WESTWARD HO ! 



help of an out-and-out pirate named Talavera but before long they com- 

 menced to quarrel and finally their ship was wrecked on the Cuban 

 coast. Reaching safety Ojida was setting out on yet another expedition 

 when his health failed and finally he died in beggary in San Domingo, 

 perhaps the greatest of the many adventurers who appeared to have 

 all within their grasp but achieved nothing. 



Other Spanish Discoverers. 



After the first pioneers Spanish discovery tended more towards the 

 land than to the sea but there were many names that deserve to be 

 remembered : Balboa — an impoverished gentleman who fled from his 

 debts in Hispaniola by stowing away in one of Ojida's ships and ended 

 by being the first man to reach the Pacific — Cortez, Ponce de Leon, and 

 many others. The treatment that they meted out to the natives was 

 appalling but their courage in venturing into the unknown in the way 

 they did and the marvellous manner in which they endured every hard- 

 ship and terror, makes them men indeed whose names are bound to be 

 remembered although scarcely one of them can escape the taint of 

 savagery. 



Johfi Cabot. 



John Cabot, the head of the famous family, was born at Genoa in 

 1450 but lived in Venice from boyhood and took to the sea as a young 

 man. Most of his early trading voyages were to the Levant and it was 

 in the international marts there that he took a keen interest in the 

 Chinese goods that were offered for sale. By this time the shape of the 

 earth was known, and Cabot determined that a path should be found 

 across the Atlantic. For this purpose he came to England in 1484 and 

 interested a number of British merchants in his venture so that it was 

 decided that he should make an attempt to find the Island of Brazil 

 which Thylde had tried to do and failed. It was while he was attempt- 

 ing to do this that news came that Columbus had reached the West 

 Indies and Cabot immediately changed his plans and determined to 

 concentrate on the discovery of Asia from the West. Accordingly he 

 and his three sons, Sebastian, Lewis and Santius — the two last named 

 of whom have been completely forgotten by the historians — received the 

 permission of King Henry VII to seek the new lands. Any merchandise 

 from these countries was to come through the port of Bristol free of 

 duty but one-fifth of the profits was to go to the King. Cabot sailed in 

 the ship Mathew with eighteen men on May 2nd, 1497, taking the North- 

 about course round Ireland. After being fifty-two days at sea they 

 made a landfall on the Northern end of Cape Breton Island, which 

 was solemnly annexed in the name of the King. Cabot was con- 

 vinced that he had reached the North-East corner of Asia and gave 

 the name Cape Discovery to what is now Cape North. The explorers 

 skirted the coast as far as Cape Race, catching large quantities of cod 

 on the way down, and then struck across the Atlantic for England. 

 The discoverer hurried to London as quickly as he could and for his 



263 



