[s. B. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 191 



been made in later times for similar reasons, and the histories of boundary 

 commissions afford many instances. The same political exigencies would 

 compel Sebastian Cabot to withhold his name from a private map like 

 that of 1544, and they would prevent him, while in Spain, from giving 

 that map the colour of a Spanish official sanction, even though the laws 

 in the other parts of the empire of Charles V. did not forbid the pub- 

 lication of non-official maps. 



It is not fair to charge Cabot with falsehood for that. These were 

 not days of geographical societies or of travelling scientific associations, 

 and Cabot's duty was to his own master, the king of Spain. All that 

 time King Ferdinand and his successor, the Emperor Charles, had in 

 their possession La Cosa's manuscript map admitting that the northeast 

 coast of America had been discovered by the English. Cabot was as 

 much, and no more, a liar than his royal masters, who would have dealt 

 in the summary methods then in vogue with any official airing private 

 opinions, geographical or otherwise, contrary to the official views of the 

 public interest. 



Mr. Harrisse, in order to prove that none of the Spanish maps recog- 

 nized English discovery south of Labrador, cites the map sent in 1527 by. 

 Eobert Thorne, an English merchant residing in Seville, to the ambas- 

 sador of King Henry VIII. There are facsimiles of this map in 

 Kretschmer, Winsor, Nordenskiold, and in Brown's History of Cape 

 Breton. It has been reproduced (Fig. 13) on the following page, and 

 it demonstrates my thesis ; not that of ]\Ir. Harrisse. On the northern 

 extremity of the east coast there is, as he says, the inscription, "Nova 

 terra laboratorum dicta," but there is also the inscription, "Terra hec 

 ab Anglis primum fuit inventa." This latter is not on Us seaboard from 

 50° to 65° N"., but it extends along the seaboard from about 40°, as 

 shown by the scale on the margin, and a line of latitude drawn across 

 to Europe would cut the north of Spain. Thorne sent the map 

 secretly, and begged that it should not be shown, for it would get 

 him into trouble, as it was forbidden to make any but official maps. 



My answer, then, to Mr. Harrisse is that Cabot, in obedience to the 

 policy of the country whose paid official he was, deliberately suppressed 

 much of the knowledge he posses-sed of the northeast coast, and that it 

 was his duty to do so or to resign his office, and I would add, moreover, 

 that La Cosa's map proves that his master (Ferdinand) knew of the 

 English discoveries, and Robert Thome's map proves that there were 

 pilots in Seville who also knew that these discoveries extended as far 

 south at least as 40°, and Robert Thome's letter proves that the map was 

 known not to be in accord with the official map (for he could have bought 

 a copy of that), and, therefore, he desired that it might be kept secret. 

 It was not from motives of economy that an English merchant of Robert 



