JOHN CABOT'S VOYAGES 



the discoverers of the New found lands, of the which there is no doubt, 

 (as nowe plainely appeareth) if the mariners would then have been ruled, 

 and followed their Pilots minde, the lands of the West Indies (from whence 

 all the gold commeth) has bene ours. For all is one coast, as by the Carde 

 appeareth, and is aforesayd." 



On the map the northern east coast of America extends 

 uninterruptedly to the north (see the reproduction, p. 334), and 

 upon it is written : " the new land called laboratorum," and along 

 the coast there is, " the land that was first discovered by 

 the English." It might appear as though it was really the 

 present Labrador that was then discovered; but this is hardly 

 the case; what we see on the map is probably Greenland,^ 

 which is here moved over to America as on other Spanish 

 maps, and the east coast of which is given a northerly direction, 

 as on Ruysch's map of 1508. 



It is possible that another expedition set out in 1504; 

 for in the accounts of the King's privy purse we find an entry 

 on April 8, 1504, of £2 "to a preste that goeth to the new 

 Islande." We see thus that there is a probability of many 

 expeditions having left England for the west and north-west 

 at this time, and that thus Greenland, Newfoundland, and 

 doubtless, also, Labrador had been reached by the English; 

 and this would explain their being recorded on Spanish maps 

 as discoverers of the northern part of the east coast of America. 

 But we have no further information about these voyages. 



Just as we have seen that the note on Robert Thorne*s 

 map of 1527 (that the English had discovered the northern 

 part of the east coast of America) must probably refer to 

 the expedition of 1501 or to one in the following year, so it 

 is doubtless discoveries of the same voyages that are alluded 

 to on Maggiolo's compass-chart of 151 1 (see reproduction, 

 P' 359) > where a peninsula to the north of Labrador is marked 

 as " Terra de los Ingres " (" the land of the English "). On later 

 maps, such as Verrazano's of 1529, Ribero's of 1529 (see 

 reproduction, p. 357), the Wolfenbuttel map of 1530, and 



1 Greenland is represented on the map conformably to the type that was 

 introduced on some mappemundi after Clavus's map (cf. p. 278). 



335 



