The Isle of Pines | Page 5

and ready to inflict as well as to repel aggression, only too willing to descend upon a weaker vessel or a helpless settlement of a power which had come to be regarded as a "natural enemy." So in Holland and in Germany the leaflets containing the story of the Isle of Pines were received with mingled feelings, exciting a desire to share in the possible benefits to be gained or extorted from natives of the new lands, or from those who had the first opportunity to exploit a virgin territory. On the first receipt of those leaflets merchants held back their vessels about to sail, to await more definite information on this fourth island of the Terra Australis incognita.
An examination of the known issues of the tract proves this interest and offers an almost unique study in bibliography; for I doubt if any publication made in the second half of the seventeenth century--even a state paper of importance, as a treaty--attained such speedy and widespread recognition. A list of the various issues will be found in an appendix: it only remains to call attention to a few of the many novelties and variant characteristics of the editions.

DUTCH EDITIONS
In June and July, 1668, four tracts on the Isle of Pines from the same pen were licensed and published in London, which may for convenience be designated the first and second parts of the narrative, and the two parts in continuation. From London the tract soon passed to Holland, which had ever been a greedy consumer of voyages of discovery, for the greatness of that nation depended upon the sea, at once its most potent enemy and friend.{1} Three Dutch editions have been found, the earliest in point of time being that made by Jacob Vinckel, of Amsterdam.
1 Holland was the centre of map publication as the twenty yean before 1668 saw the issue of atlases by Jansson, Blaeu, Mercator, Doncker, Cellarius, Loon, Visscher, and Goos, all published at Amsterdam. Phillips' list for this period gives atlases published elsewhere--those of Boissevin (Paris, 1653), Lubin (Paris, 1659), Nicolosi (Rome, 1660), Dudley (Florence, 1661), Du Val (Paris, 1662), Jollain (Paris 1667), Cluver (Wolfen-b?ttel, 1667?) and Ortelius (Venice, 1667).
[ 13 ]His second title is an exact translation of the second title of the London first part. This version, however, omitted an essential part of the relation. The London second title is also that of the issue made at Amsterdam by Jacob Stichter, being the Vinckel version, word for word, and almost line for line, but the type used is the gothic, and the spelling of words is not the same. Further, Stichter was possessed of some imagination and decorated his title-page with a map of a part of the island, showing ranges of hills, a harbor or mouth of a river, with conventional soundings, and two towns or settlements. As each of these issues contains only eight pages of text, the first London part only was known to the publishers. The third Dutch edition was put out by Joannes Naeranus, at Rotterdam, and in a foreword he gives the following reason for issuing the tract:
To the Reader A part of the present relation is also printed by Jacob Vinckel at Amsterdam, being defective in omitting one of the principal things, so do we give here a true copy which was sent to us authoritatively out of England, but in that language, in order that the curious reader may not be deceived by the poor translation, and for that reason this very astonishing history fall under suspicion. Lastly, admire God's wondrous guidance, and farewell.
[ 14 ]His publication contains twenty pages of text, and is not an accurate translation of the English tract in parts, but rather a paraphrase of the text. To make the confusion the greater, he expressly states on the title-page that he used a copy received from London, and gives the London imprint which will fit only the first London part. For "by S. G." appears only on the title-page of that part.

FRENCH EDITIONS
From Amsterdam and under date July 19, 1668, a summary of the earlier Dutch issue with two paragraphs of introduction was sent to Paris, and was printed in a four-page pamphlet by Sébastien Marbre Cramoisy, the king's printer, whose name is so honorably connected with the Jesuit Relations--stories as remarkable as any offered in the "Isle of Pines" and of immeasurable value on the earliest years of recorded history in our New England. Even this summary, thus definitely dated, offers problems. The location of the island is given in general terms in the half-title as "below the equinoctial line," and in the text as in "xxviii or xxix degrees of Antartique latitude." Nowhere in the first London part is either location used, and in the second London part, which bears