260 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



fifth line is the entry : Et in thesaurio in \(na t allia pro Johanne Coboot, 

 XX Li. : In the treasury in one tally in the name of John Coboot, £20. 

 The presumption is that one tally was really issued for the whole amount, 

 and that John Cabot negotiated it with some one who owed the king 

 money for dues. 



So far the transaction seems clear, for we know John Cabot was in 

 England until May, 1498, during the currency of that account, but the 

 account for the following year has also been reproduced (that is the year 

 September 29, 1498, to September 28, 1499), and in it is also an entr}^ to- 

 Cabot as follows — this time spelled right : In the treasury one tally in 

 the name of John Cabot, £20. It would therefore appear that a tally 

 for the second year of the pension was issued and negotiated, but whether 

 it could have been issued, during Cabot's absence, to his representative, or 

 whether, of necessity, it had to issue to him in person, some one more 

 learned in such matters than I am must decide. The second year of the 

 pension, it must be remembered, began to accrue on March 25, 1498, be- 

 fore Cabot sailed, although the tally was passed in after September 29, 

 1498. The point is, whether a tally could issue in advance against the 

 second year of the pension, which really had commenced to be current 

 while Cabot was straining his resources to fit out his second expedition. 

 If that was not possible, Cabot must have returned after September 28, 

 1498, and have got the tally himself. The question is not easy to answer, 

 for it demands a very intimate knowledge of the rules of the Exchequer 

 at that time, and it is unsafe for any one in a new country to express an 

 opinion upon such a subject without long and careful inquiiy. No doubt 

 every facility possible was afforded to Cabot, for the king advanced £30 

 to Thomas Thirkill and £30 to Thomas Bradley, as straight loans, and he 

 gave a gratuity to John Carter of £40 58 in aid of their ventures '' going 

 " to the new ile." 



These autotypes came to hand just as this paper was closed, and 

 hence are not referred to in their jirojier place. Only 150 copies were 

 issued. (William George's Sons, publishers, Bristol.) 



Mr. Gr. E. Weare, in his " Cabot's Discovery of North America " 

 (London, 1897), published for the first time an extract from a statement 

 of the accounts of the collectors of the j^ort of Bristol, by which it 

 appears that they had in their possession an acquittance for £10 paid to 

 " John Calbot, a Venetian, late of the town of Bristol," on account of his 

 annuity of £20 per annum, " to wit, for the term of the Annunciation of 

 the Blessed Virgin Mary." Mr. Weare concludes that the term referred 

 to was up to and inclusive of the 25th of March, 1498, and that there- 

 fore John Cabot sailed on his second expedition at some time after that 

 date. Other considerations lead to the same conclusion. Questions con- 

 cerning the history and antiquities of Bristol will, however, be more 

 appropriately left in the hands of those who, like Mr. Weare, have made 

 an especial study of them upon the spot. The materials for forming a 

 sound judgment do not exist in Canada. 



