12 A. D. 1496. 



Cuba ; and fo returned back to England ; where, king Henry VII be- 

 ino- engaged in a war with Scotland, there was no inclination to any 

 farther difcoveries of the new world ; fo that Sebaflian, the moft aftive 

 and ingenious of the Cabots, entered into the fervice of Spain, and was 

 inftrumental in farther American difcoveries. Hakluyt (in the dedi- 

 cation of the 2d volume of his voyages to Sir Robert Cecil, fecretary 

 of ftate to Queen Elizabeth, 1599), aflerts, with juftice, that not only 

 the principal Spanifh writers, as Peter Martyr ab Angleria, Francis Lo- 

 pes de Gomora, and the moft learned Venetian, John Baptifla Ramu- 

 iio, as alfo the French geographer Popliniere, &c. all acknowlege, with 

 one conient, that of the great tracl of land, from 67 degrees northward 

 to the latitude of Florida, was fir ft difcovered by England, as above. 

 The prefident De Thou, or Thuanus, (1. xliv.) fpeaking of the firft dif- 

 covery of Florida, about the beginning of the next century, which the 

 Spaniards abfolutely claim to themfelves, has this expreflion, viz. ' But 

 ' what is more certain, and which very many affirm, long before this 

 ' time, Sebaftian Cabot, a Venetian navigator, not unfldlled in aftro- 

 ' nomy, under the authority of Henry VII, king of England, and in 

 ' emulation of Columbus (whofe fame at that time was fpread abroad), 

 ' did, in the year 1496, firft of any arrive in this province.' Herrera 

 ' likewife, in his general hiftory of America, fays of Cabot's expedition, 

 ' That he advanced as far as 68 degrees of north latitude, and finding 

 ' the cold very intenfe, even in July, he durft not proceed any farther; 

 ' but that he gave a better account of all thofe parts than any other had 

 ' done.' How weak then are the pretenfions of France to the prior dif- 

 .covery of North America, alleging that John Verazzani, a Florentine, 

 employed by their king Francis I, was the firft difcoverer of thofe 

 coafts, feeing that king did not come to the crown till above nineteen 

 years after Cabot's difcovery of the whole coaft of North America, be- 

 tween 68 degrees north and the fouth end of Florida ? So that, from 

 beyond Hudlbn's bay, (into which bay alfo Cabot then failed, and gave 

 Englifti names to fundry places therein), fouthward to Florida, the 

 whole extent of North America, on the eaftern coaft, does, by all the 

 right that prior difcovery can give, belong to the crown of Great Bri- 

 tain ; excepting, however, what our monarchs have, by fubfequent trea- 

 ties with other European powers, given up or ceded. Thefe authentic 

 authors are a cloud of evidences, greater than which cannot perhaps be 

 matched in hiftory ; and even Columbus himfelf faw not the continent 

 of America till the year 1497 : Yet, as fundry new interefts, claims, and 

 encroachments have been made fince the times in which they flouriftied, 

 the nations to which they belonged would not probably be forry that 

 their teftimonies were buried in eternal oblivibn. The main end ot the 

 above attempt of Cabot's from England was faid, by the writers of and 

 near thofe times, to have been to difcover a north-weft palTage to the 



