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:

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'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."

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

4.

by Dr. Moses Harvey, of Newfoundland, Elizabeth Hodges, of Bristol, Justin Winsor, and others.

In the passage from Harrisse's book, reprinted in the preceding pages, the first class of data for the first voyage of John Cabot is said to comprise three documents,- the letter of Pasqualigo and the two despatches of Soncino. These are given in the present leaflet, together with the extracts from the despatches of Puebla, the Spanish ambassador in London, and Ayala, his adjunct in the embassy, both written in July, 1498, just after the second expedition had sailed, and the latter containing an express reference to the expedition of the year before. Old South Leaflet No. 37 contains the various documents relating to the voyages of the Cabots which were gathered by Hakluyt and published in his "* Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation," in 1589.

In the year 1897, the fou th centennial of Cabot's discovery was observed by the dedication at Bristol of a great memorial tower; and the accounts of this Bristol observance should be consulted. There was an important commemoration by the Royal Society of Canada at Halifax, a full account of which, together with valuable papers upon Cabot by S. E. Dawson and others, may be found in the Proceedings of the Society for 1897. The quadricentennial was also observed by the Maine Historical Society at Brunswick, and in the society's collections for 1897 are published five scholarly papers there presented: "John Cabot and his Discoveries, by James Phinney Baxter: "The Landfall of Cabot and the Extent of his Discoveries," by Professor William Macdonald; "The Dawn of Western Discovery," by Professor J. W. Black: "The Cartography of the Period," by Rev. Henry S. Burrage; and "The Value and Significance of Cabot's Discovery to the World," by Professor John S. Sewall. Rev. E. G. Porter's article on "The Cabot Celebrations of 1897," in the New England Magazine for February, 1898, is a comprehensive summary, and contains valuable illustrations.

PUBLISHED BY

THE DIRECTORS OF THE OLD SOUTH WORK,

Old South Meeting-house, Boston, Mass.

Old South Leaflets.

No. 116.

Sir Francis Drake

on the California

Coast.

From Guatulco we departed the day following, viz., Aprill 16, [1579] setting our course directly into the sea, whereon we sayled 500 leagues in longitude, to get a winde: and betweene that and June 3, 1400 leagues in all, till we came into 42 deg. of North latitude, where in the night following we found such alteration of heate, into extreame and nipping cold, that our men in generall did grieuously complaine thereof, some of them feeling their healths much impaired thereby; neither was it that this chanced in the night alone, but the day following carried with it not onely the markes, but the stings and force of the night going before, to the great admiration of vs all; for besides that the pinching and biting aire was nothing altered, the very roapes of our ship were stiffe, and the raine which fell was an vnnatural congealed and frozen substance, so that we seemed rather to be in the frozen Zone then any way so neere vnto the sun, or these hotter climates.

Neither did this happen for the time onely, or by some sudden accident, but rather seemes indeed to proceed from some ordinary cause, against the which the heate of the sun preuailes not; for it came to that extremity in sayling but 2 deg. farther to the Northward in our course, that though sea-men lack not good stomaches, yet it seemed a question to many amongst vs, whether their hands should feed their mouthes, or rather keepe themselues within their couerts from the pinching cold that did benumme them. Neither could we impute it to the tendernesse of our bodies, though we came lately from the extremitie of

heate, by reason whereof we might be more sensible of the present cold: insomuch as the dead and sencelesse creatures were as well affected with it as ourselues: our meate, as soone as it was remooued from the fire, would presently in a manner be frozen vp, and our ropes and tackling in few dayes were growne to that stiffnesse, that what 3 men afore were able with them to performe, now 6 men, with their best strength and vttermost endeauour, were hardly able to accomplish: whereby a sudden and great discouragement seased vpon the mindes of our men, and they were possessed with a great mislike and doubting of any good to be done that way; yet would not our General be discouraged, but as wel by comfortable speeches, of the diuine prouidence, and of God's louing care ouer his children, out of the Scriptures, as also by other good and profitable perswasions, adding thereto his own cheerfull example, he so stirred them vp to put on a good courage, and to quite themselues like men, to indure some short extremity to haue the speedier comfort, and a little trouble to obtaine the greater glory, that eury man was throughly armed with willingnesse and resolued to see the uttermost, if it were possible, of what good was to be done that way.

The land in that part of America, bearing farther out into the West then we before imagined, we were neerer on it than wee were aware; and yet the neerer still wee came vnto it, the more extremitie of cold did sease vpon vs. The 5 day of Iune, wee were forced by contrary windes to runne in with the shoare, which we then first descried, and to cast anchor in a bad bay, the best roade we could for the present meete with, where wee were not without some danger by reason of the many extreme gusts and flawes that beate vpon vs, which if they ceased and were still at any time, immediately upon their intermission there followed most uile, thicke, and stinking fogges, against which the sea preuailed nothing, till the gusts of wind againe remoued them, which brought with them such extremity and violence when they came, that there was no dealing or resisting against them.

In this place was no abiding for vs; and to go further North, the extremity of the cold (which had now vtterly discouraged our men) would not permit vs; and the winds directly bent against vs, hauing once gotten vs vnder sayle againe, commanded vs to the Southward whether we would or no.

From the height of 48 deg., in which now we were, to 38,