The New World in the North : 123 



England any lands he might find. These letters also gave him the 

 authority to colonize and a trade monopoly on the territories he 

 might discover. He sailed from Bristol in 1497 in a small ship named 

 the Matthew. There were only eighteen men in his crew. His land- 

 fall was probably on Cape Breton Island and he cruised about the 

 mouth of the St. Lawrence, discovering an extensive coast and per- 

 suading himself that this was not simply an island. One result of 

 Cabot's voyage was to discover and report the richness of the fisheries 

 on the Grand Banks. 



In 1498 Cabot sailed again with a large ship supplied from London 

 and with four vessels from Bristol. We are imperfectly informed re- 

 garding the fate of this expedition but we do know that Cabot and 

 the vessel in which he traveled were lost. It is believed that John 

 Cabot, on his second trip, followed the Labrador coast into Davis 

 Strait. His son, Sebastion Cabot, made an attempt in 1509 to find 

 a northwest passage. The significance of John Cabot's voyages is 

 that he made an independent discovery of the North American con- 

 tinent and laid the foundation for later British claims to discovery 

 and colonization in this part of the world. He also confirmed the 

 richness of the American fisheries. It is quite possible that these fish- 

 eries would have grown in any event but his report no doubt has- 

 tened their development. It is certain that in the early years of the 

 sixteenth century the French, Dutch, Portuguese and English were 

 sending fleets to fisheries of? the American coast. 



Cabot's work was reinforced by the voyages of the Corte-Reals, the 

 sons of John. The first expedition in 1500 was under the leadership 

 of Caspar. It touched at the Azores and at Iceland and then pro- 

 ceeded into the Denmark Straits to the northwest of Iceland. Here 

 they encountered the natural difficulties of this part of the ocean 

 which, as we have already seen, influenced so many other voyagers. 

 He also proceeded to round Cape Farewell and pursue the west 

 Greenland coast almost to the Arctic Circle before he returned. In 

 1501 he returned with three ships and picked up the Labrador coast 

 in the vicinity that the Greenlanders called Markland. They turned 

 south and came to the region of very large trees. Here they encoun- 

 tered natives — either Eskimos or Indians — and captured fifty of them 

 to take back as slaves. After passing the Straits of Belle Isle, two 

 ships returned to England while Caspar Corte-Real himself headed 

 south with the intention of seeing how the lands along which he had 

 been sailing related to the islands Columbus had discovered and re- 

 ported. He was never heard from again. His brother, Miguel, went 



