Then a famous map-maker gave the name of America to both continents.
But many Spaniards were jealous for the fame of Columbus, and they
thought that the Northern Continent should be called Colonia or
Columbiana. One, anxious that the part in the discovery taken by
Ferdinand and Isabella should not be forgotten, even tried to make
people call it Fer-Isabelica.
But all such efforts were in vain. America sounded well, people
liked it, and soon every one used it.
Amerigo Vespucci himself had nothing to do with the choice, and
yet because others gave his name to the New World many hard things
have been said of him. He has been called in scorn a "land lubber,
" a beef and biscuit contractor," and other contemptuous names.
Even one of the greatest American writers has poured scorn on him.
"Strange," he says, "that broad America must wear the name of a
thief. Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle dealer of Seville . . . whose
highest naval rank was a boatswain's mate in an expedition that
never sailed, managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus and
baptise half the earth with his own dishonest name."
But it was the people of his day, and not Vespucci, who brought
the new name into use. Vespucci himself had never any intention of
being a thief or of robbing Columbus of his glory. He and Columbus
had always been friends, and little more than a year before he died
Columbus wrote a letter to his son Diego which Vespucci delivered.
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