(seq. 187)

East Florida
Chap.r 1st

From whence the Appellation of Florida, how
and when first discovered, what part of it, and
by whom conquered; when and how long settled
by the Spaniards; when ceded to England and
called East Florida, with a List of its first
Inhabitants.

1st The Derivation of the Name (Florida) is variously reported;
the most ancient and of course most precise and contemporaneous Historian,
who wrote upon this Subject is Inka Garcilasso de la Vega, born in Perou,
his Father was a Spanish Gentleman, who married a Native descending
from the ancient Family of the Inkas; this Inka Garcilasso left Perou, and came
in 1560 to old Spain, where he wrote, and delivered to the Public the History of the
Peruvian Inkas; the Spanish Civil War in that Country, and the general
History of Perou, also an account of the Conquest of Florida, wherein he sets forth,
that in the year 1513 (a) the Governor of Porto Rico Juan Ponce de Leon sailed
in quest of the Bimini (one of the Lucayes now Bahama Islands) in two armed
Frigates; but after a long unsuccessfull Navigation he was in a Gale cast
away on Land bearing North from Cuba (the greatest of the Antillas) as this
Misfortune happened to him on the 20th of March the day of Pasquas Floridas
(Palm Sunday) he in Memory of this day called the Place (Florida) supposing
it to be one of the Antilles.

2d. Inka Garcilasso does not mention the Particular Spot, nor from which
Point of the Compass that Gale blowed, as whereby one might trace, what is so im=
=portant to render a History precise, and exact; however so much can be as=
=certained for the present, that if the Wind has been East, the place is surely to
the North of Latitude 25, 42 on the western Shore of the Canal (which leads
the Waters out of the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean) now called the
new Bahama Channel; for had the Governor been cast away to the Southward of Latitude 25,42 he must have wrecked upon the Martyr's long before he
could come near any Shore, and even in most Places before he could see the
Land; in case the Wind has been West, then the Bay formerly called by his name
Ponce (which the Author of the present History distinguishes by the Appellation
of Chatham Bay) is the most probably Spot, on which the vast Continent of North
America
(a) the Beginning of the first Spanish Epoche on the Continent of North America.