VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS IN 1497 AND 1498. S3 



5. That tliereupoii, and in consideration of this discovery made by John Cabot, 



king Henry VII. granted new letters patent, drawn solely to John Cabot, 

 authorizing a second expedition on a more extended scale and with fuller 

 royal authority, which letters patent were dated February 3rd, 1498. That 

 this expedition sailed in the spring of 1498, and had not returned in Octobei-. 

 It consisted of several ships and about three hundred men. That John and 

 Sebastian Cabot sailed on this voyage. When it returned is not known. 

 From the time of sailing of this expedition John Gal)ot vanishes into the 

 unknowable, and from thenceforth Sebastian alone appears in the historic 

 record. 

 These points are now fully supported by satisfactory evidence, mostly documentary and 

 contemporary. As for John Cabot, Sebastian said he died, which is one of the few undis- 

 puted facts in the discussion ; but if Sebastian is correctly reported in Ramusio^ to have 

 said that he died at the time when the news of Columbus's discoveries reached England, 

 then Sebastian Cabot told an untruth, liecause the letters patent of 1498 were addressed to 

 John Cabot alone. The son had a gift of reticence concerning others, including his father 

 and brothers, which in these latter days has been the cause of much wearisome research to 

 scholars. To avoid further discussion of the preceding points is, however, a great gain. The 

 aim of the present paper is mainly to ascertain the landfall of John Cabot in 1497, and, 

 incidentally, to identify the island of St. John, discovered on the same day, viz., on St. 

 John the Baptist's day. In attempting this, other points of interest in the historical 

 geography of the gulf of St. Lawrence will necessarily arise. 



II. TUEORIES OF THE LaNDFALL. 



From among the numerous opinions concerning the landfall of John Cabot three 

 theories emerge which may be seriously entertained, all three being supported by evidence 

 of much weight. 



1st. That it was in Newfoundland.* 



2nd. That it was on the Labrador coast.' 



3rd. That it was on the island of Cape Breton." 



Until a comparatively recent period it was universally held by English writers that 

 Newfoundland was the part of North America first seen by Cabot. The name New-found- 

 land lends itself to this view ; for, in the letters patentof 1498, the expression, " Londe and 

 iles of late founde," and the wording of the award recorded in the king's privy jjurse 

 accounts, August 10, 1497, "To hym that founde the new ile £10," seem luiturally to 

 suggest the island of Newfoundland of our day ; and this impression is strengthened by 

 reading the old authors, who spell it, as Richard Whitbourne in 1588, New-found-land,' in 

 three words with connecting hyphens, and often with the definite article, "The Newe- 

 found-land." A cursory reading of the whole literature of American discovery before 1831 

 would suggest that idea, and some writers of the present day still maintain it. Authors of 

 other nationalities have, however, always disputed it, and have pushed the English dis- 

 coveries far north, to Lal)rador and even to C4reenland. Champlain,'* who read and studied 

 everything relating to his profession, concedes to the English the coast of Labrador north of 

 56'- and the regions about Davis straits ; and the maps, which for a long period, with a few 



