Chapter I: The Voyages of the Cabots (2)

In 1553 Richard Eden, the first English collector of voyages and travels, published in London a translation “out of Latin into English” of the fifth book of the _Universal Cosmographia_ of Sebastian Münster, entitling it _A Treatise of the Newe India_,[28] etc. In the dedication of the book to the Duke of Northumberland, who had been Lord High Admiral of England under Henry VIII., Eden says, incidentally, that “King Henry VIII. about the same year of his reign [i. e. between April 1516 and April 1517], furnished and sent forth certain ships under the gouvernance of Sebastian Cabot yet living, and one Sir Thomas Pert, whose faint heart was the cause that the voyage took none effect;” and that if manly courage “had not at that time been wanting, it might happily have come to pass that that rich treasure called Perularia, which is now in Spain in the city of Sivil, and so named for that in it is kept the infinite riches brought hither from the new-found-land of Peru, might long since have been in the Tower of London, to the king’s great honor and wealth of this his realm.”

I find no notice taken of this statement of Eden, at the time, and it is only when we come down to the publication of Hakluyt’s folio, in 1589, that we see an attempt made to attach some importance to it. Although deviating a little from the chronological order of this narrative, I propose here to bring together what I may have to say concerning this voyage.

Dr. Kohl[29] very properly says that this incidental remark of Eden is all the original evidence we have on this so-called expedition of Cabot in 1516, to which some modern writers attach great importance, and by which great discoveries are said to have been made under Henry VIII. Hakluyt, in his folio of 1589, p. 515, copies the language of Eden cited above, and also an abstract from a spurious Italian version of Oviedo, in Ramusio’s collections, in which that writer is made to say that a Spanish vessel in the year 1517 fell in with an English rover at the islands of St. Domingo and St. John’s in the West Indies, on their way from Brazil; and concludes that this English rover could be none other than the vessel of Cabot and Pert. But Richard Biddle,[30] nearly two hundred and fifty years after Hakluyt wrote this opinion, exploded this theory by showing that Oviedo, in his genuine work, really gave 1527 as the date of the meeting of the English vessel, as narrated. Biddle, however, still had faith in Eden’s statement that an expedition sailed from England in the year indicated, commanded by Cabot and Pert, but held that it took a northwesterly direction, and that it was on this expedition that Cabot entered Hudson Bay, and reached the high latitude of 67½ N. as mentioned by him in a letter to Ramusio;[31] in which letter Cabot says that “on the 11th of June, finding still the open sea without any manner of impediment, he thought verily by that way to have passed on still the way to Cathay, which is in the east, ... if the mutiny of the shipmaster and mariners had not hindered him, and made him to return homewards from that place.” Biddle saw a parallel in the language of Eden as to the “faint heart” of Pert, and in that of Cabot as to the “mutiny of the shipmaster and mariners;” not forgetting also similar language in a letter written by Robert Thorne to Doctor Ley, in 1527, relating to a voyage of discovery to the west, in which Thorne’s father and another merchant of Bristol, Hugh Eliot, were participants—which voyage, Mr. Biddle says, was in 1517—that, “if the mariners would then have been ruled and followed their pilots’ mind, the lands of the West Indies, from whence all the gold cometh, had been ours.”[32] Mr. Biddle forgets that in the letter of Cabot to Ramusio, cited above, the writer says that the voyage of which he is here speaking was made in the reign of Henry VII., who died in 1509, seven or eight years before the date which Biddle assigns to the alleged Cabot and Pert voyage.

Dr. Kohl, who has very learnedly and at great length examined the claims for this voyage of 1516-17,[33] has little confidence that any such expedition actually sailed. Eden says the voyage “took none effect,” which may mean that the expedition never sailed. It seems also very improbable that Cabot, so recently domiciled in Spain, where he was occupying an honorable position, should leave it all now and re-enter the service of England, by whose Government he had apparently for so many years been neglected. No English or Spanish writer mentions his leaving Spain at this time.[34]

In 1555 there appeared in London the first collection in English of the “results of that spirit of maritime enterprise which had been everywhere awakened by the discovery of America.” The book was edited by Richard Eden,—just mentioned as the translator of the fifth book of Munster, in 1553,—and consisted of translations from foreign writers, principally Latin, Spanish, and Italian, of travels by sea and land, largely relating to discoveries in the New World. The book was entitled, _The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India_, etc., inasmuch as one hundred and sixty-six folios out of three hundred and seventy-four, which the book contains, consist of the first three Decades of Peter Martyr, and an epitome of the fourth Decade first issued at Basle, in 1521. Then follow abstracts of Oviedo, Gomara, Ramusio, Ziegler, Pigafeta, Munster, Bastaldus, Vespucius, and several others. Some of the voyages are original and were drawn up by Eden’s own hand. It is a very desirable book to possess; and though Eden was a clumsy editor, not always correct in his translations, and did not always make it clear whether he or his author was speaking, we are grateful to him for the book. An enthusiastic tribute is paid to Eden and his book by Richard Biddle,[35] who sets him off by an invidious comparison with Richard Hakluyt, whom he studiously depreciates. Eden was apparently a devoted Catholic, and was a spectator of the public entry of Philip and Mary into London in 1554. He says that the splendid pageant as it passed before him inspired him to enter upon some work which he might in due season offer as the result of his loyalty, and “crave for it the royal blessing.”[36] In his preface to the reader Eden gives a brief review of ancient history, and coming down to the time of the conquest of the Indies by Spain he eulogizes the conduct of that nation towards the natives, particularly in having so effectually labored for their conversion. His language is one continued eulogy of the Spaniards. He urges England to submit to King Philip, of whom he says:—

“Of his behavior in England, his enemies (which canker virtue never lacked),—they, I say, if any such yet remain,—have greatest cause to report well, yea so well, that if his natural clemency were not greater than was their unnatural indignation, they know themselves what might have followed.... Being a lion he behaved himself as a lamb, and struck not his enemy having the sword in his hand. Stoop, England, stoop, and learn to know thy lord and master, as horses and other brute beasts are taught to do!”

He earnestly desires to see the Christian religion enlarged, and urges his countrymen to follow here the example of the Spaniards in the New World. He says:—

“I am not able, with tongue or pen, to express what I conceive hereof in my mind, yet one thing I see which enforseth me to speak, and lament that the harvest is so great and the workmen so few. The Spaniards have showed a good example to all Christian nations to follow. But as God is great and wonderful in all his works, so beside the portion of land pertaining to the Spaniards (being eight times bigger than Italy, as you may read in the last book of the second Decade), and beside that which pertaineth to the Portugals, there yet remaineth another portion of that main land reaching toward the northeast, thought to be as large as the other, and not yet known but only by the sea-coasts, neither inhabited by any Christian men; whereas, nevertheless, (as writeth Gemma Phrisius) in this land there are many fair and fruitful regions, high mountains, and fair rivers, with abundance of gold, and diverse kinds of beasts. Also cities and towers so well builded, and people of such civility, that this part of the world seemeth little inferior to our Europe, if the inhabitants had received our religion. They are witty people and refuse not bartering with strangers. These regions are called Terra Florida and Regio Baccalearum or Bacchallaos, of the which you may read somewhat in this book in the voyage of that worthy old man yet living, Sebastian Cabot, in the vi. book of the third Decade. But Cabot touched only in the north corner, and most barbarous part thereof, from whence he was repulsed with ice in the month of July. Nevertheless, the west and south parts of these regions have since been better searched by other, and found to be as we have said before.... How much therefore is it to be lamented, and how greatly doth it sound to the reproach of all Christendom, and especially to such as dwell nearest to these lands (as we do), being much nearer unto the same than are the Spaniards (as within xxv days sailing and less),—how much, I say, shall this sound unto our reproach and inexcusable slothfulness and negligence, both before God and the world, that so large dominions of such tractable people and pure gentiles, not being hitherto corrupted with any other false religion (and therefore the easier to be allured to embrace ours), are now known unto us, and that we have no respect neither for God’s cause nor for our own commodity, to attempt some voyages into these coasts, to do for our parts as the Spaniards have done for theirs, and not ever like sheep to haunt one trade, and to do nothing worthy memory among men or thanks before God, who may herein worthily accuse us for the slackness of our duty toward him.”

The few voyages of discovery made by the English in the first part of the sixteenth century, either by the authority of the Government or on private account, were productive of little results; and when Sebastian Cabot finally returned to England from Spain, in 1547 or 1548, his influence was engaged by sundry merchants of London, who were seeking to devise some means to check the decay of trade in the realm, by the discovery of a new outlet for the manufactured products of the nation. The result was the sending off the three vessels under Willoughby, in May, 1553, to the northeast, and finally the incorporation of the merchant adventurers, with Cabot as governor.

In Richard Eden’s long address to the reader prefixed to his translation of the fifth Book of Sebastian Münster, written probably before the Willoughby expedition had been heard from, he speaks of “the attempt to pass to Cathay by the North East, which some men doubt, as the globes represent it all land north, even to the north pole.” In his preface to his _Decades_, cited above, written two years later, we have seen that he urges the people of England to turn their attention in the old direction, and to take possession of the waste places still unoccupied by any Christian people; which regions be says are called Terra Florida and Regio Baccalearum. These offer a large opportunity for traffic as a remedy for the stagnation of trade under which England is suffering, and a wide field for the Christian missionary.

The reader will have noticed, in the above extract, that Eden says that Sebastian Cabot “touched only in the north corner and most barbarous part” of the region which he is urging his countrymen to take possession of, “from whence he was repulsed with ice in the month of July.”

Eden’s _Decades_ placed before the English reader for the first time the several notices of Sebastian Cabot, of which mention has been here made; namely, by Martyr, Ramusio, Gomara, and the brief Commentary by Ziegler. And the fact that this large unoccupied territory at the west, which Eden here urges the English Government and people to take possession of, was discovered by Cabot for the English nation, could not fail in time to produce its fruit upon the English mind.

Sebastian Cabot, as we have seen, was living in England at the time Richard Eden published his book, and a very old man. Eden appears to have been on terms of acquaintance with him, if not of intimacy; and unless the infirmities of years weighed too heavily upon his faculties, Cabot might have been able to impart much information to one so curious and eager as Eden was to gather up details. Eden more than once speaks of what Sebastian Cabot told him. In the margin of folio 255, where is a report of the famous conversation concerning Sebastian Cabot, extracted from Ramusio, in which Cabot is spoken of as “a Venetian born,” Eden says: “Sebastian Cabot told me that he was born in Brystowe, and that at iiii years old he was carried with his father to Venice, and so returned again into England with his father, after certain years, wherby he was thought to have been born in Venice.” This was a bad beginning on the part of Eden as an interviewer; that is to say, the truth was not reached.

Sebastian Cabot, if he had been asked, might have told Eden much more. Why did not Eden hand in a list of questions? Why did he not submit to him a proof-sheet of the story from Ramusio, which we know contains so many errors, and ask him to correct it, so that the world might have a true account of the discovery of North America? What an excellent opportunity was lost to Cabot for printing here under the auspices of Eden all those maps and discourses which Hakluyt, at a later period, tells us were in the custody of the worshipful Master William Worthington, who was very willing to have them overseen and published, but which have never yet seen the light![37]

I have already called attention to the fact that Eden had a copy of Cabot’s map, and translated one of the legends upon it,—that relating to the River La Plata, no. vii.[38]

About this time, or perhaps a few years earlier, there was painted in England a portrait of Sebastian Cabot, supposed for many years to have been done by Holbein, whose death has usually been referred to the year 1554, though recent investigations have rendered it probable that he died eleven years before. The first notice of this portrait which I have seen is in Purchas.[39] A minute description of it, with a notice of its disappearance from Whitehall, where it hung for many years, is given by Mr. Biddle,[40] who subsequently purchased the picture in England and brought it to this country, where in 1845 it was burned with his house and contents, in Pittsburg, Pa. Two excellent copies of it, however, had fortunately been taken, one of which, by the artist Chapman, is in the gallery of the Massachusetts Historical Society,[41] and the other in that of the New York Historical Society.[42] The portrait was painted after Cabot had returned to England; and it is said, I know not on what authority, to have been painted for King Edward VI., who died in 1553. Cabot lived some five years longer. The picture represents Cabot as a very old man. It has the following inscription upon it:[43]—

EFFIGIES· SEBASTIANI CABOTI
ANGLI· FILII· JOHÃNIS· CABOTI· VENE
TI· MILITIS· AVRATI· PRIMI· INVĒT
ORIS· TERRÆ NOVIÆ SUB HERICO VII. ANGL
LÆ REGE.

A peculiar interest is attached to this inscription, from the circumstance that it must probably have proceeded from Sebastian Cabot himself; that is to say, the facts intended to be embodied in it by the artist or herald could best come from him. But being clumsily expressed, it is uncertain whether the son or the father was intended to be represented as the knight and discoverer. With the exception of the legend on the map already mentioned, it is the only direct testimony presumably from Sebastian himself as to the principal fact involved. That joins both the father and the son as discoverers. Here the honor is given to but one of them, but unhappily the only statement clearly expressed is that Sebastian Cabot is an Englishman and the son of John Cabot, a Venetian. Which was the knight and the discoverer no one can tell certainly from the legend itself. The inscription has been the subject of considerable discussion and even controversy.[44] Humboldt has a brief note on the subject,[45] in which he says: “Il importe de savoir si c’est le père Jean ou le fils Sebastien qui est désigné comme celui auquel la décoverte est due. Si c’était le fils, Holbein aurait probablement placé le mot _filii_ après _Veneti_. Il aurait écrit: _Effigies_ Seb. Caboti Angli, Joannis Caboti Veneti filii....” We now know from other evidence that John Cabot was the discoverer of North America. He may have been accompanied by his son, Sebastian, but it would have been a pleasant fact to have the testimony of the son to his father’s honor clearly expressed, as may have been intended in this awkward composition. Sebastian Cabot has been the sphinx of American history for over three hundred years, and this inscription over his head in his picture does not tend to divest him of that character. There has as yet appeared no other evidence to show that either John Cabot or Sebastian was ever knighted. Purchas[46] insists on giving the title of “Sir” to the son. Laying aside the question as to the interpretation of the inscription on the portrait, there is sufficient evidence elsewhere to show that Sebastian Cabot was not a knight. In two documents to be more particularly noticed in another place,—one dated in May, 1555, and the other in May, 1557, the latter dated not long before Sebastian Cabot’s death,—relating to a pension granted to him by the Crown of England, he is styled “Armiger,” a dignity below that of knight and equivalent to that of esquire. See Rymer’s _Fœdera_, vol. xv. pp. 427 and 466.

In 1558 there was published in Paris a book entitled _Les Singularitez de la France Antarcktique_, etc., by F. André Thevet, the French Cosmographer.[47] This writer is held in little estimation, and deservedly so. In chapter lxxiv. fol. 145, _verso_, in speaking of the Baccalaos, is this passage:—

“It was first discovered by Sebastian Babate, an Englishman, who persuaded Henry VII., King of England, that he could go easily this way by the North to Cathay, and that he would thus obtain spices and other articles from the Indies equally as well as the King of Portugal; added to which he proposed to go to Peru and America, to people the country with new inhabitants, and to establish there a New England, which he did not accomplish. True it is he put three hundred men ashore, somewhere to the north of Ireland, where the cold destroyed nearly the whole company, though it was then the month of July. Afterwards Jaques Cartier (as he himself has told me) made two voyages to that country in 1534 and 1535.”

This passage it will be seen is a mere perversion of that in Gomara, changing the name of Cabot to Babate, and Iceland to Ireland, but adding the wholly unauthorized statement that the three hundred men were put ashore and perished in the cold. Mr. Biddle,[48] who calls attention to this writer’s recklessness, says that this is a “random addition suggested by the reference in Gomara to one of the objects of Cabot’s expedition, and the reasons which compelled him to turn back.” On the other hand, he thinks it possible that Thevet “derived his information from Cartier, who would be very likely to know of any such attempt at settlement.” It is not at all likely that Thevet had any authority whatever for his statement. His mention of Cartier is probably suggested by seeing in Gomara,[49] immediately following the extract from him above quoted, the mention of Cartier as being on that coast in 1534 and 1535. But Thevet’s statement has entered into sober history, and has been quoted and requoted.

Captain Antonio Galvano, the Portuguese, had died in 1557, leaving behind him a _Trádado_, a historical treatise, which was published at Lisbon in 1563. It gives an account “of all the discoveries, ancient and modern, which have been made up to the year one thousand five hundred and fifty.” This is a valuable chronological list of discoveries in which the writer includes, in the latter part, his own experience. He spent the early part of his life in India, and the latter part, on being recalled home, in compiling an account of all known voyages. The Hakluyt Society have published Galvano’s book in the original, from a copy, believed to be unique, in the Carter-Brown Library, at Providence R. I. It is accompanied by an English version, by an unknown translator, long in the possession of Hakluyt, corrected and published by him, as the title says, in 1601.[50] Hakluyt never could get sight of a copy of the original edition. On comparing the texts, several omissions and additions are noticed by the modern editor. The former are supposed to be due to the inadvertence of the translator, the latter to Hakluyt, who supplied what he thought important from other sources; and to him are probably due the marginal references. The following is the English version of Galvano’s account[51] of Cabot’s discovery, some omissions having been supplied by the modern editor:—

“In the year 1496 there was a Venetian in England called John Cabota, who having knowledge of such a new discovery as this was [viz. the discovery by Columbus], and perceiving by the globe that the islands before spoken of stood almost in the same latitude with his country, and much nearer to England than to Portugal, or to Castile, he acquainted King Henry the Seventh, then King of England, with the same, wherewith the said king was greatly pleased, and furnished him out with two ships and three hundred men; which departed and set sail in the spring of the year, and they sailed westward till they came in sight of land in 45 degrees of latitude towards the north, and then went straight northwards till they came into 60 degrees of latitude, where the day is eighteen hours long, and the night is very clear and bright. There they found the air cold, and great islands of ice, but no ground in seventy, eighty, an hundred fathoms sounding, but found much ice, which alarmed them; and so from thence putting about, finding the land to turn eastwards, they trended along by it on the other tack, discovering all the bay and river[52] named Deseado, to see if it passed on the other side; then they sailed back again, diminishing the latitude, till they came to 38 degrees toward the equinoctial line, and from thence returned into England. There be others which say that he went as far as the Cape of Florida, which standeth in 25 degrees.”

It will be seen that the greater part of this is taken from Gomara, and the writer had also read Peter Martyr and Ramusio, and from the latter takes his year 1496. One statement,—namely, that Cabot came in sight of land in 45 degrees north,—is original here, which would almost lead one to suppose that Galvano had seen the _prima vista_ of Cabot’s map.

It will be noticed, near the beginning of the extract from Galvano, that John Cabot is said to be the discoverer. Thus it stands in the old English version as published by Hakluyt, but in the original Portuguese it reads: “No anno de 1496 achandose hum Venezeano por nome Sebastiāo Gaboto em Inglaterra,” etc. The substitution of John for Sebastian was no doubt due to Hakluyt, who also made this marginal note: “The great discovery of John Cabota and the English.”[53]

In this same year (1563) there was published in London an English version from the French of Jean Ribault, entitled, _The whole and True discoverie of Terra Florida_ (_englished the Flourishing Lande_), etc., giving an account of the attempt to found a colony at Port Royal in the preceding year. The translation was made by Thomas Hacket, and was reprinted by Richard Hakluyt in his _Divers Voyages_, in 1582.[54] In referring to the preceding attempts at discovery and settlement of those northern shores, he says:—

“Of the which there was one, a very famous stranger named Sebastian Cabota, an excellent pilot, sent thither by King Henry, the year 1498, and many others, who never could attain to any habitation, nor take possession thereof one only foot of ground, nor yet approach or enter into these parts and fair rivers into the which God hath brought us.”[55]

This passage from Ribault is cited principally for the date there given, 1498, as the year of Sebastian Cabot’s visit to the northern shores. It was not the year of the discovery, but was the year of the second voyage. Where did Ribault pick up this date? No one of the notices of Cabot’s voyage hitherto cited contains it. I have already called attention to Peter Martyr’s language, in 1524, that Sebastian Cabot discovered the Baccalaos twenty-six years before, from which by a calculation that date is arrived at.[56]

In 1570 Abraham Ortelius published at Antwerp the first edition of his celebrated _Theatrum orbis terrarum_, containing fifty-three copperplate maps, engraved by Hogenberg.[57] In the beginning of the book is a list of the maps which Ortelius had consulted, and he mentions among them one by “Sebastianus Cabotus Venetus, Universalem Tabulam: quam impressam æneis formis vidimus, sed sine nomine loci et impressoris.” This would seem to describe, so far as it goes, the Cabot map in the National Library, at Paris, which is a large engraved map of the world, “without the name of the place or the printer.”

Mr. Biddle was impressed with the belief that Ortelius was largely influenced in the composition of his map by the map of Cabot. He contended that Cabot’s landfall was the coast of Labrador, and he found near that coast, on the map of Ortelius, a small island named St. John, which he supposed was that discovered by Cabot on St. John’s day and so named, and was taken by Ortelius from Cabot’s map.[58] But an examination of the Paris map fails to confirm Biddle’s hypothesis. The “Y. de s. Juan,” is in the Gulf of St. Lawrence near where the _prima vista_ is placed. A delineation of what might be called Hudson Bay appears on the map of Ortelius, and Biddle supposed that Cabot’s map furnished the authority for it. But no such representation of that bay appears on Cabot’s map.

In 1574 there appeared at Cologne another edition of Peter Martyr’s three Decades, published in connection with some writings of the distinguished Fleming, Damiani A. Goès.[59] The third Decade of Martyr, as I have already said, contained the earliest notice of Sebastian Cabot.

* * * * *

We have arrived at a period now when the public men of England began especially to interest themselves in voyages of discovery and colonization, and successfully to engage the good offices of the Queen in their behalf. “There hath been two special causes in former age,” says George Beste in “the Epistle Dedicatory” to his voyages of Frobisher, published in 1578, “that have greatly hindered the English nation in their attempts. The one hath been lack of liberality in the nobility; and the other, want of skill in the cosmography and the art of navigation,—which kind of knowledge is very necessary for all our noblemen, for that, we being islanders, our chiefest strength consisteth by sea. But these two causes are now in this present age (God be thanked!) very well reformed; for not only her Majesty now, but all the nobility also, having perfect knowledge in cosmography, do not only with good words countenance the forward minds of men, but also with their purses do liberally and bountifully contribute unto the same; whereby it cometh to pass that navigation, which in the time of King Henry VII. was very raw, and took (as it were) but beginning (and ever since hath had by little and little continual increase), is now in her Majesty’s reign grown to his highest perfection.”[60]

Frobisher sailed on his first voyage in June, 1576. The tract of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, entitled, _A Discourse of Discovery for a new Passage to Cataia_, principally written ten years before, was published before Frobisher left the Thames. The reference in this tract to Sebastian Cabot—who “by his personal experience and travel hath set forth and described this passage [that is, the Straits of Anian] in his charts, which are yet to be seen in the Queen’s Majesty’s Privy Gallery at Whitehall, who was sent to make this discovery by King Henry VII., and entered the same fret,” etc.—has led Mr. Biddle to suppose that Frobisher had the benefit of Cabot’s experience, and that his maps or charts hanging in the gallery at Whitehall had delineated on them the strait or passage through to the Pacific, which Cabot entered, and would have passed on to Cathay, if he had not been prevented by the mutiny of the master and mariners.[61]

One would naturally infer that Gilbert wrote this passage after inspecting the map in Whitehall, but the full passage of which we have here given an extract is taken from Cabot’s letter in Ramusio,[62] to which work Gilbert refers in the margin of his tract thus: “Written in the Discourses of Navigation.”[63] I may add that in the following year, 1577, Richard Willes published a new edition of Eden,[64] containing all the references to Cabot in the genuine edition, and also a paper on Frobisher’s first voyage, with some speculations, added to those of Gilbert, as to the northwest passage. In this paper, addressed to the Countess of Warwick, he makes frequent reference to Cabot’s card or table, in possession of the countess’s father “at Cheynies,” as proving by Cabot’s experience the existence of such a strait as had been spoken of by Gilbert, and of which Frobisher in his first voyage was in search. He says: “Cabota was not only a skilful seaman but a long traveller, and such a one as entered personally that strait, sent by King Henry VII. to make this aforesaid discovery, as in his own discourse of navigation you may read in his card drawn with his own hand; the mouth of the northwest strait lieth near the 318 meridian, betwixt 61 and 64 degrees in elevation, continuing the same breadth about 10 degrees west, where it openeth southerly more and more.”[65]

If the Countess of Warwick’s father, the Earl of Bedford, had a map by Cabot, with a northwestern strait delineated on it in degrees of latitude and longitude as described by Willes, it could not be a copy of the recently recovered Paris map. In the latter the coast to the north of Labrador from latitude 58 to 65 runs in a northeasterly direction, when it suddenly trends in a northwesterly direction, its delineation ceasing at latitude 68, where is this inscription, “Costa del hues norueste” (coast west-northwest). Dr. Kohl is of opinion that Cabot is here delineating, from his own experience, Cumberland Island in Davis’s Strait; but Mr. Biddle thinks that Cabot’s highest northern latitude was reached in Fox’s Channel on the shores of Melville Peninsula. All these speculations seem to me to be based on very uncertain data.[66]

One is impressed with the ambiguous language of Willes when he speaks of Cabot’s “own discourse of navigation [which] you may read in his card drawn by his own hand.” The phrase “discourse of navigation” sounds so much like Gilbert’s reference in the margin of his tract to Ramusio, that I am disposed to refer it to that source.

Clement Adams, as we shall see farther on, made a copy of Cabot’s map or a copy of some reputed map of Cabot, in 1549 (if the supposition as to the date is correct), which in Hakluyt’s time hung in the gallery at Whitehall, and of which copies were also to be seen in many merchants’ houses; yet it is difficult to understand how different copies of a genuine map of Cabot could contain such variations. Certainly they are all unsatisfactory, and throw but little light on the voyage of the Cabots.

The indefatigable compiler and translator Belleforest issued in 1576,[67] in Paris, his _Cosmographie Universelle_, on the basis of the work of Sebastian Munster; and he says[68] that Sebastian Cabot attempted, at the expense of Henry VII. of England, to find the way to Cathay by the north; that he discovered the point of Baccalaos, which the Breton and Norman sailors now call the Coast of Codfish, and proceeding yet farther reached the latitude of 67 degrees towards the Arctic pole. Substantially the same passage may be found in Chauveton’s _Histoire Nouvelle du Nouveau Monde_, p. 141, published at Geneva, in 1579, being a translation of Benzoni, and of other writers.

In connection with Frobisher’s voyage there was published in London, in 1578, _A Prayse and Report of Maister Martyne Frobisher’s Voyage to Meta Incognita_, by Thomas Churchyard, a miscellaneous and voluminous writer, who says: “I find that Cabota was the first in King Henry VII.’s days that diserned this frozen land or seas from 67 towards the north, from thence toward the south along the coast to 36 degrees.”[69]

The work of George Beste, the writer of the account of Frobisher’s three voyages, before mentioned, published in London in 1578, speaks of Sebastian Cabot as having discovered sundry parts of new-found-land, and attempted the passage to Cathay, and as being an Englishman, born in Bristowe. And a yet further reference is made to him, with the singular additional statement that the date of his discovery was 1508. This date may be a clerical or typographical error.

These brief notices of Sebastian Cabot are cited as showing how a tradition is kept alive by one author or compiler quoting another, neither of which is of the slightest authority in itself.

In 1582 there appeared at Paris a work entitled _Les Trois Mondes_, etc. by L. V. Popellinière. It is a mere compilation, and embraces translations from various authors relating to the discoveries of the different maritime nations of Europe in various parts of the world. His third world is Australia, called by the Spaniards, he says, Terra del Fuego, which is here represented on a map as a large continent.[70] On fol. 25 it is said that Cabot was the first to conduct the English to the Baccalaos, which was better known to him than to any other; that he armed two ships at the charge and with the consent of Henry VII. of England to go there, and took out with him three hundred Englishmen, and sailed along 48½ degrees in a strait, but was so baffled by the extremity of the cold which he found there in July, that, although the days were long, and the nights were clear, he did not dare to pass beyond with his men to the island to which he wished to conduct them.

This is substantially a resumé of the account in Gomara, with a discrepancy in stating the latitude reached.

Following a long resumé in French of the conversation in the first volume of Ramusio, this writer remarks: “This then was that Gabote which first discovered Florida for the King of England, so that the Englishmen have more right thereunto than the Spaniards; if to have right unto a country, it sufficeth to have first seen and discovered the same.”[71]

In 1580 was published the first edition of Stow’s _Chronicle_ (or _Annals_) _of England_, etc., which contains, under the year 1498, the alleged passage from Fabian, which Mr. Biddle[72] charges Hakluyt with perverting, by prefixing in his larger work the name of John Cabot to the “Venitian” as it appeared in the _Divers Voyages_ of 1582. The passage in Stow begins thus: “This year one Sebastian Gabato, a Genoa’s son, born in Bristow,” etc. Reference will be made to this document farther on.

In 1582 Richard Hakluyt published his _Divers Voyages_, his first book, which contains many curious and important documents. It is dedicated to Master Philip Sidney, Esquire, who, with other statesmen and public men of England, was then deeply interested in American Colonization, being largely inspired by political considerations. The dedication contains an interesting summary of what had been done by other nations, and the reasons why England should now enter upon this work. Reasons are also given for believing that “there is a strait and short way open into the west even unto Cathay,” which they had so long desired to find. And finally the claim of England to the large unsettled territory in America is set forth, “from Florida to sixty-seven degrees northward, by the letters patent granted to John Gabote and his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Santius, with Sebastian’s own certificate to Baptista Ramusius of his discovery of America, and the testimony of Fabian our own chronicler.”

We begin now to approach for the first time a document which is of the highest authenticity and value. I mean the letters patent, which Hakluyt here prints,[73] under which the discovery of North America was made by authority of England. John Cabot, the father, now emerges from obscurity, for we find the grant is to him and to his three sons, of whom Sebastian is the second. The patent gave them permission to sail with five ships, at their own costs and charges, under the royal banners and ensigns, to all countries and seas of the east, of the west, and of the north, and to seek out and discover whatsoever isles, countries, and provinces of the heathen and infidels, whatsoever they be, which before this time had been unknown to Christians. They also had license to set up the royal banners in the countries found by them, and to conquer and possess them as the king’s vassals and lieutenants. This document is dated 5 March, 1495 (that is 1496, new style). Hakluyt also prints an extract from Fabian’s chronicle, furnished him by John Stow, and supposed to have been in manuscript, as it is not contained in any printed edition of Fabian. In the heading which Hakluyt gives to the paper as printed, he says it is “a note of Sebastian Gabote’s voyage of discovery.” The document reads: “This year the King (by means of a Venetian which made himself very expert and cunning in knowledge of the circuit of the world and islands of the same, ...) caused to man and victual a ship at Bristowe to search for an island which, he said he knew well, was rich and replenished with rich commodities,—which ship thus manned and victualed at the King’s cost, divers merchants of London ventured in her small stocks, being in her as chief patron the said Venetian. And in the company of the said ship sailed also out of Bristowe three or four small ships fraught with slight and gross merchandizes; ... and so departed from Bristowe in the beginning of May, of whom in this Mayor’s time returned no tidings.” This of course refers to the voyage of 1498.

In the margin against this paper Hakluyt has this note: “In the 13 year of King Henry the VII., 1498,” and also “William Purchas, Mayor of London,” whose time expired the last of October, 1498. Stow, as has been seen, had already printed this paper, two years before, in his _Annals_; and it is reprinted in later editions of that work. What precise shape the original paper was in, which was used by Stow and Hakluyt, we do not know. If they had but one original it was not followed in all its details by both. Dr. E. E. Hale printed in the _Proceedings_ of the American Antiquarian Society for October, 1865, a paper from the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum, Vitellius, A. xvi, which he thought was the original paper used by each, and to which Hakluyt’s copy conforms more nearly than does that of Stow. The Cotton manuscript gives no name to the navigator, but calls him a stranger “Venetian,” as does Hakluyt. Stow, who probably rarely heard of the name of John Cabot, and was very familiar with that of Sebastian, calls him “Sebastian Gaboto, a Genoa’s son.”[74]

Hakluyt also prints in this precious little volume the substance of Sebastian Cabot’s letter to Ramusio, printed in the beginning of his third volume, in which he mentions the degree of latitude, 67½° N., which Cabot reached in his voyage in search of a way to Cathay.

He also prints for the first time the two well-known letters of Robert Thorne, in the latter of which, addressed to Dr. Ley, the English ambassador to Spain, the writer says that his father and another merchant of Bristol, Hugh Eliot, were the discoverers of the new-found lands. Some have conjectured that these merchants went out with the Cabots, and others that they were in some later expedition not well defined. Hakluyt also prints here an English version of “Verarzanus,” and Hacket’s “Ribault.” The volume also contains two maps, one of which, prepared by Michael Locke, was made, he says, “according to Verarzanus’s plat,” an “old excellent map, which he gave to King Henry VIII., and is yet in the custody of Master Locke.” The map of Locke was probably made only in its general features according to the original model, and contained some more modern additions by its compiler. It has one interesting inscription upon it,—namely, on the delineation of C. Breton we read, “J. Gabot, 1497.” This is the first time I have seen this date assigned as the date of the discovery.[75]

Hakluyt’s little volume expressed the interest felt in England on the subject of North American colonization, and furnished the ground on which England based her title to the country. He also announced in this book that Sebastian Cabot’s maps and discourses were then in the custody of one of Cabot’s old associates, William Worthington, who was willing to have them seen and published.

* * * * *

The interest in the contemplated voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who made the first serious attempt in that century at colonization for England, culminated next year, when he sailed and never returned. Among the reports of that voyage was one written by Mr. Edward Haies in 1583, in which he says: “The first discovery of these coasts (never heard of before) was well begun by John Cabot the father, and Sebastian the son, an Englishman born, who were the first finders out of all that great tract of land stretching from the Cape of Florida unto those islands which we now call the Newfoundland; all which they brought and annexed unto the crown of England.”[76]

Sir George Peckham, a large adventurer with Gilbert, also wrote in 1583 on the same theme, and he makes mention of the title of England in the following language: “In the time of the Queen’s grandfather of worthy memory, King Henry VII., letters patent were by his Majesty granted to John Cabota, an Italian, to Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius, his three sons, to discover remote, barbarous, and heathen countries, which discovery was afterwards executed to the use of the Crown of England in the said King’s time by Sebastian and Sancius, his sons, who were born here in England.”[77] It seems to have been thought that the title of England would be strengthened by the statement that the discoverers, or some of them, were native subjects of the Crown of England. This seems to have been one reason why it has always been insisted on that Sebastian Cabot, so long supposed to be the discoverer, was born in England.[78]

I have already spoken of an edition of Peter Martyr’s _Decades_ in the original Latin, _De Orbe Novo_, published at Paris in 1587, under the editorship of Richard Hakluyt, who was then residing in that city in connection with the British Embassy. It was dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom, three years before, Hakluyt had written the _Discourse on Westerne Planting_. It was the first time the _Decades_ had been printed entire since the first edition of them appeared at Alcala in Spain in 1530. It has been suggested by Mr. Brevoort that the Spanish Government did not favor their circulation, or encourage their republication. In Hakluyt’s edition there was inserted an excellent map of North and South America, of small size, six and a half by seven and a half inches, and dedicated to him by the maker, “F. G.” On the delineation of the coast of Labrador, there is inscribed just north of the River St. Lawrence, “Baccalaos Ab Anglis, 1496.” This date was without doubt supplied by Hakluyt himself, who, in his _Discourse on Westerne Planting_, insisted on that erroneous date as the true year of discovery,—citing the conversation in the first volume of Ramusio for his authority, as we have seen.

In tracing down the notices in print of John or Sebastian Cabot, we come now to a book of considerable interest, published in Venice in 1588, some years after the death of its author, Livio Sanuto. It was entitled _Geographica Distincta_, etc., and related in part to matters connected with naval science. The author was deeply interested in the subject of the variation of the needle, and having heard that Sebastian Cabot had publicly explained this subject to the King of England (supposed to be Edward VI., on Cabot’s return to England), he applied to the Venetian ambassador there resident to ascertain from Cabot himself where he had fixed the point of no variation. The information was accordingly procured and published by Sanuto. In the course of his investigations the author made use of a map composed by Cabot himself, in which the position of this meridian was seen to be one hundred and ten miles to the west of the island of Flores, one of the Azores. Mr. Biddle,[79] who dwells at some length on this volume, calls attention to the fact “that the First Meridian on the maps of Mercator, running through the most western point of the Azores, was adopted with reference to the supposed coincidence in that quarter of the true and magnetic poles.” Sanuto makes frequent reference to the map of Cabot in his book, and also makes mention of Cabot’s observations relating to the variation of the compass at the equator. I have already called attention to one of the legends on Cabot’s map of 1544, no. 17, which relates in part to the variation of the needle. In _Prima Parte_, lib. ii. fol. 17, Sanuto gives a brief account of Cabot’s voyage, which Mr. Biddle[80] says corresponds minutely with that which Sir Humphrey Gilbert derived from the map hung up in Queen Elizabeth’s gallery. Sanuto, however, evidently copied from Cabot’s letter in the preface of the third volume of Ramusio, from which also the language in Gilbert is drawn.

In 1589 Hakluyt published his first folio of 825 pages entitled, _The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_, a monument of his industry as a collector. In this first folio Hakluyt included several pieces from his little quarto tract of 1582, and he collected and put into English other most important evidence relating to the discovery of North America by the Cabots. He gave the passage in Peter Martyr, the conversation in Ramusio, the extract from Gomara, added to those documents reprinted from the quarto tract, all of which have been here noticed in the order in which they appeared in print. It may be added that in the passage from Fabian Hakluyt introduced the name of John Cabot as the Venetian, though he allowed the name of Sebastian to stand in the heading, probably through inadvertence. He also brought the marginal date into the text.

[This sketch-map is taken from the fac-simile in Stevens’s _Historical and Geographical Notes_, and needs the following key:—

1. Groenlandia.
2. Islandia.
3. Frislandia.
4. Meta incognita ab Anglis inventa An. 1576.
5. Demonum ins.
6. S. Brandon.
7. Baccalaos ab Anglis, 1496.
8. Hochelaga.
9. Nova Albion inventa An. 1580, ab Anglis.
10. Nova Francia.
11. Virginia, 1584.
12. Bermuda.
13. Azores.
14. Florida.
15. Nueva Mexico.
16. Nova Hispania.
17. Caribana.
18. Brasilia.
19. Fretum Magellani.
20. Peru.

This map is so rare that the copies in some of the choicest collections lack it, such as the Huth (p. 920,) Brinley (no. 42), and Carter-Brown (no. 370). Rich priced a copy in 1832 with the map at £4 4s., which would to-day be a small sum for the book without the map; while a copy with the map is now worth £20. Quaritch, Cat. 331, no. 1. The Boston Athenæum copy has the map. See Norton’s _Lit. Gazette_, new series, i. 272. _Bull. Soc. Géog._, Oct. 1858, p. 271.—ED.]]

He also produced here from the Rolls Office a memorandum of a license granted by the King to John Cabot alone, to take five English ships of two hundred tons or under, with necessary furniture, and mariners and subjects of the King as would willingly go with him,—dated the 3d day of February in the thirteenth year of his reign (1497/8).

The full copy of this license Hakluyt probably never saw, and the significance of this brief memorandum was never known until, two hundred and forty years afterwards, the entire document was found and published by Mr. Richard Biddle in his _Memoir of Sebastian Cabot_.[81] It was therefore often interpreted, in connection with the letters patent previously issued, as a grant to take up ships for the first voyage, which, as was supposed, did not take place till 1498.

The original grant of this license, of which Hakluyt publishes a brief memorandum, is found to be a permit to enlist ships and mariners, etc., “and them convey and lead _to the land and isles of late found by the said John in our name and by our commandment_. Paying for them and every of them as and if we should in or for our own cause pay, and none otherwise.”

The part I have italicized is most significant, and shows that a previous voyage had been made by John Cabot under the authority of the Crown.

Hakluyt also reprinted for the first time, in Latin, with an English version, an extract from Sebastian Cabot’s map, being no. 8 of the Legends inscribed upon it, relating to the discovery of North America, already recited on p. 21. And in saying that it was taken from Sebastian Cabot’s map, I should explain that Hakluyt says it was “an extract taken out of the map of Sebastian Cabot, cut by Clement Adams, ... which is to be seen in her Majesty’s Privy Gallery at Westminster, and in many other ancient merchants’ houses.” This language is a little equivocal, and some have supposed that Hakluyt intended to say that the extract simply was cut by Adams, and not that the whole map was copied by him. Clement Adams was a schoolmaster and a learned man, and probably was not an engraver. But Hakluyt is elsewhere more explicit. In his _Westerne Planting_,[82] he says: “His [Cabot’s] own map is in the Queen’s Privy Gallery at Westminster, the copy whereof was set out by Mr. Clement Adams, and is in many merchants’ houses in London.” It was probably reproduced under the inspection of Adams. We do not know the year in which Adams’s copy was made, unless an equivocal date in the margin of Purchas[83] may be regarded as expressing the year, namely “1549.” Purchas has fallen into great confusion in attempting to describe Cabot’s map and his picture as they hung in Whitehall in his time.[84]