[s. E. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 183 



based upon other foundations. This is done continually in courts of jus- 

 tice ; and to pronounce Sebastian Cabot a liar and dismiss him from the 

 controversy is going further than is usual in historical inquiries. In 

 fact, the matter seems almost to have got to the point that no evidence 

 will be admitted to corroborate anything Sebastian Cabot ever said, or 

 rather was ever reported to have said, for we have nothing direct from 

 his own pen. 



Then again, it seems to mc to be going to an extreme to pronounce 

 Sebastian to be no sailor and no geographer. It proves too much ; for, 

 if Sebastian Cabot was an impostor, Ferdinand of Aragon, Charles Y., 

 Edward VI., and all the other exceedingly capable men around them 

 were fools. Now we know that these men were statesmen of no common 

 order — accustomed to deal with and make use of men — versed in every 

 wile of statecraft. Ferdinand was a master in the art of dissimulation, 

 wary and unrelenting. If, indeed, Cabot had been the only maritime 

 authority at the court, one might imagine that he could deceive lands- 

 men — but he was not. The court of Spain had many able sailors, com- 

 petent to ex])ose a nautical impostor, who, moreover, was a stranger — an 

 English Italian among a jealous people as the Spaniards were. 



I do not think that we are justified in supposing he was a great sea 

 captain, for he failed as a commander. A man, even now, might be a 

 distinguished secretary of the admiralty, an authority on naval affairs 

 and an accomplished geogi-apher, yet not competent to take an active 

 executive command. I believe Sebastian Cabot to have been versed in 

 all the nautical science of his time, but not necessarily capable to com- 

 mand a fleet. I should not wonder if there were many men now in Her 

 Majesty's service doing good, useful nautical work, who are in a similar 

 position. I called Sebastian Cabot a theorist — a scientific theorist, with 

 a fixed idea about the North Pole — but not, therefore, of necessity the 

 absolute impostor that some of my critics conceive him to have been, 

 and, in confirmation, I find in Mr. Harrisse's John Cabot (p. 229) the 

 following quotation from Oviedo, which precisely expresses the view I 

 have advanced. "Cabot is competent and skilful in his occupation of 

 " cosmography, and for constructing plane as well as spherical maps of 

 " the entire world. But there is a great difference between leading and 

 " governing men, and handling an astrolabe or a quadrant." My belief 

 has been that the failure of the expedition to the Moluccas, of which we 

 have so full a record, is the explanation of the failure of the second voyage 

 to America, of the particulars of which so little has survived. It seems 

 to me that there are, in the study of history, moral difficulties and intel. 

 lectual ditiieulties, as insurmountable as any physical obstacle can be, and 

 here is one. An emergency arose in fitting out a military expedition, and 

 Sebastian Cabot was picked out in all England to make a map of the 

 theatre of operations; he went to Spain with Lord Willoughby, the gen- 



