Among those encyclopædists, who, according to their title, knew all the sciences, not one of them appreciated Columbus, or the grandeur of his work. The learned Buffon himself, participating in the general contempt for the importance of the New World, placed the discovery of the Portuguese before that of Columbus: "They doubled the Cape of Good Hope, they traversed the seas of Africa and of the Indies, and, whilst they directed all their views to the East and to the South, Christopher Columbus turned his towards the West."[1]
Protestantism came to the aid of French Philosophy.
Robertson found that for the Discovery there was no need for Columbus. "If the sagacity of Columbus," says he, "had not made known to us America, some years later a happy chance would have conducted us to it."[2] As if ever anybody would have dared to venture into those dread latitudes, had not the success of Christopher Columbus removed the fears of mariners, and thrown light on the mysteries of the Gloomy Ocean!
Seeing that the claims of Columbus could be so easily passed over, a French diplomatist, M. Otta, thought he exhibited an instance of philosophic perspicacity, and one that deserved praise from archæology, in trying to prove that Columbus had not made the discovery, inasmuch as America was known before his enterprise. The first of April, 1786, he addressed from New York, to the celebrated Dr. Franklin, a memoir on the subject. In the following year, in the materialistic observations and additions to the philosophical memoirs of Ulloa upon the discovery of America, the old accusations of the enemies of Columbus were revived, and the famous unknown pilot, who confided his charts to him, received the title of Navigator.[3]
