184 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



eral in command ; King Ferdinand wrote to Lord Willoughby to send 

 Cabot to him, and the same day he wrote to Cabot. A few weeks later 

 he wrote twice again, on the same day, letters concerning Cabot. He took 

 him into his service in 1512, and made him a naval captain with a salary 

 of 50,000 maravedis. Jn 1514 he was called to court to consult with the 

 king about an intended expedition ; the next year his salary was raised, 

 and, together with several distinguished sailors, he was'made royal jîilot ; 

 that year he was called to Badajoz on a commission with eminent cosmo- 

 graphers to report on the line of demarcation, and in 1518 he was 

 created pilot major of Spain. His duties were to examine and certify all 

 pilots, to compile and keep up the standard official map, and to receive 

 and embody on it the reports of all returning sailors. He had to certify 

 all maps, and he was the supervisor of the professor of cosmography at 

 the ministry of the Indies at Seville. In 1524 he was again put on a com- 

 mission with distinguished cosmographers to settle the line of demarcation. 

 He then went to South America, and his office was kept open for him. 

 He incurred lawsuits and was punished by fine and banishment for some 

 high-handed acts on the expedition, but was soon recalled and reinstated 

 in his former office. In 1533 he made a large map of the world for the 

 council of the Indies, and when he left S^Jain he was on a commission to 

 examine Medina's " Art of Navigation." He had power to suspend pilots, 

 and he appointed a friend as acting officer when he went to England, and 

 the Emperor Charles Y. repeatedly tried to get him back to Spain, and 

 kept his office open for him until 1552. 



In England, where he went in 1547, an old man of 12, he was trusted 

 by Edward YI., and his salary increased. He became governor of the 

 Company of Merchant Adventurers and had charge of the nautical aftairs 

 of the realm. He had all his life, as Mr. Harrisse states, a high reputation 

 in Italy and England. He was retained in high office in Spain, and he 

 was placed in high office in England, a country not very tolerant of 

 foreigners. 



Here, then, is a monstrous improbability ; that a man without any 

 advantages of birth, wealth, or influential connections, a foreigner among 

 two jealous nations, should have been all his lifetime at the head of the 

 nautical aifairs of the greatest naval powers in Europe : no geographer, and 

 yet incessantly making maps for public departments ; no cosmographer, 

 and yet called on as an expert in important suits and selected as a com- 

 missioner to determine the line of demarcation ; no sailor, and the 

 examiner and certificator of all the pilots of Spain ; no man of science, 

 and the censor of the chair of cosmography for the council of the Indies, 

 the Admiralty of Spain. This man served some of the most capable 

 princes who ever sat upon a throne, and it remained after 350 years for 

 us to find him out. Surely this is a stupendous improbability ; surely the 

 view of his character, presented in my paper of 1894, must be nearer the 



