1497.]

DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA.

5

contemporary chronicle is there any detailed account of the voyage. We know, however, that it was conducted by John Cabot in person, who took with him his son Sebastian, then a very young man. Its result was undoubtedly the discovery of North America; and although the particulars of this great event are lost, its exact date has been recorded by an unexceptionable witness, not only to a day, but even to an hour. On an ancient map, drawn by Sebastian Cabot, the son, whose name appears in the commission by the king, engraved by Clement Adams, a contemporary, and published, as there is reason to believe, under the eye of Sebastian, was written in Latin, the following brief but clear and satisfactory account of the discovery :-" In the year of our Lord 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, and his son Sebastian, discovered that country, which no one before his time had ventured to approach, on the 24th of June, about five o'clock in the morning. He called the land Terra Primum Visa, because, as I conjecture, this was the place that first met his eyes in looking from the sea. On the contrary, the island which lies opposite the land he called the Island of St. John-as I suppose, because it was discovered on the festival of St. John the Baptist. The inhabitants wear beasts' skins and the intestines of animals for clothing, esteeming them as highly as we do our most precious garments. In war their weapons are the bow and arrow, spears, darts, slings, and wooden clubs. The country is sterile and uncultivated, producing no fruit ; from which circumstance it happens that it is crowded with white bears, and stags of an unusual height and size. It yields plenty of fish, and these very large; such as seals and salmon: there are soles also above an ell in length; but especially great abundance of that kind of fish called in the vulgar tongue Baccalaos. In the same island, also, breed hawks, so black in their colour that they wonderfully

6

DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA

[1549.

resemble ravens; besides which, there are partridges and eagles of dark plumage."*

Such is the notice of the discovery of North America; and as some doubt has lately been thrown upon the subject, it may be remarked that the evidence of the fact contained in this inscription is perfectly unexceptionable. It comes from Clement Adams, the intimate friend of Richard Chancelor; and Chancelor lived, as is well known, in habits of daily intercourse with Sebastian Cabot, who accompanied his father on the first voyage of discovery. Unfortunately, both the original map and the engraving are lost; but happily Purchas has preserved the information, that the engraved map by Adams bore the date of 1549; † at which time Sebastian Cabot was in such great reputation at the court of Edward VI., that for his services he had received a princely pension. This young monarch, as we learn from Burnet, showed a peculiar fondness for maritime affairs. He possessed a collection of charts, which were hung up in his cabinet, and amongst them was the engraving of Cabot's map. The inscription, therefore, must have been seen there and elsewhere by Sebastian; and, when we consider that the date of the engraving corresponds with the time when he was in high favour with the king, it does not seem improbable that this navigator, to gratify his youthful and royal patron, employed Adams to engrave from his own chart the map of North America, and that the facts stated in the inscription were furnished by himself. The singular minuteness of its terms seems to prove this; for who but he, or some one personally present, after the lapse of fiftytwo years, could have communicated the information that the discovery was made about five o'clock in the morning of the 24th June? If, however, this is questioned as being

* Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 6.

Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. iii. p. 807.

1497.]

BY JOHN CABOT.

7

conjectural, the fact that Sebastian must have seen the inscription is sufficient to render the evidence perfectly conclusive upon the important point of John Cabot being the discoverer of North America. That he had along with him in his ship his son Sebastian, cannot, we think, in the opinion of any impartial person, detract from or infringe upon the merit of the father. But, to complete the proof, a late writer has availed himself of an imperfect extract from a record of the rolls, furnished by the industrious Hakluyt, to discover an original document which sets the matter altogether at rest. This is the second commission for discovery, granted by Henry VII. on the 3d of February, and in the thirteenth year of his reign, to the same individual who conducted the first expedition. The letters are directed to John Kabotto, Venetian, and permit him to sail with six ships "to the land and isles of late found by the said John in our name and by our commandment.”* It presents a singular picture of the inability of an ingenious and otherwise acute mind to estimate the weight of historical evidence, when we find the biographer of Sebastian Cabot insisting, in the face of such a proof as this, that the glory of the first discovery of North America is solely due to Sebastian, and that it may actually be doubted whether his father accompanied the expedition at all. +

Immediately after the discovery, the elder Cabot appears to have returned to England; and on the 10th of August we find, in the privy purse expenses of Henry VII., the sum of ten pounds awarded to him who found the New Isle, which was probably the name then given to Newfoundland. Although much engrossed at this moment with the troubles which arose in his kingdom in consequence of the Cornish rebellion, the war with Scotland, and the

*Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, p. 76.

† Ibid. p. 50.

8

JOHN CABOT KNIGHTED.

[1497.

attempt upon the crown by Perkin Warbeck, the king determined to pursue the enterprise, and to encourage a scheme for colonization under the conduct of the original discoverer. To this enterprising navigator he, on the 3d of February 1497,* granted those second letters-patent just alluded to, which conferred an ampler authority and more favourable terms than the first commission. He empowered John Kabotto, Venetian, to take at his pleasure six English ships, with their necessary apparel, and to lead them to the land and isles lately found by him according to the royal command. Cabot was also permitted to receive on board all such masters, mariners, pages, and other subjects as chose to accompany him; and it seems probable, from some entries in the privy purse expenses, that Launcelot Thirkill of London, Thomas Bradley, and John Carter, embarked in the adventure.+

When about to set sail on his second voyage, John Cabot, who had previously received from Henry the honour of knighthood, appears, from some cause rot now discoverable, to have been prevented from taking the command;‡ and though the name of Sebastian was not included in the second royal commission, he was promoted to the situation left vacant by his father. He must still, indeed, have been a young man; but he had accompanied the first voyage, and at an early age developed that genius for naval enterprise which afterwards so remarkably distinguished him. We know from his account of himself that, at the time his parents carried him from Venice to London, he had attained some

* Old style-1498, new style.

See Mr. Nicholas' excellent collection entitled Excerpta Historica, pp. 116, 117.

The cause might be his death, but this is conjecture; of the fact there is no direct proof: of the knighthood it is not possible to doubt. See, in the Vindication of Hakluyt, the remarks on the errors of the biorapher of Cabot in his chapter on this subject.

1498.] ACCOUNT OF SEBASTIAN CABOT'S VOYAGE.

9

knowledge of the sphere; and when about this period the great discovery of Columbus began to be talked of in England as a thing almost more divine than human, the effect of it upon his youthful imagination was to excite "a mighty longing," to use his own words, "and burning desire in his heart that he too should perform some illustrious action."* With such dispositions, we may easily imagine how rapid must have been his progress in naval science, with the benefit of his father's example and instructions. It is not matter of surprise, therefore, that though probably not more than twenty-three years old, the conduct of the enterprise was intrusted to him. He accordingly sailed from England with two ships in the summer of 1498, and directing his course by Iceland, soon reached Newfoundland, which he called Terra de Baccalaos, from the great quantity of fish of that name.

Of this remarkable voyage a short account is preserved by Peter Martyr, the historian of the New World, a writer of high authority, and so intimate a friend of the navigator, that, at the time he wrote the passage which we now give, Sebastian was in the habit of paying him frequent visits at his house: "These northern seas," says this writer, "have been navigated and explored by Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian by birth, whom his parents, when they were setting out to settle in Britain, according to the common custom of the Venetians, who for the sake of commercial adventure become citizens of every country, carried along with them when he was little more than an infant. He fitted out two ships in England at his own charges, and first,

* Ramusio, Viaggi, vol. i. p. 414.

+ Cabot was born in England, and carried by his father into Italy when four years old. He was afterwards brought back to England when a youth, "assai giovane."-Ramusio, vol. i. p. 414. Memoir of Cabot, p. 69.