Balboa, Vasco

NUÑEZ DE, a celebrated Spanish discoverer, B. at Xeres de los Caballeros, in 1475. He accompanied Rodrigo de Bastidas in his expedition to the New World, and first settled in Hayti (or, as it was then termed, Hispaniola). Though an adventurer in search of fortune, his great ambition seems to have been to extend the boundaries of geographical knowledge, and especially to be able to announce to Europe the existence of another great ocean. He accordingly proceeded to the American continent, and there founded a colony, made numerous expeditions into the auriferous regions of the interior, and accumulated a vast amount of treasure. He now turned his attention to the great object of discovery on which he had set his heart. On the 1st of Sept., 1513, he commenced his perilous enterprise. Accompanied by a small band of followers, he began to thread the almost impenetrable forests of the Isthmus of Darien, and, guided by an Indian chief named Ponca, clambered up the rugged gorges of the mountains. At length, after a toilsome and dangerous journey, B. and his companions approached, on the 25th Sept., the summit of the mountain range, when B. , leaving his followers at a little distance behind, and advancing alone to the W. declivity, was the first to behold the vast unknown ocean, which he afterwards took solemn po e ion of in the name of his sovereign, and named it the Pacific Ocean, from the apparent quietude of its waters. Surrounded by his followers, he walked into it, carrying in his right hand a naked sword, and in his left the banner of Castile, and declared the sea of the South, and all the regions whose shores it bathed, to belong to the crown of Castile and Leon. During his absence, however, a new governor had been appointed to supersede B. in Hayti; where on his return, jealousy and di ensions springing up between them, B. , accused of a design to rebel, was beheaded in 1517, in violation of all forms of justice. Balbriggan, a seaport of Ireland, co. Dublin. and prov. of Leinster, 17 m. N. by E. of Dublin. - Manf. Knitted hosiery. There is here a good harbor, with a light-house. B. is a favorite watering-place. Pop . about 2,500.