CABOT. 



179 



< handise of their possessions into the port of Bristol 

 only, win-re, on paying one-fifth part of the clear 

 pt.itits to the kin^, they were to be exempted from 

 ail other customs and imports whatever. 



Whether the Cahots sailed this year is uncertain. 

 But we are informed, on tin- authority of the pope's 

 i.it, in I i;>, Seh.istian undertook a voyage 

 or disr ivcrv with two ships. His great object, in 

 common with most navigators of that period, was to 

 find a passage leading to Cathay and the spices of 

 the E ist ; and this passage, he conjectured from his 

 globe-, might possibly exist in a north-west direction. 

 In the- beginning of summer, he accordingly set sail 

 with his two barks, and boldly standing across the 

 Atlantic, in a north-westerly course, trusting, like 

 Columbus, to the guidance of his sphere and his 

 compass, he came in sight of land much sooner than 

 he expected or desired. Heedless of the great glo- 

 ry which on this occasion he acquired, of being the 

 first navigator who saw the continent of America, 

 he felt excessively mortified, that the passage to the 

 Indies should thus be obstructed. Observing that 

 the country extended towards the north, he conti- 

 nued his voyage in that direction, and coasting along 

 dreary shores, which mortal eyes till then had never 

 surveyed, he anxiously examined the bays and inlets; 

 but still found the land continent." He conti- 

 nued this search, it is said, as far as 67^ degrees; 

 when discovering that the land turned round to the 

 east, and finding himself surrounded by mountains 

 of ice, in a sea where there was no night, with other 

 circumstances of horror, he felt himself under the 

 necessity of putting about, and retracing the whole 

 of his fruitless course. This resolution, it is said 

 also, was accelerated, by a mutiny of the masters 

 and crews of his ships, who refused to proceed fur- 

 ther in these dismal seas. It is likewise added, that 

 on this occasion he sailed south as far as Florida, all 

 along examining the coast in the hope of finding the 

 desired passage. But this account cannot be true, as 

 in that case he would have fallen in with the island of 

 Baccalos, or Newfoundland, which he discovered af- 

 terwards ; unless, indeed, we suppose the dates to be 

 inaccurate, and that the whole of this north-west ex- 

 pedition took place after his discovery of that island. 

 The next voyage of the Cabots, for the same pur- 

 pose, was in the following year 1497 ; when a royal 

 licence, dated the 13th of Henry VII., was granted 

 to John Cabot, to take six English ships, each of 

 200 tons and under, from any haven in the realm, 

 and also as many of the king's subjects for mariners 

 as might willingly accompany him. One ship was 

 fitted out at the king's cxpence, and the merchants 

 of London added three or four smaller ones. The 

 following particulars of this voyage are taken from 

 the great map of Sebastian, on which they were writ- 

 ten in Latin by a hand of those times. The reader 

 will not be displeased to have it from the black-let- 

 ter translation of Hakluyt. 



In the yere of our Lord 1497 John Cabot, a 

 Venetian, and his sonne Sebastian, (with an English 

 fleet set out from Bristoll,) discovered that land 

 which no man before that time had attempted, on the 

 24 of June, about five of the clocke early in the morn- 

 ing. This land he called Prima J'isla, that is to eay, 



First aeene, because as I suppose it was that part 



wheruf they had the first eight from sea. That Isund 

 wliit-h In th out before the land, he called the Island 

 ot St John, upon the occasion as I thinke, because it 

 was discovered upon the day of John the Baptist. 

 The inhabitants of this island use to wear beasts 

 sk'imes, and have them in a great estimation at we 

 have our finest garments. In their warren they use 

 bo web, arrowes, pikes, darts, wooden clubs, and slings. 

 The soille is barren in some places, and yieldeth lit- 

 tle fruit, but it is fulle of white bearee and btagges 

 farre greater than ours. It yieldeth plenty of fish, 

 and those very great, ait scales, and those which com- 

 monly we call salmons. There are soles also above 

 a yard in length} but especially there is a great 

 abundance of that kinde of fish which the savage* 

 call baccalos. In the same island also there breed 

 hauks, but they are so very blacke that they are ve- 

 ry like to ravens, as also their partridges, and eaglet, 

 which are in like sorte blacke." 



Three of the wretched natives of this island of 

 Baccalos, now better known by the name of New- 

 foundland, were carried home by Cabot, and are de- 

 scribed by cotemporary writers in terms of great 

 wonderment. The island, called St John's, mention- 

 ed in the above narration as lying out before the 

 land, is supposed to have been only a projection of 

 the main island itself. 



After this period we hear no more of the elder 

 Cabot, and indeed for twenty years little is related 

 of Sebastian ; though it is highly probable that hit 

 restless disposition, which he himself describes as 

 " flaming with desire" to do something memorable, 

 did not suffer him to be long on shore. In the eighth 

 year of Henry VI i I. we find him in strict coalition 

 with Sir Thomas Pert, then vice-admiral of Eng- 

 land, by whose interest he obtained a good ship to 

 prosecute his constant and favourite object, the dis- 

 covery of a passage to the Indies. Baffled in his at- 

 tempts in the north and west, he now directed hit 

 course to the south, and sailed to the coast of BrasiL 

 Here, however, the courage of Sir Thomas failing, 

 Cabot was obliged to desist from his purpose ; and 

 having steered for Hispaniola and Porto Rico, where 

 he trafficked for some time, he returned disappointed 

 and chagrined to England. From England he soon 

 after removed to Spain, at that time the seat of com- 

 mercial and geographical information, and resided at 

 Seville ; at once perfecting himself in the knowledge 

 of the globe, and communicating the particulars of 

 his own observation. Here he is said to have met 

 with great encouragement, being appointed Pilot 

 Major, an office of great consideration, and constitu- 

 ted inspector of all projects of discovery, which were 

 then frequent anil successful. 



In 1524, an association of Spanish merchants agreed 

 to entrust him with an expedition to the Moluccas 

 or Spice Islands, through the newly discovered Straits 

 of Magellan. He accordingly sailed from Cadiz in 

 April 1525, with four ships laden with stores and ar- 

 ticles of commerce ; and touched successively at the 

 Canaries, Cape Verd Islands, Cape St Augustine, 

 and the Island of Pan>s, or of Geese. At the bay 

 of AlUSaints, he was guilty, if we are accurately in- 

 formed, of a most barbarous and ungrateful action. 



Cabot 



