IN NORTHERN MISTS 



acquainted with the various maps and accounts of voyages in 

 western and north-western waters, and that from this knowledge 

 he constructed the whole story of his alleged voyage; he was 

 then incautious enough to magnify his exploits to such an 

 extent that he made the whole story improbable; for his 

 claim was nothing less than that he had first discovered land 

 as far north as between 55° and 60°, that is to say, to about 

 Hudson Strait, and then sailed along and discovered the whole 

 coast of North America to about 36° N. lat., that is, to Cape 

 Hatteras or even Florida ; in other words, a voyage of discovery 

 to which we have no parallel in history, and it is truly remark- 

 able that we should have had no certain information about it, 

 while we have so much about other expeditions which step 

 by step discovered the various parts of this same extent of 

 coast. 



Sebastian Cabot seems to have laid claim to having made 

 yet another voyage in north-western waters, unless, indeed, 

 it is the same one again with variations. In the third volume 

 of his " Navigationi et Viaggi," etc., published at Venice, 

 1556, Ramusio says (writing in Venice, June, 1553) that 



" Sebastian Gabotto, our Venetian, a man of great experience, etc., wrote 

 to me many years ago." Sebastian is said to have sailed " along and beyond 

 the land of New France, at the charges of Henry VII., King of England. He 

 told me that after having sailed a long time west by north [ponente e quarta 

 di Maestro] beyond these islands, lying along the said land, as far as to sixty- 

 seven and a half degrees under our pole [i.e., the North Pole], and on June 

 II, [20, N.S.] finding the sea still open and without any kind of impediment, 

 he thought surely by that way to be able to sail at once to Cataio Orientale 

 [China], if the mutiny [malignita] of the master and mariners had not com- 

 pelled him to return." ^ 



As will be seen, this statement is altogether different from 

 those previously mentioned; but such assertions as that Cabot 

 had got so far to the north-west by June 11, and found the sea 



1 Cf. Winship, 1900, p. 89. Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1576 repeats the same 

 statement almost word for word, saying that he has taken it from maps, on 

 which Sebastian Cabot had described " from personal experience " the north- 

 west passage to China [cf. V/inship, 1900, pp. 17, 52; Kohl, 1869, p. 217]. 



