JOHN CABOT'S VOYAGES 



the documents we possess and involves fewest difficulties. 

 It might, then, seem probable that Cabot first arrived off the 

 land at Cauo de Ynglaterra, or Cape Breton,^ and that he 

 sailed westward (magnetic) from there to explore the newly dis- 

 covered country. The main direction of the coast of Nova Sco- 

 tia is about west-south-west, and if we suppose that the 

 compass-error at Cape Breton was then about 28° "W., which 

 I have found in another way ^ (cf. above, p. 308 ; it is now 



cial Spanish maps of the first half of the sixteenth century; this does not by any 

 means counterbalance La Cosa's map, which speaks plainly enough. Even if 

 Sebastian Cabot had the superintendence of these later maps, this proves little 

 or nothing. If it was to his interest not to offend the Spaniards by emphasiz- 

 ing his father's discoveries, he would scarcely have hesitated to omit them, or 

 allow them to be moved to the north. For on these very maps (e.g., Ribera's, 

 of 1529) it is claimed that the whole coast to the south-west of Newfoundland 

 (Tiera nova de Cortereal) was discovered by Spaniards (Gomez and Ayllon). 

 But, in addition to this, in so far as any importance can be attributed to the 

 inscriptions attached to Labrador on the Spanish maps, they evidently, like 

 others of the statements attributed to Sebastian Cabot, do not refer to Cabot's 

 discoveries of 1497, which are found on La Cosa's map, but to discoveries made 

 on later English voyages from Bristol, on which ice was met with. If the map 

 of 1544 can be attributed to the collaboration of Sebastian Cabot, it further 

 shows clearly enough that he had no knowledge of the northern part of the 

 east coast of America, since he makes it extend to the east and north-east, 

 which is due to Greenland (Labrador) being included in it. The map is a 

 plagiarism of an earlier French one. Harrisse's view results in complete em- 

 barrassment in the interpretation of La Cosa's map [cf. 1900, p. 21], and he is 

 obliged to abandon the attempt to make anything of it, since, of course, it con- 

 tradicts all he thinks may be concluded from the much later Spanish maps. 

 Moreover, since Harrisse insists so strongly on the importance of the northerly 

 latitudes of the English discoveries on these maps (and on La Cosa's) as a 

 proof of their being on the coast of Labrador, it should be pointed out that the 

 latitudes of Newfoundland, for instance, and Greenland, to say nothing of the 

 West Indian islands, vary on the maps; this shows that no weight can be at- 

 tached to evidence of this kind. 



1 It has been maintained that " Cauo descubierto " must denote the land he 

 first sighted; but the name only means "discovered cape," and says nothing 

 as to its being discovered first or last. There may, indeed, have been more 

 about it on Cabot's original map, and it happens that on La Cosa's map there 

 is a hole in the parchment just after this name. That it should be the same 

 cape that on Sebastian Cabot's map of 1544 is called "Prima tierra vista" is 

 not likely, as this lies at the extreme east of the promontory of Cape Breton. 



2 For determining this I have to some extent relied on later maps, chiefly 



