ex ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



to this controversy : and it is surely evident that accounts of the second 

 voyage should not be invoked when writing of the first. We must never 

 forget that, apart from a casual mention of the first voyage by the Spanish 

 Ambassador, the only Avriters who treat of it are Pasqualigo and da 

 Soncino.'^- It is a matter for rejoicing that their testimony is unimpeach- 

 able, and that a careful study of their text enables us to locate the land- 

 fall with the precision almost of a mathematical demonstration. 



From Pasqualigo we learn that the land discovered was about seven 

 hundred leagues distant from England ; da Soncino tells us the direction 

 taken by Cabot. Confined to these two data, and mixing, as many have 

 done, accounts and incidents of the second voyage with the clear story of 

 this one, we need not wonder that Labrador, Newfoundland and Cape 

 Breton should find champions of their claims. The distance can be 

 reconciled with any of them, and each theorist is able to argue ingeni- 

 ously in favour of his chosen site. Dr. S. E. Dawson's argument from 

 La Cosa's map would be strong were the map interpreted aright, but by 

 making Cavo de ] nglaterra, Cape Eace, Cavo Descubierto must be near 

 New York. It seems strange that a passage in da Soncino's letter, which 

 settles beyond yea or nay, the approximate position of the landfall, 

 should have been overlooked or ignored. The clever Italian knew 

 whereof he was speaking, and used no vague expi-essions, and referred to 

 no indefinite or undetermined places. The mediitival writer is too readily 

 accused of lack of " critical method," or of some childish unmeaning 

 vagueness, when his reader fails to grasp his meaning. Now, da Soncino 

 tells us that "this Mr. John (Cabot) has a map of the world on a plane, 

 and also on a solid globe, which he has made, and he points out where he 

 landed, and going to the east (that is by way of the west), he passed con- 

 siderably the country of Tanais." ^ This passage is analogous to the one 

 in Peter Martyr's account of the second voyage, in which he says 

 Sebastian Cabot sailed south almost to the same degree of latitude as the 

 Straits of Gibraltar. It was most natural that in giving an idea of the 

 positions they had reached on unknown shores, the early navigators 

 should compare them with well known places in the old world. As we 

 shall see, Tanais is no indefinite or general name for eastern lands, but a 

 very definitely marked country, and one well kriown to educated men in 

 da Soncino's time. Now, Cabot went considerably past it, either longi- 

 tudinally or latitudinally. It could not have been the former, for Tanais 

 was east of England, whilst Cabot had gone west, and he knew he had 

 not circumnavigated the globe and come between Tanais and the furthest 



1 All subsequent narratives relate to the second voyage, or fuse the two into one. 

 It is only by a careful collation of them with Pasqualigo's and da Soncino's accounts 

 thfit we can elucidate them. 



2 " Ha passato assai el paese del Tanais." Assai like the French assez means, 

 somewhat, considerably, or to some extent. 



