296 J. G. BOUEINOT 



as it was iu the map he cut. Dr. Doane (" Nar. and Crit. Hist of Am.," iii. 45) supposes there may be another 

 Cabot map yet to bo di.scovered, or Adams may have translated from a map with a Spanish inscription only. 

 Translators take liberties as we see even in Hakluyt's translation of the Latin text of Adams's extract, for he adds 

 even the following words in a parenthesis at the commencement, " with an English fleet set out from Bristoll." 

 Biddle is particularly severe on Hakluyt for such liberties (" Memoir of Sebastian Cabot," pp. 53, 54). If there was 

 another edition of the Cabot map, with Spanish inscriptions only, then the Adams version is fully explained. 

 Indeed, there is reason to believe there were other editions of the Cabot map (See " Nar. and Crit. Hist, of Am.," 

 iii. 21, n., where a reference is made to a map which appears to have been published in 1549, when in all pro- 

 bability Adams made his extract-) The whole subject, however, is involved in too many perplexities to merit 

 dwelling on it much longer, and my chief object in referring to the matter at all here is to show that both the 

 Spanish and the Latin versions of the legend, taken with the map itself, generally apply to the island of Cape 

 Breton. It is, however, the Spanish legend which, read as a whole, is the best evidence in favour of the Cape 

 Breton claim to have been the first discovered land. Adams's Latin version appears to describe the inhabitants of 

 the island, St. John, over against prima tierra vista, rather than the first discovered land itself, and Hakluyt's 

 English translation is to the same efïect. It is not probable that Cabot in the inscription meant to ignore prima 

 tierra vista, and give undue prominence to the island. Adams here obviously shows he must have carelessly 

 translated the Spanish inscription, supposing he had only that in his possession, or he may have been a slovenly 

 copyist of some map in his possession. It does not appear that Hakluyt and Purchas both of whom quote it, ever 

 saw the Cabot map, but only gave the extract as made by Adams. Tlie Spanish version I have given above from 

 the mappe monde of 1544 makes the whole matter more intelligible since the references are clearly to the inha- 

 bitants and natural products of the first seen land ilself- In Adams's extract, a peiiod on the fourth line (see 

 extract above) instead of a colon after '' loanni Baptistge " would easily make " Hu jus iucote pelles animalium 

 etc.," refer to the prima tieira vista; but we are again met in the tenth line (see above) by the use of" ea insula," 

 which would seem to show that iu this version the natural charactoristics of the island are alone described. In 

 the Spanish legend, on the other hand, we find " en la dha tierra," " in the same land "—obviously prima tierra 

 vista— anil not "in that island" as in the Adams extract. Elsewhere I have stated my belief that the northern 

 part of Cape Breton is the prima tierra vista (mpra, sec. I.) The Scatari theory would be quite justified by 

 the description in the legend, and the course a navigator would probably take from Bristol to the southern entrance 

 of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but the defined position of St. John's island in the mappe monde is against the ti.eory. 

 If we accept Sebastian Cabot as the map-maker then he could not have misplaced the island " que esta par la 

 dha tierra." Richard Biddle, who was the first scholar sixty years ago, to write learnedly on the Cabot Voyages, 

 chiefly as an eulogist of Sebastian, supported his contention in favour of Labrador as prima tierra vista by the 

 supposed existence of an island of St. John in the latitude of 5(i° immediately on the coast of Labrador; hut the 

 discovery of the mappe monde is fatal to his theory, which had no authority except a doubtful map of Ortelius 

 borrowed from Mercator (See Deane in "Nar. and Crit. of Am.," iii. 34). If we could reject the supposed mappe 

 monde of Sebastian Cabot as a mere fabrication— as an attempt to reproduce a map shown by Clement Adauis to 

 have had an existence in his time,— then Scatari might with considerable reason be given as the island seen over 

 a<'ainst the landfall in 1497. The maker of a spurious map, in later times, knowing of the existence of an island 

 of St. John in the Gulf would probably indicate it as the prima tierra vista. On these and the various other per- 

 plexing questions that surround the whole subject I refer the reader to the following most recent writings :— 



" The Voyages of the Cabots," with a critical essay in the '' Nar. and Crit. Hist, of Am.," (iii. 1-58), by Charles 

 Deane, LL.D., an authority on American history and archfeology. All the important works on the subject are here 

 cited with critical acumen. Dr. Deane believes that the weight of evidence is in favour of the authenticity of the 

 map, and that there is no good reason for not accepting the northern part of Cape Breton as Cabot's landfall. 



" Jean Cabot," in Le Canada Français for October, 1888, (University of Laval, Quebec) by the Abbé J. D. 

 Beaudoin, one of those learned men like Ferland, Casgraiu, Hamel, and Cuoq, that the Roman Catholic Church 

 of Canada can claim among its teachers. He goes over the ground travelled by all writers on the subject, and 

 combats the arguments of Biddle, and other supporters of the Labrador theory. He comes to the conclusion that 

 it is difficult to deny the authenticity of the Sebastian Cabot map, and that " there is no reason not to accept the 

 northern part of Cape Breton as tierra primùm vista." But one cannot agree with the Abbé when he goes so far 

 as to construe the legend respecting Cape Breton on a Portolano map of 1 520 or 1.514— Terra que foj descuberta por 

 Bertomes— as referring to the English (Breton) discovery under Cab^it, and not to the generally recognized claim 

 of the French Bretons to have given their name first to the island and the adjacent country. As to the while 

 bears seen by the vyagers he believes, with reason, they might have existed in 1497 in northern Cape Breton. 



Harrisse (Cabots, 65, 85) favours Cape Percé (old name of north head of Cow Bay), but he himself eflfectively 

 disposes of this theory by stating it is 129 miles distant from Prince Edward Island. 



