JOHN CABOT'S VOYAGES 



tol [to navigate] as far as the island of Brazil [insulam de Brasylle] on the 

 west side of Ireland, ploughing the seas by . . . and . . . Thlyde 

 [Thomas Lyde, or Lloyd?] is the most expert seaman in the whole of Eng- 

 land, and on the i8th of September [27th of September, N.S.] the news reached 

 Bristol that after having sailed the seas for about 9 months they had not 

 discovered the island, but on account of storms had returned to the port . . . 

 in Ireland to allow the ships and men to rest." 



Parts of the MS. being illegible, it does not appear whether 

 John Jay junior, was one of the leaders of the expedition, 

 or (as Harrisse thinks) one of the owners of the ships, but in 

 any case we must suppose that the Thomas Lyde mentioned 

 above was the actual leader or navigator. The " nine months " 

 (" 9 menses ") must either be a clerical error for two months 

 or for nine weeks, either of which would fit the dates given, 

 while " nine months " is meaningless. This must, at any rate, 

 have been a serious attempt to find lands in the west, twelve 

 years before Columbus's discovery of the West Indies; and 

 this was not the last attempt made from Bristol to find this 

 happy land, for, in 1497, Ayala, the Spanish Minister in London, 

 writes : 



" For the last seven years the Bristol people have equipped every year two, 

 three, or four caravels to go in search of the islands of Brazil and of the Seven 

 Cities,^ following the imagination of this Genoese." 



" This Genoese " is Giovanni Caboto, or John Cabot, as 

 he was called in England. We find only a few casual state- 

 ments about this man, who was to give England the right of 

 discovery to a new continent, and who, together with his 

 fellow townsman, Columbus, forms the great turning-point 

 in the history of discovery; for the most part an impene- 

 trable obscurity rests upon his life and activity.^ As he is 



1 The Island of the Seven Cities was a fabulous island out in the Atlantic 

 which is frequently alluded to in the latter part of the Middle Ages. 



- As to John Cabot and his voyages, see in particular Henry Harrisse 

 (1882, 1892, 1896, 1900), F. Tarducci (1892, 1894), Sir Clements R. Markham 

 (1893, 1897), Samuel Edward Dawson (1894, 1896, 1897), C. R. Beazley (1898), 

 G. Parker Winship (1899, 1900). Harrisse among recent authors has the 

 special merit of having collected and arranged all the authorities on John and 

 Sebastian Cabot, Unfortunately, I am unable to follow him in his conclusions 

 from these authorities as to the voyages of John and Sebastian. It seems to 



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