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the same Cape and the nearest coast of Labrador is still much less. As it cannot be above two hundred French leagues, the voyage could not take up above feven or eight days, even allowing for the delays that must have happened to the ancients through their want of that skill in navigation which the moderns have since acquired. This could therefore appear no such frightful distance to adventurers who had newly discovered Greenland, which is separated from Iceland at leaft as far. This reasoning is still farther enforced, when we reflect that the distance of Iceland itself, from the nearest part of Norway, is double to that above-mentioned.
In effect, the hiftory of the North abounds with relations of maritime expeditions of far greater extent than was necessary for the difcovery of America. The fituation of Greenland, relative to this new country, not being fufficiently known, is the only circumftance that can prejudice one against it; but when we have maftered the greater objection, why should we make any difficulty of the less? We should ceafe to be furprized at thofe fame men croffing a fpace of two hundred leagues, which was the distance between them and America, whose courage and curiosity had frequently prompted them to traverse the
