HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 357 



to man and victual a ship at Bristol, for the disco 

 very of that island ; with whom ventured also three 

 small ships of London merchants, fraught with some 

 gross and slight wares, fit for commerce with bar 

 barous people. He sailed, as he affirmed at his re 

 turn, and made a card thereof, very far westwards, 

 with a quarter of the north, on the north side of 

 Terra de Labrador, until he came to the latitude 

 of sixty-seven degrees and an half, finding the seas 

 still open. It is certain also, that the king s fortune 

 had a tender of that great empire of the West In 

 dies. Neither was it a refusal on the king s part, 

 but a delay by accident, that put by so great an 

 acquest : for Christopherus Columbus, refused by the 

 King of Portugal, who would not embrace at once 

 both east and west, employed his brother Bartholo- 

 meus Columbus unto King Henry, to negotiate for his 

 discovery : and it so fortuned, that he was taken by 

 pirates at sea, by which accidental impediment he 

 was long ere he came to the king : so long, that be 

 fore he had obtained a capitulation with the king for 

 his brother, the enterprize by him was achieved, 

 and so the West Indies by providence were then 

 reserved for the crown of Castile. Yet this sharp 

 ened the king so, that not only in this voyage, but 

 again in the sixteenth year of his reign, and like 

 wise in the eighteenth thereof, he granted forth new 

 commissions for the discovery and investing of un 

 known lands. 



In this fourteenth year also, by God s wonderful 

 providence, that boweth things unto his will, and 



