188 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



years, he was employed in revising maps and charts, and, with 

 the title of Captain and a liberal salary, held the honorable 

 position of Member of the Council of the Indies, ^he death 

 of Ferdinand and the intrigues of the enemies of Columbus 

 induced him to return to England in 1517. He was employed 

 by Henry VIII., in connection with one Sir Thomas Perte, to 

 make an attempt at a Northwest passage. On this voyage he is 

 said to have gained Hudson's Bay, and to have given English 

 names to sundry places there. So few details of the expedition 

 have been preserved, that the latitude reached (67 J degrees) is 

 referred by different authorities both to the north and the south. 

 The malice or cowardice of Sir Thomas Perte compelled Cabot 

 to return without accomplishing any thing worthy of being re- 

 corded. It was often said afterwards, that if the New World 

 could not be called Columbia, it would be better to name it 

 Cabotiana than America. 



Vincent Yanez Pinzon, the youngest of the three brothers 

 who had accompanied Columbus upon his first voyage, deter- 

 mined, upon hearing, in 1499, that the continent was discovered, 

 on trying his fortunes at the head of an expedition, instead of in 

 a subordinate position. He found no difficulty in equipping four 

 caravels, and in inducing several of those who had seen the 

 coast of Paria to embark with him as pilots. He sailed from 

 Palos in December, 1499, and proceeded directly to the south- 

 west. During a storm which obscured the heavens he crossed 

 the equator, and on the disappearance of the clouds no longer 

 recognised the constellations, changed as they were from those 

 of the Northern to those of the Southern hemisphere. Pinzon 

 was thus the first European who crossed the line in the Atlantic. 

 The sailors, unacquainted with the Southern sky, and dismayed 

 at the absence of the polar star, were for a time filled with 

 superstitious terrors. Pinzon, however, persisted, and, on the 

 20th of January, 1500, discovered land in eight degrees of 

 south latitude. He took possession for the Crown of Spain, 



