8 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



North-east 

 America 

 was redis- 

 covered by 

 J. Cabot, 



an Italian 

 from the 



eastern 

 factories^ 



Portuguese Atlantic. There was no Papal thunder, but only 

 a contract, which could scarcely bind States which were not 

 parties to the contract. The limit of latitude, 40°, which 

 figured in the Bulls, made the occupation of Carolina, Virginia, 

 Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but did not make the occupation 

 of New England, Newfoundland, and Canada, an offence 

 against the Pope. No one could draw the line of longitude 

 which figured in the Bulls and in the treaty, but most people 

 thought that the longitude adopted by the treaty assigned 

 Newfoundland to Portugal. If so, they thought wrongly/ 

 Spain never claimed North-east America. At one time 

 Portugal seemed about to claim it, but desisted. Being in 

 danger of either, it suffered from neither. 



The discovery of North-east America was the next impor- 

 tant event in the history of the world, and the two discoveries 

 resembled one another as moonlight resembles sunlight. The 

 central gates of America and of modern history were flung 

 wide open by a man steeped in the reveries of an age, which 

 was irrevocably gone, and drunk with desires, which were not 

 destined to be fulfilled, amid strains of triumph from popes, 

 kings, philosophers, nobles, merchants, and all the orchestra 

 of Europe. In Columbus old and new met ; the last rays of 

 sunset mingled with the first rays of sunrise, and the votaries 

 of the vanished past were even louder than those, who wore 

 their eyes in front of their faces, in applauding this apostle of 

 transition. The side-door of North-east America was pushed 

 open by John Cabot, who was also a Genoese, who had also 

 served many masters and had betome a naturalized Venetian 

 (1476), who had also seen the Venetian factories in the East, 

 and had been at La Tana and Alexandria, and who now 

 resolved to outdo his compatriot. His master was the King 

 of England, to whom Columbus had also offered his * inven- 

 tion' (1488); and his associates were Englishmen, who had 



1 If a league = 3 sea-miles, 370 leagues west of Cape Verde Islands = 

 lat. 45° W. long. 



