejected as a fabricaparted and lamented Washington Irving I am tion; but as he has been exonerated from the confident I shall be excused from saying any charge of having himself named the New World, thing at present. Of the good, kindly, and ven- his voyages have been more carefully examined. erable Mr. John Allan, so signally known for his Herrera, confounding the two voyages of 1497 devotion to antiquarian research and American and 1499, raised the cry of imposture, which has historical records, I have only to add that time echoed through two centuries. Mr. De Varnhahas not abated his zeal in the accumulation and gen takes up the voyage itself, and by the map of preservation of materials to elucidate the trans-America attempts to trace it. "For our part,' actions of this great city, and its march in im- he says, on reading the narrative of Vespucius, provements. Still a resident of old Vande- before a map, our mind has been convinced of water-street, his generous pursuits daily enlarge the narrator's veracity. We see that he describes the stock of useful knowledge for bibliographi- a land that he must have visited in person, unless cal and biographical research. What is univer- we choose to allow him the gift of divination, sally known need hardly to be stated in this seeing that when he wrote, no expedition had yet brief notice. The surgeon of the age, Professor explored the localities which he describes. We Valentine Mott, still practises his great art with cannot doubt that Vespucius, leaving Spain, May the zeal and success of his earlier days; and 10, 1497, and sailing a thousand leagues W. S. W., having, according to Sir Astley Cooper's opin- traversing, consequently, the Antilles, probably ion, performed more heroic and greater opera- along Hayti and Jamaica, which he does not men BY F. A. DE VARNHAGEN. THE accomplished author of the "General History of Brazil," published in the Bulletin of the Société de Géographie, in January and February, 1858, a paper with the above title, a summary of which we shall give as a prelude to an interesting letter on the same subject. 66 uralized, created Pilot-major, with such powers that no one could serve as a pilot to the colonies without his leave; 4th, Columbus, in 1502, seeking the passage to Asia, went southward, the west and north having been examined by Vespucius; 5th, in 1500, Cuba, supposed by Columbus to be part of the continent, figures as an island; 6th, the map published by Ruysch, in 1507, and in the Roman Ptolemy of 1508, shows a coast west of the Antilles, and about 750 west of the Canaries, with the words: "Huc usq. naves Ferdinado Regis Hispanie P. venerut." The most southerly point is the Cape of St. Marc, and Vespucius reached that coast on St. Mark's day, June 18th; Florida is delineated on it, and the cape at its southern extremity styled Cape of the end of April; 7th, his voyage enabled them to know, as they did in Portugal, in 1501, that the northern lands of snow and ice were contiguous to the Antilles and the Land of Parrots. tion for the simple reason that they were already sufficiently known, found himself, after 37 days, in lat. 160 N., long. 750 W. of the Canaries. He had discovered the new continent, some days, before Cabot. He was in the Gulf of Honduras.' The vessels anchored, and he endeavored to treat with the natives, but they fled, and he sailed off. Keeping in sight of land, he followed the coast of Yucatan northwest for two days, and anchored in a safe spot where he landed 40 men, and began to traffic with the natives. Sailing on for several days he came to a town built. on stakes, which reminded him of Venice, and which Mr. De Varnhagen identifies with Vera Cruz. Here he had a struggle with the iguanaeating natives, and sailing on for eighty leagues, came to another port under the tropic, where the people spoke a different language. This port lay in a territory called Lariab. This name was changed in an edition by Waldzeemuller, in 1507, to Parias; and on the faith of this corrupt reading most investigators have supposed the voy-rome Vianello, published by Humboldt in his age to have been to the coast of Brazil. To carry out this, however, all had to be, and all has been, distorted. The term Lariab, Mr. De Varnhagen identifies with Cariah, a term known on the coast, and the harbor becomes Tampico. Such is, in brief, the view and position of Mr. Coasting along, Vespucius passed the mouth of Varnhagen; and we give it in order to a better the Mississippi, and on the last day of April, understanding of his letter, which we now pub1498, he was off the southern extremity of Flor-lish, and which was kindly transmitted to us by ida. Following the coast, he ran for a month along our Atlantic seaboard, till in June, after a voyage of thirteen months, he reached a port which Vespucius calls the best in the world. "This port could be only in the entrance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence." Here the ships entered to repair, and during a stay of 37 days, amid the friendly natives, a small vessel was built. Espousing the cause of his new friends, he sailed for seven days E. N. E., to attack a hostile tribe a hundred leagues off on the isle of Iti, and here made some prisoners, part of whom were given to his allies. Hoisting sail then for Europe, Ves-affixed to some remarkable points of the coast, pucius reached Cadiz in October, 1498. as they appear on maps made anterior to the times usually recognized as those of their discovery. Mr. Varnhagen cites, finally, the letter of Je"Examen Critique" (v. 157); and which supports this view of the voyage, making him ascend a large river, either the Mississippi or St. Lawrence. Mr. Buckingham Smith, with the following note: Sir,—Mr. Varnhagen, the author of the wellknown "History of Brazil," has honored me with the inclosed note. You will discover that it contains some reasons, in addition to those he has lately urged through the Bulletin of the Society of Geography of Paris, respecting the reality of the first voyage alleged to have been made by Vespucius, which he finds in the conditions of the country he believes to have been explored, and in the names With great respect and regard, GEORGE H. MOORE, ESQ., Such is the theory of Mr. Varnhagen, and in corroboration, he cites: 1st, Navarrete's declaration that many availed themselves of the general permission, given in 1495, to set out on exploring expeditions; 2d, the declaration of Vespucius that he conceived the project, after having been four years in commerce, at Seville-and we know from Bartolozzi, that he was in Spain from 1492 to 1496, superintending a commercial house of LoMADRID, Sept. 22, 1858. renzo Pier Francesco De Medici; 3d, had he MY ESTEEMED FRIEND:-The favor with which merely accompanied Hojeda in 1499, he would you and some others, students of American Hisnot have been treated with such respect, after tory, have received my observations on the subleaving the Portuguese service in 1505-for, from ject of the first voyage of Vespucius (Vespuce et that year to 1508, he was consulted on all expe- son premier voyage), as affording the only exditions to the Indies, enjoyed a salary, was nat-planation that can plausibly be given to it-as Uor M suming the exploration to have been made between the 18th of June, 1497, and the end of July, 1498, along the eastern coast of America, northward from the Bay of Honduras to the Gulf of St. Lawrence-encourages me to communicate to you some other reflections in support of my opinions, which I will leave subject to such direction and publicity as you may think proper to give them. stead, on the continent, C. do fin d'Abril, and also other names. Perhaps the statement with regard to the captives which Vespucius says were brought to Spain from this voyage, concerning which some record must have been made in Cadiz, may lead us yet to obtain a full confirmation of the fact of the voyage. I at once agree with Navarrete, that in the number of captives there is great Vespucius says, that in coming to the country exaggeration; or, I believe rather, the figures of Lariab (Paria, according to the text of Hila- 222 to be a typographical error, made in place of comilus, or perhaps Caria, as in Navarrete, iii. putting 22, for this last number we shall find to 558), the inhabitants speak a language different be exactly that of the prisoners which Vespufrom that spoken eighty leagues to the south-cius tells us were captured by them. On the ward; and we know that a little to the south-island of Iti, where the fight was heaviest, the ward of Panuco was the line of division between whole number of prisoners was 25 only; of the Guastecas and Totonacos. He says, likewise, that the iguana is found there; and it appears that, in truth, the animal on the continent has its highest habitat not far to the north of that line. which seven fell to the lot of the Indian allies, there remaining consequently 18; and these, withi the four (that is, two men and two old women) taken from the village "like Venice" (which, Í believe, was near Vera Cruz-perhaps Agualunco), make exactly 22. The famous discoverer states, also, that from a port, "the best in the world" (which was, per- These are, my dear sir, the new facts which haps, the straits of Northumberland), he sailed press on my mind the conviction of the reality seven days to the east-northeast, to make war of the first voyage of Vespucius and of the genupon certain savages, the enemies of the inhab- uineness of his letter; and the further I investiitants at the port. The last were probably Al-gate and reflect upon the matter, the more setgonquins, and their enemies, the Esquimaux, tled becomes my conviction. from the island near the port Cartier. The name Iti, I will observe, sounds like an Esquimaux word, the language abounding in the syllable ti; as in kititca, a tooth, and in Shekatica and Mecatina, names of islands in their archipelago. Herrera (Decad. I., lib. vi., cap. 17), in speaking of the invitation sent from Spain to Vespucius while in Portugal, treats confusedly of the expeditions to the northern continent; but we know that when he entered the Spanish service in 1505, he was appointed to go to those countries, probably because he had already a practical knowledge of them. The map of Juan de la Cosa, which, in the year 1500, sets forth Cuba as an island (notwithstanding the oaths of those who, in 1494, had sworn it to be the mainland), closes up all the coast from the latitude of that island northward to an indefinite extent; that is to say, all that the voyage of Vespucius and his companions may have been supposed to settle, having found no communications to the Indian Sea. The map of Ruysch (in the Atlas of Ptolomeus, printed at Rome in 1508), omits the island of Cuba, or Juana, and gives in its place a piece of the coast which has been assumed, without full reflection, to be a part of Cuba, and the Cape S. Marci to be P. Mahici. The charta marina Portugalensium (1504), as well as the Ptolomeus of 1513, settle the difficulty by putting in their Ever very truly yours, AD. DE VARNHAGEN. TRIALS OF EARLY GERMAN IMMIGRANTS. MARCH 15th, 1755. HONORED AND BELOVED SIR:-Confidence into your wisdom and clemency made me so free as to write this letter to you. I would not have that somebody should know of these private lines, otherways it would have become me to get a hand who is able to write in a proper manner and style to a person as your station requireth. It is thirty years since I came to this province, out of a country where no liberty of conscience was, nor humanity reigned in the house of my then country lord, and where all the people is owned with their boddys to the lord there, and are obliged to work for him six days in every week, viz., three days with a horse, and three days with a hoe, shovel, or spade; or if he can't come himselves, he must send somebody in his room. And when I came into this province and found every thing to the contrary from where I came from, I wrote largely to all my friends and acquaintances of the civil and religious libertys, privileges, &c., and of all the goodness I have heard and seen, and my letters were printed and reprinted, and provoked many a thousand people to come to this province, and many thanked the Lord for it, and desired their friends also again to come here. Some years the price was five pistoles per freight, and the merchants and captains crowded for passengers, finding more profit by passengers than by goods, &c. But the love for great gain caused that Stedman lodged the poor passenger like herrings, and as too many had not room between decks, he kept abundance of them upon deck; and sailing to the southward, where the people were at once out of their climate, and for want of water and room became sick and died very fast, in such a manner that in one year no less than two thou-semblymen was asked whether there was no sand was buried in the seas and Philadelphia. Stedman, at that time, bought a license in Holland that no captain or merchant could load any as long as he had not two thousand loaded. This murdering trade made my heart ache, especially when I heard that there was more profit by their death than by carrying them alive. I thought my provoking letters was partly the cause of so many people's death. I wrote a letter to the magistrate at Rotterdam, and immediately the monopolium was taken from John Stedman. Our legislature was also petitioned, and a law was made as good as it is, but was never executed. Mr. Spaffort, an old, poor captain, was made overseer for the vessels that came loaded with passengers, whose salary came to from $200 to $300 a year, for concealing that sometimes the people had but twelve inches place, and not half bread nor water. Spaffort died, and our Assembly chose one Mr. Trotter who let every ship slip, although a great many people had no room at all, except in the long-boat, where every man perished. There was too many complaints, so that many in Philadelphia and almost all Germantown signed a petition that our Assembly night give that office to one Thomas Say, an English merchant, at Philadelphia, of whom we have the confidence that he would take no bribe for concealing what poor people suffered; or, if they will not turn Mr. Trotter out of office, to give him an assistance of one Daniel Mackinett, a shop-keeper in Philadelphia, who speaks Dutch and English, who might speak with the people in their language-but in vain, except they have done what I know not. Among other grievances the poor Germans suffer is one, viz., that when the ignorant Germans agrees fairly with merchants at Holland for seven pistoles and a half, when they come to Philadelphia the merchants make them pay whatever they please, and take at least nine pistoles. The poor people on board are prisoners. They must not go ashore, or have their chests delivered, except they allow in a bond or pay what they owes not; and when they go into the country, they loudly complain there that no justice is to be had for poor strangers. They show their agreements, wherein is fairly mentioned that they are to pay seven pistoles and a half to Isaac and Zachary Hope, at Rotterdam, or their order at Philadelphia, &c.; and as this is so much practised, that at least £2000 or £3000 in one year the country is wronged from. It was much desired that among wholesome laws, such a one may be made that when such vessels arrive, that a commissioner might be appointed to inspect into their agreements, and judge if 7 pistoles makes not seven and a half. Some of the Asremedy? They answered, "the law is such that what is above forty shillings must be decided at court, and every one must make his own cause appear good and stand a trial." A very poor comfort for two or three thousand wronged people, to live at the discretion of their merchants. They are so longing to go ashore, and fill once their belly, that they allow and pay what is demanded; and some are sighing, some are cursing, and some believe that their case differs very little from such that falls in the hands of highwaymen who present a pistol upon their breast and are desired to give whatever the highwayman pleaseth; and who can hinder them thinking so? I, myself, thought a commission could be ordered in only such cases; but I observed that our Assembly has more a mind to prevent the importation of such passengers than to do justice to them; and seeing that your Honor is not of the same mind, and intends to alter the said bill, I find myself obliged to let your Honor know the mean points, without which, nothing will be done to the purpose. I was surprised to see the title of the bill, which, in my opinion, is not the will of the Crown, nor of the proprietors, neither is it the will of the Lord, who gives an open way that the poor and distressed, the afflicted, and any people may come to a place where there is room for them; and if there is here no room no more, there island enough in our neighborhood, as there are eight or nine counties of Dutch (German) people in Virginia, where many out of Pennsylvania is removed to. Methinks it will be proper to let them come, and let justice be done to them. The order of our Lord is such: Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy, deliver the poor and needy. and rid them out of the hand of the wicked. (Psalm 82.) Beloved Sir-You are certainly a servant of the Lord our God, and I do believe that you are |