JOHN CABOT'S VOYAGES 



of the Bristol sailors, that they could make the voyage in fifteen 

 days.^ 



The view of John Cabot's voyage of 1497 set forth above 

 agrees also with the map of the world of 1544, which is at- 

 tributed to the collaboration of Sebastian Cabot, but which the 

 latter, in any case, cannot have seen or corrected after it was 

 engraved, probably in the Netherlands, and by an engraver who 

 did not understand Spanish, the language of the map [cf. Har- 

 risse, 1892, 1896; Dawson, 1894]. Its delineation of the north- 

 ern east coast of North America is for the most part bor- 

 rowed from the representation on French maps of Cartier's dis- 

 coveries in the Gulf of St. Lawrence [cf. Deslien's map of 1541]. 

 Cape Breton is called " Prima tierra vista," and in the in- 

 scription referring to the northern part of the American 

 coast,^ the import of which must apparently be derived from Se- 

 bastian Cabot, we read : 



" This land was discovered by Joan Caboto Veneciano and Sebastian Caboto 

 his son in the year 1494 [sic] after the birth of our savior Jesus Christ, the 24th 

 of June in the morning; to which they gave the name 'Prima Tierra Vista,* 

 and to a large island which is near the said land they gave the name of St. 

 John, because it was discovered the same day " (i.e., St. John's Day).^ 



1 As evidence that a homeward voyage of twenty-three days would not be 

 unusually fast sailing for that time, it may be mentioned, for comparison, that 

 Cartier, in June and July, 1536, took nineteen days from Cape Race to St. 

 Malo. Champlain made the same voyage in 1603 in eighteen days, and in 1607 

 he took twenty-seven days from Canso, near Cape Breton, to St. Malo. 



2 Cf. Dawson, 1897, pp. 209 f. 



3 Hakluyt [Principal Navigations, London, 1589] gives a corresponding in- 

 scription from the copy of this map, which at that time was in the Queen's 

 private gallery at Westminster; it was engraved in London in 1549 by the well- 

 known Clement Adams. As, in 1549, Sebastian Cabot held a high position with 

 the King of England as adviser on all maritime matters, and especially as 

 cartographer, we must suppose that he was consulted in the publication of so 

 important a map, especially as it was attributed to himself. We may there- 

 fore assume that the inscription was revised by Sebastian Cabot. Hakluyt 

 mentions this legend on Clement Adams's map for the first time in 1584 [cf. 

 Winship, 1900, p. 56] and then says, as in the first edition of " Principal Navi- 

 gations," that the date of the discovery was 1494; but in the 1600 edition of 

 " Principal Navigations " he corrected it to 1497, for what reason is uncertain 

 [cf. Taducci, 1892, p. 47; Harrisse, 1892, 1896; Winship, 1900, pp. 20 f.]. How 



