JOHN CABOT'S VOYAGES 



spices grew, answered that they did not know, but that other caravans came 

 to their home with this merchandise from more distant lands, and these 

 [other caravans] again say that it is brought to them from other regions 

 situated far away." Soncino adds that " Cabot reasons thus — that if the east- 

 ern people tell those in the south that these things come from places far dis- 

 tant from them, and so on from hand to hand, then, granting the earth to be 

 round, the last people must obtain them in the north-west; and he says it in 

 such a way that, as it does not cost me more than it costs, I, too, believe it. . . ." ^ 



It is not improbable that Cabot may have thought that as, 

 on account of the spherical form of the earth, the circum- 

 ference of the lines of latitude decreases towards the north, 

 the shortest way over the western ocean to the east coast of 

 Asia must lie along the northern latitudes (cf. Posidonius, Vol. 

 I» P- 79)- But we cannot lose sight of the fact that Cabot 

 did not advance this until long after the first voyage of Columbus 

 and it is, therefore, uncertain whether the idea occurred to him 

 before or after that time. When this journey to Mecca took 

 place, we do not know. 



Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish Minister in London, says in a 

 letter to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, in 1498, that Cabot 

 is "another Genoese like Columbus, who has been in Seville 

 and Lisbon, endeavoring to obtain help for this discovery " 

 (i.e., of land in the west). The question is whether this " who " 

 refers to Columbus or to Cabot. The latter appears more likely, 

 as it seems superfluous for the Minister to inform Ferdinand 

 and Isabella that Columbus had been in Seville. But here 

 again we do not learn when Cabot may have made this journey 

 to Spain and Portugal, whether before or after Columbus's 

 voyage in 1492. In any case, it may point to his having 

 been occupied for a long time with plans of this sort. 



Nor do we know when John Cabot came to England; but 

 perhaps it was about 1490 that he settled in Bristol. If he 

 really came there with ideas of making for Asia across the 

 western ocean, he certainly found a favorable soil for such 

 plans in the port which had already sent out ships, in 1480, to 

 look for the island of Brazil. But it is also very possible that 



1 Cf. Harrisse, 1882, p. 325. 



297 



