SEBASTIAN CABOT'S VOYAGE. 119 



Henry VII., and being a skilful pilot and navigator, the king encouraged him to attempt 

 discoveries by granting him a patent, in virtue whereof he had leave to go in search of 

 strange lands, and to conquer and settle them. One-fifth of the profits was to be the 

 king's. The patent bears date March 5th, 1496, and is granted to Cabot and his three 

 sons, Ludovico, Sebastian, and Sancio. There is some little difficulty in collating the various 

 accounts collected by Hakluyt, but the voyage reported by Sebastian to the Pope's legate in 

 Spain is distinct enough. He says in effect that the discoveries of Columbus had inflamed 

 his desire to attempt to reach India by the north-west. By studying the globe "under- 

 standing by reason of the sphere," he terms it he thought that he must, theoretically at 

 least, reach India that way, if no land intervened. He, of course, knew nothing of the icy 

 barriers that stopped Franklin and M'Clure from actually taking a vessel that way. The 

 king favoured his ideas, "and immediately commanded two caravels to bee furnished with 

 all things appertaining to the voyage," which was made, as far as he could remember, in 

 1496. Sailing to the north-west, he encountered land in latitude 56. Then, despairing 

 to find the passage, he turned back, sailing down the coast of America as far as Florida, 

 when, his provisions failing, he returned to England. The Cabots brought home three 

 natives of Newfoundland, who "were clothed in beasts' skins, and did eate raw flesh, and, 

 spake such speach that no man could understand them ; and in their demeanour like to 

 bruite beastes." The attempt of Cabot furnishes a clue to the object of many subsequent 

 voyages, which were intended to have been made via the Arctic Seas to the Pacific and 

 Indian Oceans. It must be remembered that it was not till 1498 that the route to the 

 Indies via the Cape of Good Hope was discovered. That via Cape Horn, as we shall see, 

 was discovered still later. 



In Hakluyt's collection of voyages a very curious poem is reprinted, complaining of 

 the neglect of the navy in the time of Henry VI., and praising highly "the policee of 

 keeping the see in the time of the merveillous werriour and victorious prince, King Henry 

 the Fift." The fact is that for some little time the spirit of maritime adventure seems 

 to have slumbered, subsequent to the voyages just recorded. It, however, broke out in full 

 force in the reign of Henry VIII., and flourished still more particularly in that of Queen 

 Elizabeth. In 1527, "King Henry VIII. sent two faire ships, well manned and victualled, 

 having in them divers cunning men, to seek strange regions, and so they set forth out of 

 the Thames the 20th day of May, in the 19th yeere of his raigne." This voyage was 

 despatched at the instance of Master Robert Thome, of Bristol, who, in his " exhortation " 

 to the king, gave " very weighty and substantial reasons to set forth a discoverie, even to 

 the North Pole." One of the vessels was lost " about the great opening between the north 

 parts of Newfoundland and Meta incognita, or Greenland," and the other returned, having 

 accomplished nought, about the beginning of October. Hakluyt tried hard to discover the 

 names of the vessels, and of the "cunning men" aboard them. He could only learn that 

 one of the ships was called the Dominus Vobiscwm, and that a wealthy canon of St. Paul's, 

 a very scientific person, had accompanied the expedition. " This," writes Hakluyt, evidently 

 in no happy frame of mind, "is all that I can hitherto learne or finde out of this voyage, 

 by reason of the great negligence of the writers of those times, who should have used more 

 care in preserving of the memories of the worthy actes of our nation." Master Thorne 



