PROCEEDINGS FOR 1897 CXXXIII 



beach. This Cabot would find at Hamilton Inlet. It is somewhat of a 

 coincidence that we have at the entrance of Indian Harbour, hard by 

 the mouth of Hamilton Inlet, Bacalhaô Island. It was this vicinity 

 Cortereal's expedition of 1501 visited, and we learn from Pietro Pas- 

 qualigo's letters of October 19th, 1501, that one of the natives brought 

 to Portugal on its return, had a piece of "broken gilt sword which 

 certainly appears to have been made in Italy ; one of the boys had in 

 his ears two silver rings which seem without doubt to have been made 

 at Venice." ^ This is strong proof of Cabot's delay on that shore. 

 Further we cannot follow him. He had dared the terrors of the north- 

 ern seas, and discovered the declination or dip of the compass.^ He was 

 the pioneer of polar navigation. Hudson, Davis and Frobisher simply 

 followed in his footsteps, and were guided by his charts. They were 

 guided b}' this chart which has now been restored and made intelligible, 

 iind which, without doubt, is the one referred to by Sir Humphrey Gril- 

 bert as yet " to be seene in the Queen's Majesty's Privie Grallerie at 

 Whitehall." ' To us it should be valuable, for it constitutes our title 

 deeds to our vast and glorious inheritance. Although Hudson, Davis 

 and Frobisher followed in his leading, they did not intend to steal the 

 honour due him ; in fact, as Ave have seen, Frobisher asserts that Cabot 

 was the first to discover the frozen land and seas as far as the 67th 

 degi'ee. Despite this, past generations have immortalized their names, 

 whilst that of John Cabot was left not only unsung, but unrecorded. 

 Let us hope that the scientific world will now do him justice. As yet 

 we know not where, or how, he died. That he did not die during this 

 expedition seems clear from the words in the preface to Eamusio's Col- 

 lection of 1606. Speaking of Sebastian Cabot's dream of a passage by 

 the northeast, he says that by the "northwest had been sought in vain 

 both by him and his father." This would scarcely be said had John 

 Cabot not returned unsuccessful. He must have been an old man in 

 1499 : broken down by age, and more, perhaps, by the blasting of his 

 long cherished hopes, he bowed his head, and bore his cross to the quiet 

 of his humble home. Sebastian drops out of notice, too, for some years, 

 but again comes to the front. Men forget the achievements of the 

 father in contemplating those of the son. He succeeded. The father, 

 in the eyes of the commercial world, had failed. Hence the former 

 lived in its chronicles ; the latter was forgotten. Some day, when the 

 ciypt and dark nooks of St. Mary's Church Eedcliffe, Bristol, shall have 

 been thoroughly explored, a slab will sui'ely be found which will tell us 

 WHERE, and HOW, John Cabot died. 



' Quoted by Tarducci. 



- It was the "dip" and not the " variation" of the compass S. Cabot claimed 

 and just!}' so, to liave discovered. 

 •' Hakluyt, vol. 3, p. 38, 



