Character of Mr. Lopez, as a Friend to the Liberties and Independence of the United States, is clear & unimpeached, as will be testified by some honorable Members of this House. The Method by which he proposes to bring off his Property is, to send Capn. Wright and a trusty Navigator, an Inhabitant of this Country, by Way of some neutral Port, to Jamaica, from whence Capn. Wright is to dispatch the Property received in a Vessel, under the Command of such Navigator, to some Port of the United States. The Navigator whom he has in view for this Purpose, is Capn. Daniel Gardner, a Man, as we are informed by Mr. Lopez, of Reputation, and remarkably attached to the Cause of America. Mr. Lopez wishes for separate Protections; one for himself, the other for Capn. Wright.

When these Circumstances (the Truth of Most of which appears upon the Records of the Court of Appeals) are considered, we hope that Congress will be pleased to grant to Mr. Lopez and Capn. Wright the Protection for which we apply on their Behalf. Indulgencies of the same kind, have been already granted, as we have been informed, by Congress, to others on similar Occasions. Few, we believe, have better Reason to expect them than Mr. Lopez has. He is a Merchant of extensive Business, is active, enterprising, and public Spirited.

[Addressed] "His Excellency Samuel Huntington Esquire President of Congress."

[Endorsed] "Letter from James Wilson and Wm. Lewis Esqrs.

April 19th 1780. read same day."*

* Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 78, Vol. 24, p. 199.

COLUMBUS IN JEWISH LITERATURE.

BY PROFESSOR R. J. H. GOTTHEIL, Columbia College, New York.

Joseph ben Joshua Hakkōhen was of Spanish parentage.* His family had been compelled to leave their home during the forced exodus of 1492. His father settled in Avignon, at which place Joseph was born; but, later, removed to Genoa. When the Jews were expelled from that city, Joseph went to Voltaggio, where he did most of his literary work. He died in the year 1575.

Joseph was a careful historian. He gathered his facts from all possible sources, made notes, kept registers—all of which served him as material when writing his Emek Habbākhāh and Dibhrē Hayyāmim. This last work is a Book of Chronicles-not only of his own people, but also of all the nations with whom they had come in contact. It contains an account of Columbus, which has recently been the subject of some discussion. He curiously confounds Columbus with Americo. The whole description is vague and poor, and Harrisse is right§ in wondering at the meagreness of Joseph's information. For the Genoa Psalter of 1516 was published before he wrote, and that contains a long and trustworthy account.

* On Joseph Kohen, see Steinschneider, Bodleian Catalogue, col. 1498; Jewish Literature, p. 251; Hebraïsche Uebersetzungen, vol. II., pp. 775, 948; Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, p. xix; Revue des Études Juives, vol. xiv, pp. 28 sq.

† An English translation of this book was published in 1836 by C. H. F. Bialloblotzky, "The Chronicles of Rabbi Joseph . . . the Sphardi. 2 vols. London. Oriental Translation Fund.

See A. Kohut, References to Columbus and America's Discovery in Contemporaneous Hebrew Literature. The Menorah, Dec. 1892, pp. 403 sq.

§ Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 1888, p. 136.

The explanation is to be found in the peculiar manner in which Joseph wrote his works. Books were scarce in those days. Joseph had difficulty in procuring those he needed. He says expressly in a passage which I shall cite further on, that he did not, at that time, have the good fortune to possess a book giving him detailed information about the discoveries made in America. Afterwards he was able to obtain such a work, and he immediately set about to do it into Hebrew in order that his people might have correct information on the subject. This work was La Historia general de las Indias of Francisco Lopez de Gomara.* This work in two parts (The Book of India and The Book of Fernando Cortes, or The Book of Mexico) he joined to another work Massibh Gebhuloth Ammim,† itself a translation of the Omnium gentium mores leges et ritus of Joan Boemus.

Now, the redaction of his Chronicles was finished in 1553. The translation of Boemus' work bears the date 1555. It was only after he had completed these two that he commenced translating his larger work on America, which he completed in the year 1557. We can thus follow closely his gradual acquisition of knowledge on the subject of the discoveries in the New World. Had he written his Chronicles after his translation of de Gomara, our judgment upon them would not have been so severe.

It is, perhaps, wrong to call these works translations. I have before me the text of de Gomara as published in the 22d volume of the Bibliotheca de Autores Españoles, Madrid, 1884. The Hebrew is an abridgment and only preserves the general run of the original. But Joseph is very careful in his proper names. At the end of each treatise he even has a list of Spanish words used, with their Hebrew equivalents.

* Cf. Bibliographical Notice of Rare and Curious Books relating to America. . . in the Library of Carter Brown. Providence. Vol. I., p. 168; Vol. II., p. 14. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. II.

i. e. that which setteth the bounds of the people. Deut. 32, 6.

Poetical quotations he gives in Spanish, but in Hebrew characters; and he adds a rhymned Hebrew translation of his own.

The MS. of these two works-for they seem to have been intended to go together-in my library was purchased at the sale of the library of the late R. N. Rabinowitz in Munich.* It was sold to me as being unique. It was some time afterwards that I discovered that I had been the victim of a deception, for another MS. of the same work was sold to the Alliance israelite in Paris at about the same time. To be more accurate, the MS. that I had bought was sold to Paris and an inferior one sent to me. The discovery came when I read the excellent article of the late Isidore Loeb (Revue des Etudes Juives, Vol. XVI., pp. 28 sq.) on the very MS. which I supposed I had bought. Mr. Rabinowitz had died in the meantime, so that redress was impossible.

There are thus two MSS. of this work known. There were originally more copies. Joseph, it seems, thought well of his own works. He made several copies of the translation, carefully adding the date at which he finished each copy. That now in the library of the Alliance was the ninth and was finished in the year 1568. My own copy is the fifth, and bears the date 12th Tishri, 1564. Our author had also a penchant for poetry. He affixed to this, his fifth copy, quite a number of verses; also formulæ for the heading of letters addressed to various personages of rank. There is the mark of the visé of a censor, with the date 1607.

It is only necessary to look at the Catalogue Reshimath Sefārim Yeshenim. hamshēkh, etc., sent out by Mr. Rabinowitz himself. I refer to the one bearing the date 5th Tammuz, 5647. The MS. is numbered 129 (p. 20), and the note is added: welo' nodha' ‘ōdh baolam. But the buyer of MSS. must expect many a surprise! Steinschneider, Hebr. Uebersetz., p. 948, speaks of another MS. (Servi, dated 15 Omer, 1567). I can find nothing more about it. Towards the end, the ink has eaten into the thin paper and partly destroyed it.

See also Leonello Modona, Gli ebrei e la scoperte dell' America, Casale, 1893, p. 5. I am indebted to one of my students, Mr. George Kohut, for this notice.