IN THE YEAR 1613. 
21 
be understood, the great saving of distance to be effected 
by a Northern passage from England to China was at 
once perceived. 2 
To accomplish that passage was the great ambition of 
the Cabots. Sailing under the authority of Henry VII., 
they discovered Newfoundland, and made known the 
value of its fisheries: but the English did not, for many 
years, take advantage of this knowledge; while the Ca¬ 
tholic countries — Spain, Portugal, and France, where 
the fasts of the church created a great demand for 
fish — began almost immediately to send vessels to the 
Grand Banks. 3 
According to Mr. Sabine, there is no account of En¬ 
glish fishing at Newfoundland before 1517. It was of 
little consequence ten years later. 4 It began to be im¬ 
portant about 1550. In 1578, there were engaged a 
hundred ships from Spain, fifty from Portugal, a hun¬ 
dred and fifty from France, to fifteen from England. 5 
The two events on which the paramount right of En- 
land is usually founded are the discovery by Cabot in 
2 “ When newes were brought, that Don Christopher Colonius had discovered the 
coasts of India, — whereof was great talk in the Court of King Henry the 7; insomuch 
that all men with great admiration affirmed it to be a thing more divine than humane 
to saile by the West into the East, where spices growe, by a way that was never 
knowen before,-—by this fame and report there increased in my heart a great flame 
of desire to attempt some notable thing; and understanding, by reason of the sphere, 
that, if I should saile by way of the Northwest, I should by a shorter tract come into 
India, I thereupon caused the king to be advertised of my devise.” — Discourse of Se¬ 
bastian Cabot: Halcluyt (from Ramusio ), vol. iii. p. 28. 
3 In 1504. Forster’s Discoveries in the North, p. 291. Scoresby’s Arctic Regions; 
Appendix, p. 56. Report on American Fisheries to the United-States Treasury De¬ 
partment, in 1852, by Hon. Lorenzo Sabine. 
4 Sabine. Purchas, vol. iii. p. 809. In treating of national industry, the Pictorial 
History of England (book vi. chap, iv.) states that “the first attempt of the English to 
obtain a share of this trade was not till 1536.” 
5 Parkhurst’s Letter, in Hakluyt, vol.- iii. p. 170. Anderson’s Com., vol. ii. p. 192. 
