Here we have in brief the plan of his next voyage. Cabot himself had great expectations and saw a brilliant future before him, when he would rule as a prince over newly conquered kingdoms which he would make subject to the English Crown. And, as we have seen, he was liberal in distributing islands to his barber, to a Burgundian, etc.

At the beginning of 1498 Cabot obtained new letters patent, dated February 3, in the thirteenth year of Henry VII.’s reign.[315] These letters are in John Cabot’s name alone (his sons are not mentioned this time).

It thus seems as if this not very prodigal king had on second thoughts considerably reduced his first plan of sending a fleet of ten, fifteen or twenty ships with all the prisoners of the realm.

The most important documents on this voyage are:

(1) Two contemporary letters, written before the return of the expedition, by the older Spanish Ambassador in London, Ruy Gonzales de Puebla, and the younger contemporary Spanish Minister in London, Pedro de Ayala, to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The latter’s is dated July 23 (August 3, N.S.), 1498; the former’s is undated, but of about the same time.

(2) A narrative in the so-called “Cottonian Chronicle”[316] (the contents of which are the same as in Robert Fabyan’s Chronicle) undoubtedly refers to this voyage of 1498 and not, as many have assumed, to the voyage of 1497. It appears to be a contemporary notice of 1498, written before the return of the expedition.

These documents contain all that we know with certainty about John Cabot’s voyage of 1498.

The Spanish Ambassador, Ruy Gonzales de Puebla, writes in 1498 to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (probably in July):

Pedro de Ayala writes, July 25, 1498:

According to the Cottonian Chronicle, the King

Hakluyt, in “Divers Voyages” (1582) [cf. Hakluyt, 1850, p. 23], has a rather fuller version of this account, quoted from Robert Fabyan, where we read that the ships from Bristol were

“This Mayor” would be William Purchas, who was Lord Mayor of London until October 28 (November 6, N.S.), 1498. Thus, if this is correct, the expedition had not yet returned in the late autumn.

The information contained in Ayala’s letter, that one of Cabot’s ships had put in to Ireland, is the last certain intelligence we have of this expedition, which was looked forward to with such great hopes. John Cabot now disappears completely and unaccountably from history, and his discovery, which the year before had attracted so much attention, seems to have been more or less forgotten in the succeeding years, and is never referred to in the later letters of the Spanish Ambassadors in London. It may, therefore, seem reasonable to suppose that the expedition disappeared without leaving a trace. The probability of this is confirmed by the fact that two years and a half later, in March 1501, Henry VII. again granted letters patent, for the discovery of lands, to three merchants of Bristol and three Portuguese, without mentioning Cabot; it is merely stated that all former privileges of a similar kind were cancelled. But according to some old account books from Bristol, found at Westminster Abbey, John Cabot’s royal pension of £20 a year was paid as late as the administrative year beginning September 29, 1498. This, as Harrisse and others think, shows that Cabot returned from the voyage and was still alive in that year. But this seems to be uncertain evidence. The money need not have been paid to him personally; it may have been paid to his wife or his sons or other representatives during his absence on the voyage, and we cannot conclude anything certain from it. As the pension is not entered in the following years, it seems rather to show that Cabot was really lost, and the money was only paid during the first year of his absence.

It has been supposed that the following is another proof of the participators in the voyage of 1498 having returned: the accounts of Henry VII.’s privy purse for 1498 show that on March 22 and April 1 the King advanced money (sums of £20, £3, and 40s. 5d., in all about £650 in the money of the present day) to Launcelot Thirkill (who seems to have had a ship of his own), Thomas Bradley and John Carter, who were all going to “the new Isle.” Probably these men may have fitted out their own ships to accompany Cabot’s expedition; but we do not know whether they sailed. This is probably the same Launcelot Thirkill who, according to an old document, was in London on June 6, 1501, when he and three others whose names are given (perhaps his sureties) were “bounden in ij obligations to pay” £20 to the King before next Whitsuntide. Possibly it was this loan received from the King for the voyage, which he then had to repay. If he really started, it may be supposed that his ship was the one that put back to Ireland; and this document is therefore no certain proof of any of the other four ships having ever returned. For that matter they may all have been lost in the same gale. But in the year 1501 the ship that returned from Gaspar Corte-Real’s expedition is reported to have brought back to Lisbon a broken gilt sword of Italian workmanship from the east coast of North America; and it is also stated that two Venetian silver rings had been seen on a native boy from that country. It has been assumed that these objects may have belonged to some of the participators in John Cabot’s expedition of 1498, which in that case must have reached America, and there met with some disaster.

It is difficult to say more of this voyage. That John Cabot should have returned after having reached America, and after having sailed a greater or less distance along the coast without finding the riches he was in search of, appears to me unlikely. Such an assumption would provide no explanation of the complete silence about him. As the foreign Ministers had followed this expedition with so much attention, we might surely expect them to say something about its having disappointed the great expectations that were formed of it; and in any case it was unlikely that the whole should be buried in complete silence, which, on the other hand, is easily comprehensible if nothing more was heard of the expedition, since it may all have been forgotten for other things which claimed attention. Thus the story of Giovanni Caboto, the discoverer of the North American continent, ends, as it began, in obscurity. He was too early with his discovery. England had not yet developed her trade and navigation sufficiently to be able to follow it up and avail herself of it; this was not to come until about eighty years later.

But John Cabot’s discovery was not altogether unheeded in the years that followed; it was considered of sufficient importance for his son, Sebastian Cabot, by appropriating the honour of it, to acquire much fame and reputation in his day as a great discoverer and geographer. But whether he ever made discoveries on the east coast of North America is very doubtful; indeed, it is not even certain that he ever undertook a voyage to these regions. There can be no doubt that he himself asserted he had done so repeatedly and to different men, though his various utterances, so far as we know them, agree imperfectly. We see, too, that as early as 1512 he had the reputation of being acquainted with north-western waters, since he obtained an appointment in the service of King Ferdinand of Aragon on account of the remarkable knowledge he claimed to possess of “la navigacion á los Bacallaos” (the voyage to Newfoundland) [cf. Harrisse, 1892, p. 20]. But Sebastian Cabot seems, on the whole, to have been one of those men who are more efficient in words than deeds. It was the habit of the time to be not too scrupulous about the truth, if one had any advantage to gain from the contrary, and Sebastian was evidently no better than his age. If his utterances are correctly reported, he endeavoured, when his father had long been dead and forgotten, to claim for himself the honour of his voyages, in which he succeeded so well that for many centuries he, and not his father, was regarded as the discoverer of the continent of America. In the legend on the map of the world of 1544, it is true, he was modest enough to share the honour with his father, and this legend is at the same time the only evidence which might point to Sebastian as having been present on that occasion; but, as we have already seen, no great importance can be attached to it, and it is not confirmed by contemporary statements about the voyage. His assertion that he had been in north-western waters is in direct conflict with statements in the protest made on March 11, 1521, by the Wardens of the Drapers’ Company of London against King Henry VIII.’s attempt to obtain contributions towards an expedition to “the newe found Iland” (the coast of North America) in 1521 under the command of Sebastian Cabot. The protest says:

This statement is clear enough, and, coming as it does from men who were acquainted with his father’s services, it cannot be disregarded. It is also confirmed by a remarkable statement in Peter Martyr’s narrative (in 1515) of an alleged voyage of Sebastian Cabot (see later), which concludes:

This might point to his really having made a voyage, but, in the opinion of the Spaniards, never having reached the coast of North America.

The immediate consequence of John Cabot’s discovery of the continent of North America was probably that the practical merchants of Bristol, who were accustomed to fishing ventures in Iceland, at once sent out vessels to take advantage of the great abundance of fish that John Cabot had found in 1497 and that had evidently made so deep an impression on his crew that they told every one about it. But the English fishermen were soon followed, and, indeed, outstripped, by Portuguese, Basque and French (chiefly Breton) fishermen, and thus arose the famous Newfoundland fisheries. The cause of the fishermen of Portugal and other countries having followed so soon was doubtless the discovery of Newfoundland by the Portuguese Corte-Real on his voyages of 1500 and 1501 (see next chapter).

But of the development of this fishery we hear little or nothing in literature; just as in the Icelandic literature of earlier times these fishing expeditions of ordinary seamen are passed over; in the first place, they were not “notable” travellers, and in the second, men of that class in all ages have preferred to avoid advertising their discoveries for fear of competition.

From various documents and statements we may conclude that fresh expeditions were sent out from Bristol in 1501 and the following years; but these were Anglo-Portuguese undertakings and may have been occasioned, at any rate in part, by the discoveries of the Portuguese, although, of course, the knowledge of Cabot’s voyage may have had some significance.[322]

On March 19 (28), 1501, Henry VII. issued letters patent to Richard Warde, Thomas Ashehurst and John Thomas, merchants of Bristol, who were in partnership in the enterprise with three Portuguese from the Azores, John and Francis Fernandus [i.e., João and Francisco Fernandez] and John Gunsolus [João Gonzales ?].[323] They were given the right for ten years “to explore all Islands, Countries, Regions, and Provinces whatever, in the Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern Seas, heretofore unknown to Christians,” and all former privileges of this kind, granted to “any foreigner or foreigners,” were expressly cancelled. This last provision must refer to the letters patent granted to Cabot in 1496 and 1498.

That this new expedition from Bristol really took place and returned before January 1502, seems to result from the accounts of Henry VII.’s privy purse, where on January 7, 1502, there is an entry: “To men of Bristoll that found Thisle £5.”[324] In 1502 there was possibly a new expedition, as in the same accounts there is an entry of September [24], 1502: “To the merchants of Bristoll that have bene in the Newfounde Lande, £20.”[324] According to a document of December 6, 1503, Henry VII. further granted on September 26, 1502, to the two Portuguese, ffranceys ffernandus [Francisco Fernandez] and John Guidisalvus [Gonzales ?] a yearly pension of ten pounds each, for the service they had done to the King’s “singler pleasur as capitaignes unto the new founde lande.”

Hakluyt states (1582) in “Divers Voyages” [1850, p. 23], after Robert Fabyan’s Chronicle, that in the seventeenth year of the reign of Henry VII. [i.e., August 22, 1501, to August 21, 1502][325]

These natives must have been brought back from the expedition of 1501 or from that of 1502 (if the latter returned before August 21 ?). They were most likely Eskimo, since Indians with their darker skin could scarcely have looked like Englishmen. It might even be supposed that they came from Greenland, and were descendants of the Norsemen there, in which case their resemblance to Englishmen is most naturally explained.

North-western portion of Robert Thorne’s map, of 1527 (copy of a Spanish map of the world)

On December 9 (18), 1502, Henry VII. again granted letters patent to Thomas Ashehurst, Joam Gonzales, Francisco Fernandes and Hugh Elliott for a voyage of discovery to parts not hitherto found by English subjects. That this projected expedition took place in 1503 is possibly shown by an entry in the accounts of the King’s privy purse: “1503, Nov. 17. To one that brought hawkes from the Newfounded Island. 1.L.” [cf. Harrisse, 1882, p. 270].

It seems that it must be the same voyage to the north-west that is mentioned by Robert Thorne of Bristol in his letter of 1527 to Henry VIII.’s Ambassador in Spain. Thorne was then living in Seville, and was interested in Indian enterprises. He tries to induce Henry VIII. to send an expedition to the Indies by way of the Polar Sea, and sends with his project a rough copy he has had made of a Spanish mappamundi. He says that he has inherited the “inclination or desire of this discoverie” from his

On the map the northern east coast of America extends uninterruptedly to the north (see the reproduction), and upon it is written: “the new land called laboratorum,” and along the coast there is: “the land that was first discovered by the English.” It might appear as though it was really the present Labrador that was then discovered; but this is hardly the case; what we see on the map is probably Greenland,[328] which is here moved over to America as on other Spanish maps, and the east coast of which is given a northerly direction as on Ruysch’s map of 1508.

It is possible that another expedition set out in 1504; for in the accounts of the King’s privy purse we find an entry on April 8, 1504, of £2 “to a preste that goeth to the new Islande.” We see thus that there is a probability of many expeditions having left England for the west and north-west at this time, and that thus Greenland, Newfoundland, and doubtless also Labrador had been reached by the English; and this would explain their being recorded on Spanish maps as discoverers of the northern part of the east coast of America. But we have no further information about these voyages.

Just as we have seen that the note on Robert Thorne’s map of 1527 (that the English had discovered the northern part of the east coast of America) must probably refer to the expedition of 1501 or to one in the following year, so it is doubtless discoveries of the same voyages that are alluded to on Maggiolo’s compass-chart of 1511 (see reproduction, p. 359), where a peninsula to the north of Labrador is marked as “Terra de los Ingres” [the land of the English]. On later maps, such as Verrazano’s of 1529, Ribero’s of 1529 (see reproduction, p. 357), the Wolfenbüttel map of 1530, and others, Labrador is marked as having been discovered by the English, sometimes, indeed, with the addition that they came from Bristol. As already mentioned, no hint is to be found in trustworthy documents of Sebastian Cabot’s having taken part in these expeditions or having been in any way connected with them, and there is therefore no ground for assuming this. And the remarkable thing is that even his father’s name is not mentioned in connection with them, though it was so few years since he had sailed from the same port.

We find, however, in various works of the sixteenth century records of voyages to northern or north-western waters, supposed to have been made by Sebastian Cabot; which may be due, directly or indirectly, to himself. Formerly there was a tendency to connect these statements with John Cabot’s voyages of 1497 and 1498 [cf. Harrisse], but this assumption seems to have little probability. G. P. Winship [1899, pp. 204, ff.], on the other hand, has pointed out with good reason that according to Sebastian Cabot’s own words the voyage was undertaken by himself in the years 1508-9; but even this appears to me uncertain; in any case I doubt that he reached America.

We hear of a voyage to the north-west said to have been undertaken by Sebastian Cabot from Peter Martyr (in his Decades, 1516), from the Venetian Minister to Spain, Contarini, especially in a report to the Venetian Senate in 1536, from Ramusio (1550-1554 and 1556), from Gomara (1553), and from Antonio Galvano (1563).[329]

We may expect the most trustworthy of these authorities to be Peter Martyr, who was the oldest, and who knew Sebastian Cabot personally; but certain main features of the voyage are to some extent common to all the accounts. If we compare these, the voyage is said to have taken place somewhat in the following manner: the expedition, consisting of two ships with three hundred men,[330] was according to Peter Martyr fitted out at Sebastian’s own cost, but according to Ramusio it was sent out by the King. They sailed so far to the north (according to Gomara, even in the direction of Iceland) that in the month of July they found enormous masses of ice floating on the sea; daylight was almost continuous, and the land was in places free of ice which had melted away. According to the various accounts Cabot is said to have reached 55°, 56°, 58°, or 60°.[331]

When, according to Peter Martyr, their hopes of making their way to the west in these northern latitudes were thus annihilated by the ice, they sailed back to the south and south-west along the North American coast, as far as the latitude of Gibraltar, 36° (according to Peter Martyr), or to 38° (according to Gomara and Galvano), while according to Ramusio’s anonymous informant they sailed as far as Florida.[333] From thence the expedition returned to England.

With regard to the date of this voyage, we are told in the continuation of Peter Martyr’s Decades [Dec. vii], written in 1524 (published 1530), that “Bacchalaos [i.e., Newfoundland, or the northern east coast of America] was discovered from England by Cabot sixteen years ago.” According to this the voyage took place in 1508. In Contarini’s report of 1536 [cf. Winship, 1900, p. 36] it is said of Sebastian Cabot’s voyage that on his return he “found the King dead, and his son cared little for such an enterprise.” As Henry VII. died on April 21, 1509, it would be during the autumn of that year that Cabot returned; but then he must have sailed before April, which is unlikely, at any rate if it is a question of a voyage up into the ice to the north or north-west, such as is described. That he should have sailed in the previous year and not returned until after the King’s death is still more improbable.

These accounts contain so many improbabilities, and to some extent impossibilities, that it is on the whole extremely doubtful whether Sebastian Cabot ever made such a voyage to the north-west. That he did so is contradicted in the first place by the already quoted protest against Sebastian of the Wardens of the Drapers’ Company, which was issued in the name of the various Livery Companies of London, and which is of great significance, as it was written so soon after the events are supposed to have taken place that they must have been in the memory of most people; and it must have been easy for the King to inquire into the justification of the protest (cf. above, p. 330).

The map of 1544, which is attributed to the collaboration of Sebastian Cabot, may also point to his having never sailed along the northern part of the coast of America, since, according to the custom of that time, the coast of Labrador is made to run to the east and north-east. This agrees with the statement of Ramusio’s anonymous informant, that Sebastian had to turn back because in 56° N. lat. he found the land turning eastward (Galvano says the same). This is evidently derived from the study of maps. As such a delineation of the coast had not yet occurred on maps of Peter Martyr’s time, it is natural that this reason for turning back is also absent from his account.

In addition to all this, there are in the various accounts several statements which we must suppose to be really derived from Sebastian Cabot, but which are evidently untruthful. Thus Ramusio’s anonymous guest attributes to Sebastian the words that his father was dead when the news of the discovery of Columbus reached England, and that it was then Sebastian conceived the plan of his voyage which he submitted to the King. That, as stated by Peter Martyr, he should have fitted out two ships with crews of three hundred men at his own expense, is extremely improbable. He is also reported to have told Peter Martyr that he

These are nothing but impossibilities. In the first place, he never gave the name of Bacallaos; in the second, the inhabitants cannot have called the fish so, if by inhabitants is meant the native savages. These statements are, therefore, of the same kind as that of the masses of fish stopping the ships. Peter Martyr further relates that he said of these regions that

The statement about the bears may come from older literary sources, and resembles a similar statement in the Geographia Universalis (see above, p. 191). That the inhabitants have copper and are clad in skins may be derived from reports of the various voyages.

From what we have been able to conclude as to Sebastian Cabot’s character, it seems reasonable to suppose that, in consequence of his position as Pilot Major in Spain, he was acquainted with the various maps and accounts of voyages in western and north-western waters, and that from this knowledge he constructed the whole story of his alleged voyage; he was then incautious enough to magnify his exploits to such an extent that he made the whole story improbable; for his claim was nothing less than that he had first discovered land as far north as between 55° and 60°, that is to say, to about Hudson Strait, and then sailed along and discovered the whole coast of North America to about 36° N. lat., that is, to Cape Hatteras or Florida; in other words, a voyage of discovery to which we have no parallel in history, and it is truly remarkable that we should have had no certain information about it, while we have so much about other expeditions which step by step discovered the various parts of this same extent of coast.

Sebastian Cabot seems to have laid claim to having made yet another voyage in north-western waters, unless, indeed, it is the same one again with variations. In the third volume of his “Navigationi et Viaggi,” etc., published at Venice 1556, Ramusio says (writing in Venice, June 1553) that

As will be seen, this statement is altogether different from those previously mentioned; but such assertions as that Cabot had got so far to the north-west by June 11, and found the sea free of ice in 67½° N. lat., are not of a kind to strengthen our confidence. It might seem to be the same voyage that is referred to in a statement of Richard Eden, which he may have had from Sebastian Cabot himself. In the dedication (written in June 1553) of Eden’s translation of the fifth part of Sebastian Munster’s “Cosmographia” we read that

As Peru is mentioned, it might doubtless appear as though a voyage to South America were in question; but we often see that the western countries beyond the sea were spoken of as a continuous possession (cf. Robert Thorne’s letter, above, p. 334), and it may therefore refer to the same alleged expedition as is spoken of by Ramusio; for both Ramusio and Eden have evidently the same statements from Sebastian Cabot, and the latter can hardly have spoken of two expeditions which were both unsuccessful merely because his companions failed him.

If this is correct, the voyage took place in the eighth year of Henry VIII.’s reign, i.e., April 16, 1516, to April 15, 1517[336]; but, as Harrisse contends, it is very doubtful whether the voyage was made at all. It is true that a poem of Henry VIII.’s time also speaks of an English expedition which may have taken place at this time, and which failed on account of the cowardice of the crew. Robert Thorne, too, as we have seen (p. 335), tells of a voyage made by his father and Hugh Eliot, on which the sailors would not “follow their pilot’s mind.” It may, indeed, have occurred on several voyages that the crews refused to proceed farther, and for that matter these statements need not refer to the same voyage; but at the same time it is by no means incredible that Sebastian Cabot may have heard of such an expedition, and, when it was more appropriate than the ice, used it as an explanation of his not having discovered the north-west passage to China. We know that Sebastian Cabot was in the service of Spain (and appointed “Pilot Major”) in 1515, and that he was occupied with plans of a voyage to the north-west for the King of Spain; for Peter Martyr writes of him in that year that he was impatiently looking forward to March 1516, when he had been promised a fleet with which to complete his discoveries [cf. Winship, 1900, p. 71]. As Ferdinand of Aragon died on January 23, 1516, nothing came of this voyage, and as we hear nothing of Sebastian Cabot before February 5, 1518, when he was appointed Pilot Major by Charles V., it is not impossible that in the meantime he may have been in England, and have taken part in an English expedition; but no record of his having come to England is extant, and it would hardly agree with the protest against him of the Drapers’ Company a few years later.

There may yet be mentioned the attempts made by Henry VIII. in 1521 to prepare an expedition to north-western waters under the command of Sebastian Cabot, chiefly at the expense of the merchants of London, which, however, evoked a powerful protest against Sebastian on the part of these merchants (see above, p. 330). It is true that, upon pressure from the King, they afterwards declared themselves willing to give a smaller sum, but the expedition never came to anything. Sebastian Cabot was at that time, as he had been since 1512, in the service of Spain, and he remained so until in 1547 he again took up his abode in England and entered the service of the English King. In December 1522 Sebastian Cabot informed the Venetian Minister in Spain, Contarini, that he had been in England three years before [i.e., in 1519], and that the Cardinal there [i.e., Wolsey, who was trying on behalf of Henry VIII. to get together the expedition of 1521] had endeavoured to persuade him to undertake the command of a fleet which was almost ready [sic!], for the discovery of new lands; but he had replied that, as he was in the service of Spain, he must first obtain the permission of the Emperor; and that he had then written to the Emperor, requesting him not to grant such permission, but to recall him. This Sebastian asserted that he had done on account of his desire of serving his own city of Venice; for in 1522 and later he was carrying on treacherous intrigues with Contarini to enter the Venetian service, presumably with the hope of a high salary. Thus, wherever we are able to check Sebastian Cabot’s utterances, they prove to be extremely untrustworthy.

Even, if, therefore, there was no lack of attempts after 1500 to follow up John Cabot’s great and important discoveries in the west, it is nevertheless surprising how little persistence seems to have been shown. The love of discovery and adventure which had been so prominent a feature of the Northern Viking nature had not yet awakened in earnest among the English people. England’s mercantile marine was at that time still comparatively unimportant, it had not the strength for such great enterprises or for colonisation. The earliest voyages were mainly the work of a foreigner, an Italian, and the later ones were in part undertaken by Portuguese; they did not grow naturally from the English people themselves. Cabot’s plan was like an exotic flower springing up in immature soil, and more than half a century before its time. Another factor was doubtless the disappointment of the King and of the merchants; they had ventured their money in fitting out ships in the hope of immediate profit. What they were looking for was the way to the rich East of Asia, where mountains of spices lay ready to hand, and gold and precious stones in heaps, only waiting to be picked up. What they found was nothing but new, unknown countries on the ocean, inhabited by wandering tribes of hunters, countries the opening up of which demanded much time and labour. All this had scarcely more than a geographical interest for the time being, and for that they cared little.

CHAPTER XV

The Portuguese, who in the fifteenth century were the most enterprising of seafaring peoples as regards discoveries, had, as already stated, made various attempts to find new countries out in the ocean to the west of the Azores, from which islands the majority of the expeditions proceeded. It was therefore to be expected that the important discoveries of Columbus should encourage them to fresh attempts of this kind; it was also natural that such enterprises should originate especially in the Azores. From what has been stated above (p. 128), it appears that the King of Portugal (Alfonso V.) induced Christiern I. to send out expeditions (Pining and Pothorst) to search for new islands and lands in the North. It seems probable that the King of Portugal was informed of the results of these expeditions, and that in this way the Portuguese may have known of the existence of Greenland or of countries in the north-west. In the same way, as we have seen (p. 132, note 2), the fact that the earliest literary allusions to Scolvus seem to be derived from Portugal may be explained.