602 SPANISH COLONIAL POLICY. II PART which broke out with all the virulence of an epi- demic in almost every quarter of Europe, in a very short time after the discovery of America. The coincidence of these two events led to the popular belief of their connexion with each other, though it derived little support from any other circum- stance. The expedition of Charles the Eighth, against Naples, which brought the Spaniards, soon after, in immediate contact with the various nations of Christendom, suggested a plausible medium for the rapid communication of the disorder ; and this theory of its origin and transmission, gaining cred- it wdth time, which made it more difficult to be refuted, has passed with little examination from the mouth of one historian to another to the present day. The extremely brief interval which elapsed, between the return of Columbus and the simul- taneous appearance of the disorder at the most distant points of Europe, long since suggested a reasonable distrust of the correctness of the hy- pothesis ; and an American, naturally desirous of relieving his own country from so melancholy a re- proach, may feel satisfaction that the more search- ing and judicious criticism of our own day has at length established beyond a doubt that the disease, far from originating in the New World, was never known there till introduced by Europeans. '^ ^ The curious reader is particu- Venerei, di Domenico Thiene, Vene- larly referred to a late work, enti- zia, 1823 ; for the knowledge and tied Lcttere sulla Storia </e' Mali loan of which I am indebted to my
