[8. B. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 217 



they differed in the wording of the legends from the copy now extant, 

 they agreed in this respect. Clement Adams's map was not an impression 

 of the engi-aved plate from which the Paris map was struck, for it was 

 re-engraved, and the legend which fixed the date of June 24 was copied 

 by Hakluyt from that map, and thus had the authentication of Cabot 

 while he was living in England. It matters not who wrote the words — 

 the legend was hanging up in the queen's gallery on a 7nap made by a 

 Toyal officer, engraved by Clement Adams in the lifetime of that officer — 

 Sebastian Cabot, to wit, whose duty it was to supervise the maps and 

 ■examine the pilots of England. 



The reader will, doubtless, notice that I have avoided reference to the 

 interesting controversy going on between Mr. Harrisse, on one side, and 

 Mr. G. B. Weare and Mr. Gr. K. F. Prowse, on the other, relative to the 

 Fust chronicles and the records of the city of Bristol. That subject can 

 be much better treated in Europe than in Canada, and it is in competent 

 hands. It is not essential to my argument, and I am glad to leave it 

 with those upon whom it has fallen. 



20. — Conclusion. 



And now, having, so far as my abilities permit, replied to my most 

 estimable even if too hasty critics, I am suddenly brought up by a most 

 unexpected deliverance of Judge Prowse in his criticism of Archbishop 

 O'Brien's address. He says : " The real landfall of Cabot in North 

 *' America must forever remain among the things that are unknown and 

 " unknowable." 0, most lame and impotent conclusion ! Has all this 

 historic heat, then, been spent for naught ? Have all the names for stu- 

 pidity in the English language been exhausted upon Dr. Harvey and 

 myself for no practical utility ? Has all this rhetorical energy corus- 

 cated in vain ? It cannot be. The judge's illustrious disciples must not 

 be left thus to wander amid the " unknowable," for not to that end were 

 ^'infinite pains" bestowed upon their conversion. Thei-e must be a con- 

 clusion ; so, putting aside all superfluities of language, let us address 

 ourselves to that most desirable, nay, longed-for, result. It is true the 

 great object has been achieved, and the name of John Cabot has been 

 rescued from the obscurity in which for four centuries it had been en- 

 veloped ; but something is still due to the ii-ritated historical susceptibili- 

 ties of the public, which will refuse to be satisfied by the '-unknown," 

 and, still less, by the "unknowable." 



It will appear, upon a careful perusal of the preceding pages, that 

 there is no physical or geographical reason a priori why Cape Breton 

 may not have been Cabot's landfall, and that the voyage was intended to 

 be upon a westerly course. It will also appear that all the conditions ex- 

 isting upon the North Atlantic tend to make a westerly course swerve to 



