PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY IN THE NORTH. 69 



attempt, another expedition by the same nation, it 

 appears, tried the passage by the west, on a parallel 

 far to the northward of that pursued by Columbus. 

 This was undertaken by John Vaz Costa Cor- 

 TEREAL, about the year 1463 or 1464, in which 

 voyage the land of Newfoundland appears to have 

 been seen *. 



After Cortereal, Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian, 

 resident in England, seems to have been the next 

 ±0 attempt the voyage to India by the north-west, 

 in the year 1497, on which occasion he coasted the 

 American shore from tlie parallel of 67^^ down to 

 that of 38° ; though it is supposed his father, John 

 Cabot, made a voyage to Newfoundland, or Prima 

 Vista, as he called it, in 1494, and discovered the 

 island oi St JoJin, which he so named, because it 

 was first seen on St John's day f . Sebastian Cabot 

 having, after this time, been several years employed 

 in the service of the King of Spain, returned to 

 England in 1548, when he was placed at the head 

 of the Society of IMerchant Adventurers, afterwards 

 called the Muscovy or Kussia Company ; and was 

 subsequently endowed by Edward VI. with a pen- 

 sion of 166/. 13^. ^d. a-year, for good and accept- 

 able services done and to be done by him. 



Caspar Cortereal, son of the voyager John 

 Vaz Costa Cortereal above mentioned, sailed from 



" Barrow's Voyages, p. 37. 



+ Harris's Voyages, vol. \l p. 1^0. 



