The second class of documents consists of the evidence

supplied directly by Sebastian Cabot. It comprises the following:

1. A description given by Pietro Martire d' Anghiera. (usually called simply "Peter Martyr "), in his third Decade.

2. An account from some anonymous informer, usually designated as "the Mantuan Gentleman," who furnished it to Ramusio.

3. An engraved map dated 1544, bearing on its face a legend to the effect that it is the work of Sebastian Cabot.

According to Peter Martyr and the Mantuan Gentleman, who obtained their information from Sebastian Cabot in person, and to Gomara and Galvâo, both of whom, however, have simply copied Peter Martyr, the first expedition was composed of two ships, with a crew of three hundred men.

The letters patent of 1496 authorized the employment of five ships, equipped at the cost of the grantees:

"Five ships of what burthen or quality soeuer they be, and as many mariners or men as they will have with them in the sayd ships, vpon their owne proper costs and charges."

But we have the positive statements of Lorenzo Pasqualigo and Raimondo di Soncino, who repeat what they themselves heard John Cabot say in London, immediately upon his return in the first week of August, 1497, that he accomplished his discovery with only one ship, "con uno naviglio de Bristo," which is even reported by them to have been a small craft, with a crew of but eighteen men: "cum uno piccolo naviglio e xviii persone." It is true that an English chronicle written soon after, and which we propose to discuss at length further on, says that with the ship, stated therein to have been equipped by the King, went three or four Bristol vessels sent by English merchants. But we expect to demonstrate that these details refer only to the second voyage (1498).

As we have just said, the expedition consisted of only "one small ship manned by eighteen men, nearly all Englishmen from Bristol: uno piccolo naviglo e xviii persone, quasi tutti inglesi, e da Bristol."

We do not possess the date when John Cabot sailed out of

Bristol. The words "departed from the West Cuntrey in the begynnyng of somer," in the Cottonian manuscript, and “departed from Bristowe in the beginning of May," in Hakluyt, after Fabyan, which we once thought applied to the voyage of 1497, concern only the expedition of 1498. But as Pasqualigo, when describing, on the 23rd of August 1497, the arrival in England of John Cabot, which had just taken place, says that the voyage lasted three months, "e stato mexi tre sul viazo,” we must infer that he set sail about the middle of May, 1497. This date coincides to some degree with the expression of Soncino, who, writing August 24th, 1497, says: "They sailed from Bristol, a western port of this kingdom, a few months since: Partitisi da Bristo porto occidentale de questo regno, sono mesi passate."

When the vessel had reached the west coast of Ireland, it sailed towards the north, then to the east (sic pro west), when, after a few days, the North star was to the right: "Passato Ibernia più occidentale, e poi alzatosi verso el septentrione, commenciò ad navigare ale parte orientale, lassandosi (fra qualche giorni) la tramontana ad mano drita."

After sailing for seven hundred (or only four hundred) leagues, they reached the mainland: "dice haver trovato lige 700 lontana de qui terra ferma," says Pasqualigo. "Lontane da linsula de Ingilterra lege 400 per lo camino de ponente,” reports Soncino.

Technically speaking, all that geographers can infer from those details is that Cabot's landfall was north of 51° 15′ north latitude; this being that of the southern extremity of Ireland. Ireland, however, extends to 55° 15' lat. N. From what point between these two latitudes did he sail westward? Supposing that it was Valencia, and that he continued due west, he would have sighted Belle Isle or its vicinity. But Cabot is said positively to have altered his course and stood to the northward. How far, and where did he again put his vessel on the western tack? We are unable to answer this important question, and can only put forward suppositions based upon the following data:

The place where he landed was the mainland: "captioe in terra ferma."

He then sailed along the coast 300 leagues: "andato per la costa lige 300."

As to the country visited, we find it described as being per

fect and temperate : "terra optima et temperata." It is supposed to yield Brazil-wood and silk: "estimanno che vi nasca el brasilio e le sete," whilst the sea bathing its shores is filled with fishes: "quello mare è coperto de pessi."

The country is inhabited by people who use snares to catch game, and needles for making nets: "certi lazi ch' era tesi per prender salvadexine, e uno ago da far rede e a trovato certi albori tagiati."

The waters (tides) are slack, and do not rise as they do in England: "le aque e stanche e non han corso come aqui."

Barring the gratuitous supposition about the existence of dye-wood (unless it be sumach), and silk, and taking into consideration that the country was discovered in summer, Cabot's description could apply to the entire northern coast of America.

The same may be said concerning the remark about slack tides. It was natural that John Cabot should have been surprised at seeing tides which rise only from two and three quarters to four feet, whilst in the vicinity of Bristol they rise from thirty-six to forty feet; but this diminutiveness is peculiar to the entire coast from Nova Scotia to Labrador.

There is another detail, however, which is of importance. Cabot on his return saw two islands to starboard: "ale tornar aldreto a visto do ixole."

Those two islands were unknown before, and are very large and fertile "due insule nove grandissime et fructiffere.' The existence of islands in that vicinity is further confirmed by the fact that Cabot gave one to a native of Burgundy who was his companion, and another to his barber: "uno Borgognone compagno di mess. Zoanne . . . li ha donato una isola; et ne ha donato una altra ad suo barbero."

What were these large islands?

to examine later.

"La è terra optima et temperata."

This question we propose

The headlands clad in the pale green of mosses and shrubs may have conveyed at a distance to a casual observer the idea of fertility. As to the climate, it was in June and July that Cabot visited those regions. Now, in Labrador, “summer is brief, but lovely" [Encyclopedia Britannica].

He did not see any inhabitant, and therefore we have no specific details enabling us to identify the race of men who inhabited the country. But the needle for making nets, and

the snares for catching game, indicate the regular occupation of the Eskimo, whose proper home is from Cape Webeck to Cape Chudleigh; whilst the ingenuity which the making of such implements presupposes agrees perfectly with that race said "to have been able in the manufacture of their tools to develop mechanical skill far surpassing that of savages more favourably situated." Nor should we forget "that, judging from the traditions, they must have maintained their present characteristic language and mode of life for at least 1,000 years." The Eskimos of Cabot's time may therefore be judged by those of to-day.

But there is a circumstance in John Cabot's conversation with the Milanese ambassador which is still more convincing. It is evident that the Venetian adventurer and his companions were greatly struck with the enormous quantity of fish which they found in that region. It surpassed anything of the kind they had ever seen, even in the Icelandic sea, where cod was then marvellously plentiful. He dwells at length and with evident complacency on that fortunate peculiarity:

"Quello mare è coperto de pessi li quali se prendenno non solo cum la rete, ma cum le ciste, essendoli alligato uno saxo ad ciò che la cista se impozi in laqua.... dicono che portaranno tanti pessi che questo regno non havera più bisogno de Islanda, del quale paese vene una grandissima mercantia de pessi che si chiamanno stochfissi: That sea is covered with fishes, which are taken not only with the net, but also with a basket, in which a stone is put so that the basket may plunge into water. . . . They say that they will bring thence such a quantity of fish that England will have no further need of Iceland, from which a very great commerce of fish called stockfish is brought."

It is clear that the existence of vast quantities of cod is a circumstance which is applicable to the entire transatlantic coast north of New England. Yet, however plentiful that species of fish may be on the banks of Newfoundland, the quantity is surpassed near the entrance of Hudson Strait. Modern explorers report that there cod and salmon "form in many places a living mass, a vast ocean of living slime, which accumulates on the banks of Northern Labrador"; and the spot noted for its "amazing quantity of fish" is the vicinity of Cape Chudleigh, which the above details and other reasons seem to indicate as the place visited by John Cabot in 1497.

"Sometimes in Wagner's musical dramas the introduction of a few notes from some leading melody foretells the inevitable catastrophe toward which the action is moving, as when in Lohengrin's bridal chamber the well-known sound of the distant Grail motive steals suddenly upon the ear, and the heart of the rapt listener is smitten with a sense of impending doom. So in the drama of maritime discovery, as glimpses of new worlds were beginning to reward the enterprising crowns of Spain and Portugal, for a moment there came from the North a few brief notes fraught with ominous portent. The power for whom destiny had reserved the world empire of which these Southern nations - so noble in aim, so mistaken in policywere dreaming stretched forth her hand in quiet disregard of papal bulls, and laid it upon the western shore of the ocean. It was only for a moment, and long years were to pass before the consequences were developed. But in truth the first fateful note that heralded the coming English supremacy was sounded when John Cabot's tiny craft sailed out from the Bristol Channel on a bright May morning of 1497.- John Fiske, "The Discovery of America."

"In the year 1497 a Venetian citizen, called Giovanni Caboto, having obtained letters'patent from Henry VII. the year previous for a voyage of discovery, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and, under the British flag, discovered the continent of North America. In 1498 he fitted out in Bristol a new expedition, and again sailed westward; but scarcely anything further is known of that enterprise.

"Caboto had a son named Sebastian, born in Venice, who lived in England not less than sixteen years, and then removed to Spain, where in 1518 Charles V. appointed him PilotMajor. This office he held for thirty years. In 1526 Sebastian was authorized to take command of a Spanish expedition intended for 'Tharsis and Ophir,' but which instead went to La Plata, and proved disastrous. After his return to Seville he was invited in 1547 by the counsellors of Edward VI. to England, and again settled in that country. Seven years afterwards he prepared the expeditions of Willoughby and Chancelor and of Stephen Burroughs in search of a north-east passage to Cathay. He finally died in London, after 1557, at a very advanced age, in complete obscurity."

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Such is the summing up by Henry Harrisse of the bare facts concerning John and Sebastian Cabot which may be relied upon. Harrisse's opinion, based on evidence carefully presented in his book on John Cabot, the Discoverer of North America, and Sebastian his Son," is that John Cabot was, like Columbus, a native of Genoa. His opinion, based chiefly on the celebrated chart of Juan de la Cosa, also is that in his second voyage (1498) John Cabot followed the coast south from Newfoundland to Florida. The exact place of Cabot's landfall in his first voyage, and its exact time in the year 1497, are matters of controversy. Some think the place was Cape Breton, some Newfoundland, some Labrador.

Harrisse's book upon the Cabots is the most critical, thorough, and important. In the collection of "Documents relating to the Voyages of John Cabot," appended by Clements R. Markham to his edition of the Journal of Christopher Columbus" (London, The Hakluyt Society, 1893), most of the important original documents are included. This is the text used for the present leaflet. A full "Syllabus of the Original Contemporary Documents which refer to the Cabots, to their Lives and to their Voyages," is appended to Harrisse's book. Mr. George Parker Winship has published a volume of "Cabot Bibliography," which is a most scholarly and exhaustive work, leaving nothing unnoticed: it contains a valuable introductory essay on the careers of the Cabots. The chapter on the voyages of the Cabots, in the "Narrative and Critical History of America," is by Charles Deane. There is no better brief survey, and the bibliographical notes are of the highest value. Cabot's Discovery of North America," by G. E. Weare, is a scholarly book; and the work by Francesco Tarducci should be consulted. There are valuable essays and addresses