On the contrary, the English and French have distinguished themselves always, and all the world over, as colonists; so that, saving those States of North America which have received the native names of the great lakes and rivers, we can discover exactly which were colonized by the one nation and which by the other. Moreover, the English and French have generally exercised the common trait of honouring the mother country by naming a new colony or a newly-discovered island after the reigning monarch or a distinguished countryman. A similar trait in the Dutch character presents itself in the repetition of the names of the native places of their navigators and colonists; while the Spaniards and Portuguese have displayed a tendency for naming an island discovered or a river explored by them in a manner commemorative of the day that witnessed the event. At the same time, it would not be wise to conjecture, merely from the name, that Columbus discovered the island of Trinidad on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, because he did nothing of the kind. Therefore, it behoves the curious inquirer to make himself acquainted with the circumstances under which our geographical names have arisen, so as to avoid falling into error. As well might he maintain, without the requisite knowledge, that the Canary Islands owed their designation to the birds that have so long been exported thence; for although such a conclusion were extremely plausible, he would still be at a loss to know how the canaries came by their name in the first place.
A like difficulty is liable to be encountered relative to the Sandwich Islands. A particularly smart boy might, indeed, be expected to inform us, as the outcome of a hastily-formed opinion, that the Sandwich Islands were so called because a shipwrecked crew who once found a refuge thereon continued to support themselves until such time as they were rescued by a passing vessel upon sandwiches. The bare idea may be laughed at; but it is no more preposterous than that the Canary Islands received their name from the birds that are found there in such plenty. The question at issue furnishes an example as to how a name may be perpetuated in different ways. Thus, Captain Cook named the Sandwich Islands in compliment to John Montague, fourth Earl of Sandwich and First Lord of the Admiralty, who took his title from Sandwich, or, as the etymology of this place implies, the “sand town,” one of the ancient Cinque Ports in Kent. An inveterate gamester was this Lord Sandwich; so much so that he would sit at the gaming-table for thirty hours and more at a stretch, never desisting from the game to partake of a meal, but from time to time ordering the waiter to bring him some slices of meat placed between two slices of thin bread, from which circumstance this convenient form of refreshment received the name of Sandwiches.