[s. E. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 193 



discovered containing the same legends is the same type as was used in 

 the legends pasted on the map, and, as these legends were extant and 

 quoted in 1549, it is proved that they are contemporaneous with the 

 map '^ 



Bishop Howley avoids the difficult problem presented by this map. 

 He says that he has seen and examined the map in Paris ; but he passes 

 over this document, so supremely important, with the remark that it 

 would require a lecture to itself. He says there is no date on thé 

 map itself. The date is, in fact, in one of the legends, which refer to 

 numbers which are engraved on the map. The bishop says the j^rint- 

 ing is " evidently of a very recent date " (p. 28, note), forgetting 

 that these legends are also extant from another copy dated A.D. 15-49, 

 and are to be found in the works of Chytrœus. He quotes Harrisse as 

 referring the authorship of the legends to Grajales, but does not add 

 that Harrisse attributes to them the same date as the map, viz , A.D. 

 1544, nevertheless he relies on them (p. 29) to establish the date of the 

 landfall, and (on p. 37) he quotes the Spanish version, " unaysla grande," 

 from one of these very legends, which he says are " evidently of very 

 " recent date." He criticises Harrisse very severely for having charged 

 Sebastian Cabot with mendacity, and is sorry to see (p. 17) Mr. Hanisse's 

 example imitated by others ; but while admitting that the landfall at 

 Cape Bi-eton is indicated on this map, he does not accept it, but turns 

 round upon Dr. Harvey and me as if we had invented the theory, and so 

 escapes explaining how Cabot came to put it there in 1544, and why he 

 himself does not believe Cabot's statement. Sir Clements Markham, who 

 had accepted the map,"'^ seems to have been shaken by the recent denun- 

 ciations of Cabot's character, but does not very decidedly j^ronounce 

 against it. Tarducci accepts it with all its consequences, but then he 

 does not believe that Sebastian Cabot was a liar and a scoundrel."'" Judge 

 Prowse rejects Sebastian Cabot and all his works. He is willing to take 

 an inscription, based on an miknown authority on Mason's and DuPont's 

 maps in 1(325, in favour of Bonavista, but not one upon Cabot's authority 

 on a map of 1544 in favour of Cape Breton. The legends, as Dr. Justin 

 Winsor well observes, '' interlink with the body of the map in such a 

 " way as to make it apparent that they belong to the publication." '•'' 



The importance of this map is so great that it will be more satisfac- 

 tory to give in his own words Mr. Harrisse's explanation of the Cape 

 Breton landfall marked upon it. The map is dated 1544, and in 1547 

 Cabot removed to England. In the belief that Cabot was a liar and 

 charlatan, he thinks Cabot falsely placed the landfall there. He says : "'' 



" At that time (A.D. 1544) a great change had taken place in the 

 " relative importance of the northern coast of the new continent. The 

 " seas which bordered the Baccalaos region were no longer a common 

 " fishing ground frequented by the smacks of Portugal, Biscay, Nor- 



Sec. II., 1897. 10. 



