298 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The account of Pasqualigo says that Cabot coasted for three hundred 

 leagues. It seems impossible that Cabot could have sailed a distance from 

 England of 2,568 miles, besides the uncertain Avanderings and necessary 

 tackings, explored 300 leagues, or over 1.100 miles of the coast, none of 

 which distance could have been made at night, and made the return 

 voyage all within the short period between the tirst part of 3Iay and the 

 first part of August. It would have required a daily speed of seventy 

 miles, accepting the date of the old but suspicious chronicle which gives 

 May 2 as the day of departure and August 6 as the day of return. 



Thus relying solely upon contemporaneous and apparently authentic 

 documents, we think we may conclude that John Cabot, a Genoese by 

 birth and a Venetian citizen by adoption, sailed from Bristol early in 

 May, 1497, passing the Avesterly end of Ireland, sailed to the northward 

 some days, and thereafter sailed to the westward, finding land at a dis- 

 tance from England of 700 Italian leagues, or 2,568 English miles, and 

 that the land first seen was someAvhere in the neighbourhood of Hudson's 

 straits. 



There was a second voyage, made in 1498, according to the letters 

 patent granted John Cabot. The importance of this voyage was greater 

 than the first, for it was the voyage of exploration. The immediate 

 records of it are exceedingly meagre. In an old chronicle an entry is made 

 of notable events under the London mayoralty of William Purchas, who 

 held office from October 28, 1497, to October 28, 1498, and a reference is 

 made to an expedition which " departed from the west country (Bristol) 

 in the beginning of the soiner, and of Avhich is this maior's time returned 

 no tidings." At all events, it establishes the fact of a second voyage, and 

 gives us a frame into which to set the picture as it develops under the 

 pencil of story and of legend. 



And now we ma}^ examine the three later documents, which have 

 had much to do with establishing the prevailing notions regarding 

 Sebastian Cabot's part in the great event. There were several men of 

 fame called Peter Martyr in the fifteenth century. One wrote on medi- 

 cine, one wrote on religion, and one —our Peter Martyr — wrote on history. 

 He had been the friend or associate of Columbus, Vespucius, Sebastian 

 Cabot, Vasco de Gama, Magellan, and Cortes. He wrote a series of 

 decades, or "De Rebus Oceanicis," publishing the first in 1511, the first, 

 second and third together in 1516, and the entire eight decades in 1530» 

 It is in the first three decades, published at Alcala, in 1516, that we find 

 this story of Sebastian Cabot. It is written in Latin, and Hakluyt 

 translated it into English, in 1589, in his " Principal Navigations." As 

 I have compared this translation with the original Latin edition, and 

 found it correct, and as students are commonly referred to Hakluyt for 

 this and like translations, I have preserved it here with all its quaint 

 phraseology. 



