64 SAMUEL EDWAED DAWSON ON THE 



in the voyage. Sebastian Cabot seems to have been, not so much a great sailor, as a great 

 nautical theorizer. Gomara says he discovered nothing for Spain ; and beyond dcmbt his 

 expedition to La Plata cannot be considered successful ; for it was intended to reach the 

 Moluccas. One fixed idea of his life was the course to Cathay by the north. That idea he 

 monopolized to himself. He overvalued its importance and thought to be the Columbus of 

 a new hia'hwav to the east. Hence he mav have underrated his father's achievements as he 

 brooded over what he considered to be his own great secret. He theorized on the sphere 

 and he theorized on the variation of the compass and he theorized on a method of finding 

 longitude by the variation of the needle ; so that even Richard Eden, who greatly admired 

 him, wrote as tollows : " Sebastian Cabot on his death-l>ed told me that he had the know- 

 " ledge thereof (longitude by variation) by divine revelation, yet so that he might not teach 

 " any man. But I thinke that the goode olde man in that extreme age somewhat doted 

 " and had not, yet even in the article of death, utterly shaken off all worldlye vaine glorie." 

 These words would seem to contain the solution of mo.-st of the mystery of the suppression 

 of John Cabot's name in the narratives of Peter Martyr, Ramusio, Gomara and all the other 

 writers who derived their information from Sebastian Cabot during his long residence in 

 Spain. The remainder of the mystery may be solved in the succeeding portion of this paper. 

 And now we may pass on to the consideration of the second voyage ; and first among 

 the writers, in order of time as also in order of importance, is Peter Martyr of Anghiera, 

 who published his " Decades of the iSTew World" in 1516. Sebastian Cabot had then been 

 in Siiaiii for four years, high in office and in royal favour. Peter Martyr was his "familiar 

 friend and comrade," and tells the pope, to whom these "Decades" were addressed as 

 letters, that he wrote from iiif nnnation derived from Calnifs own lips. Here, I \-enture to 

 think, many of the writers on this subject have gone astray ; for the whole question changes. 

 Martyr knows of only one voyage, and that was beyond doubt the voyage of 1498 ; he 

 knows of only one discoverer, and that the man from whose lips he writes the narrative. 

 The landfall is far north, in a region of ice and perpetual daylight. At the very outset the 

 subject is stated to be " those northern seas," and then Peter Martyr goes on to say that 

 Sebastian Cabot furnished two ships at his own charges ; and that, with three hundred 

 men, he sailed towards the north pole, where he saw land ; and that then he was com- 

 pelled to turn westwards ; and after that he coasted to the south until he reached tlie lati- 

 tude of Gibraltar ; and that he was west of the longitude of Cuba. In otlier words, he 

 struck land far in the north, and from that point he sailed south along the coast as far as 

 Cape Hatteras. That Labrador was the landfall seems clear ; for he met large masses of ice 

 in the month of July. These were not merely the bergs of the western ocean, but masses 

 of field-ice, which compelled him to change his course from north to west, and Hnally to 

 turn southwards. The same writer states that Cabot himself named a portion of the great 

 land he coasted Baecalaos, because of the quantity of fish, which was so great that they hin- 

 dered the sailing of his ships, and that these fishes were called baecalaos by the natives. 

 This statement has given rise to much dispute. As to the (pumtity of fish all succeeding 

 writers concur that it was immense beyond conception ; and probably the swarming of the 

 salmon up the rivers of our Pacific coast may afford a parallel ; but that Cabot did not so 

 name the country is abundantly clear. A very exhaustive note on the word will be found 

 at page 131 of Dr. Bourinot's " Cape Breton." He gives the Micmac name as pe</o(,, on the 

 authority of Dr. Rand. Richard Brown gives it as pahshoo in his " History of Cape Breton." 



