Note 3 — INTRODUCTION.

Though the great Genoese came in sight of St. Salvador, Bahama Islands, on the 11th of October, 1492, it was not until 1497 that he found the continent, the same year that Cabot, the son of a Venetian pilot residing at Bristol, discovered Newfoundland, and named it Prima Vista; the year also (or, as some say, the year before), that Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine in the service of Spain, and subsequently of Portugal, and again of Spain, reached the east coast, and was fortunate in giving his name to the entire of the continent, north and south. The Bahamas were not known to the English for nearly 200 years (1667) after the discovery by Columbus, when Captain Seyle was nearly wrecked there while proceeding to Carolina, also discovered by Cabot in 1500. The Bahamas were long infested by pirates; but in 1718 Captain Rogers expelled them, and the islands became and have since remained the property of the Crown of England, with the consent of Spain, though the British had had a settlement there long previously.