IN NORTHERN MISTS 



[i.e., this Genoese] has drawn, I do not send it yet, though I have it here, and 

 it seems to me very false to give out that it is not the islands in question." 



According to the Cottonian Chronicle, the King 



"at the besy request and supplicacion of a Straunger venisian [i.e., John 

 Cabot], . . . caused to manne a ship . . . for to seche an Hand wheryn 

 the said Straunger surmysed to be grete commodities," i and it was accom- 

 panied by three or four other ships of Bristol, " the said Straunger " [i.e., 

 Cabot] being leader of this " Flete, wheryn dyuers merchauntes as well of Lon- 

 don as Bristowe aventured goodes and sleight merchaundises, which departed 

 from the West Cuntrey in the begynnyng of Somer, but to this present 

 moneth came nevir Knowlege of their exployt." 2 



Haklu5rt, in "Divers Voyages" (1582) [cf. Haklu]^, 

 1850, p. 23], has a rather fuller version of this account, quoted 

 from Robert Fabyan, where we read that the ships from 

 Bristol were 



"fraught with sleight and grosse merchandizes as course cloth. Caps, laces, 

 points, and other trifles, and so departed from Bristowe in the beginning of 

 May: of whom in this Maior's time returned no tidings." s 



"This Mayor" would be William Purchas, who was 

 Lord Mayor of London until October 28 (November 6, N.S.), 

 1498. Thus, if this is correct, the expedition had not yet 

 returned in the late autumn. 



The information contained in Ayala's letter, that one of 

 Cabot's ships had put in to Ireland, is the last certain intelli- 

 gence we have of this expedition, which was looked forward 



1 Harrisse's contention [1896, pp. 129 f.], that this expression, "surmysed 

 to be grete commodities," points to the chronicler here having introduced 

 statements about the first voyage, in 1497, is hardly well founded. For Cabot 

 discovered according to the statements, no commodities (except fish) in 1497; 

 on the other hand, he supposed that by penetrating farther to the west along 

 the coast he would reach these treasures. 



2 Cf. G. P. Winship [1900, p. 47]. In the Cottonian Chronicle this account 

 is given under the thirteenth year of Henry VII.'s reign, which lasted from 

 August 22, 1497, to August 21, 1498. This has led some to think it referred to 

 the voyage of 1497, but that is impossible, as, of course, Cabot had returned 

 before the thirteenth year of Henry's reign began. 



3 In the note preceding this statement taken from Fabyan, Hakluyt has 

 made Sebastian Cabot leader of the expedition; but there is nothing to this 

 effect in the text. 



326 



