[THACHER] THE CABOTIAN DISCOVERY 285 



commodities growing of such nauigation, for euery their voyage, as often 

 as they shall avriue at our port of Bristoll (at the which port they shall 

 be bound and holden only to arriue) all manner of, necessary costs and 

 charges by them made, being deducted, to pay vnto vs in wares or money 

 the tift part of the capital gaine so gotten." 



The document was execiited at Westminster on March 5, 1496, in the- 

 eleventh year of the reign of King Henry VII. We tind several inter- 

 esting facts in this document. First, John Cabot is called a citizen of 

 Venice. He was a citizen of Venice, but not a native. In 1412 the Doge 

 Nicola Trono decreed that citizenship should be conferred on a foreigner 

 only after a residence of tifteen consecutive years. In 1476 the privilege 

 of citizenship was granted John Cabot. It was the custom to grant two 

 degrees, or, perhaps, more properly speaking, two kinds of citizenship 

 called " privilegium de intus," conferring privileges local in character,^ 

 and to be enjoyed within the republic, and " privilegium de extra," con- 

 ferring certain commercial rights beyond the republic, and the privilege 

 of sailing under the flag of St. Mark. The citizenship conferred upon 

 John Cabot included both these degrees or kinds. It was the duty of an 

 official to write opposite the name of the applicant for citizenship the 

 countrj- and place of his nativity. Unfortunately, the imperfectly kejDt 

 records in Venice do not disclose the original nationality either of John 

 Cabot or of several other recipients of these privileges, whose names 

 occur near to his own as recorded in the great "Book of Privileges." 

 The entries disclose that names were inserted at times where blank 

 spaces occurred. Thus the six names previous to that of John Cabot are 

 recorded as receiving their privileges in the year 1484, while Cabot's name 

 is recorded under the year 1476. Moreover, while every other name is 

 recorded with the full date of year and month and day, Cabot's name 

 has only the year. Therefore, it is conspicuous in an imperfect list as the 

 most imperfectly recorded, although it is also conspicuous as the only 

 name of the list remembered to-day in history. Henri Harrisse, the 

 foremost authority on early American discoveries, and whom, for a certain 

 distance at least, e /ery student must follow, believes that John Cabot was^ 

 like Columbus, a native of Genoa. The Spanish ambassador. De Puebla, 

 who Avas employed to arrange the match between Catherine of Aragon 

 and Prince Arthur, and who lived in London for many years, repeatedly 

 in despatches referred to Cabot as "another Genoese like Columbus."^ 

 Another Spanish diplomatist. De Ayala, who had been sent a few years 

 before to the king of Portugal, in reference to the line of demarcation 

 established by Alexander VI., in May, 1493, three several times alludes 

 to John Cabot as having been born in Genoa. These particular witnesses 

 were trained diplomatic agents, and trained diplomatic agents are likely 

 to be exact when communicatinii; news to their own courts. 



