John Cabot

“ According to Raimondo di Soncino, who wrote on 18 Dec. 1497, these discoveries were recorded by John Cabot on a map, and also on a globe, which are now lost (Weise, p. 192) . Nothing is known of the termination of this second voyage, and from this period the history of John Cabot ceases.
It is much to be feared, from the ambiguous and often contradictory accounts of the voyages of 1497 to 1499 in contemporary chronicles, that nearly if not all the discoveries that are usually assigned to Sebastian Cabot are really those of his father. According to Stow (p. 862) Sebastian (?) ”

“ It is believed that Juan de la Cosa, the Spanish pilot, who in the year 1500 made a map of the Spanish and English discoveries in the New World, made use of maps of the Cabots now lost.
Sebastian Cabot, the second son of John Cabot, was born in Venice, [3] probably about the year 1473. He was early devoted to the study of cosmography, in which science his father had become a proficient, and Sebastian was largely imbued with the same spirit of enterprise; and on the removal of his father with his family to England, he lived with them at Bristol. ”

“ The road was muddy, but that was a detail to a lover of nature, and Mr. Cabot, as he strode rapidly toward the village, experienced an elasticity and exhilaration that recalled his younger days. He felt more like dancing or climbing trees than plodding sedately along a turnpike. With a quick, youthful step he ascended the gentle incline that led to the Common, and if a stranger had [145] been called upon to guess at the gentleman’s age as he walked jauntily into the village with head erect, swinging his cane, he would more likely have said thirty years than sixty. ”

“ One point in the letter has been made the basis of a rather revolutionary theory as to the second expedition, 68namely, that John Cabot was in Seville and Lisbon during the winter of 1497–8, recruiting men for his second voyage. This theory is built upon the general statement that Cabot had sought assistance in those places. An interpretation which makes him do so in 1497–8 is hardly allowable. In the first place we know that he could get plenty of men in England, where also investors came forward readily and the greatest enthusiasm prevailed ”

“ In the autumn (1898) the Cabot monument was opened at Bristol. It is a commanding tower, overlooking the ancient city and port from which John Cabot (S335) sailed in the spring of 1497. The monument commemorates that explorer's discovery of the mainland of the New World. An inscription on the face of the tower expresses "the earnest hope that Peace and Friendship may ever continue between the kindred peoples" of England and America.
In May of the next year, 1899, the one hundredth anniversary of the establishment of savings banks in Great Britain was celebrated. ”

“ What we do know without room for doubt, is that John Cabot came to London to occupy himself with commerce, and that he soon settled at Bristol, then the second town in the kingdom, in one of the suburbs which had received the name of Cathay, probably from the number of Venetians who resided there, and the trade carried on by them with the countries of the extreme East. It was at Bristol that Cabot's two youngest children were born, Sebastian and Sancho, if we may rely upon the following account given by the old chronicler Eden. ”

“ In the 13th year of Henry VII. by means of John Cabot, Venetian, who was very expert in cosmography and the construction of sea-charts, that king caused to man and victual a ship at Bristol, to search for an island which Cabot said he well knew to be rich and replenished with valuable commodities. In which ship, manned and victualled at the kings expence, divers merchants of London adventured small stocks of goods under the charge of the said Venetian. ”

“ Soon after receiving this commission from the king, John Cabot died; and his son Sebastian, who was also a skilful navigator, set sail in 1497, with the express view of discovering a north-west passage to the eastern spice islands. Directing his course by his father's journals to the same point, he proceeded beyond the 67th degree of north latitude; and it is affirmed, that he would have advanced farther, had not his crew turned mutinous and ungovernable, and obliged him to return to the degree of latitude 56. ”

“ Cabot and Molly made their first visit to the farm, they noticed in the corner of a field a number of dejected horses huddled solemnly together. Most of them were well beyond middle age and bore the clearest indications of a future that was devoid of promise. They gazed at the visitors with listless eyes, and as a congregation seemed burdened with most of the physical imperfections of extreme antiquity.
“What on earth are those?” asked Mr. Cabot. “Revolutionary relics? They are too fat for invalids.” ”

“ On March 5, 1496, Letters Patent were granted to the Cabot family by Henry VII, to the following effect:
Permission to John Cabottus and to Ludovicus, Sebastianus, and Sanctus his sons to take five ships at their own charges, to navigate in any seas to the east, north, or west, and to occupy and possess any new found lands hitherto unvisited by Christians. They were to voyage only from and to the port of Bristol, and were to be exempt from the payment of customs on goods brought from the new lands. No other subjects of the king were to trade to the new lands without licence from the Cabots. ”

“ Cabot opened to us a new source of interest and beauty. In order to begin business at once, he rode in the first caleza alone, and before he had gone far, we saw the barrel of his gun protrude on one side, and a bird fall. He had seen at Sisal, egretes, pelicans, and ducks which were rare in collections at home, and an oscillated wild turkey, which alone he thought worth the voyage to that place; and now, our attention being particularly directed to the subject, in some places the shrubs and bushes seemed brilliant with the plumage and vocal with the notes of birds. ”

“ After a while the king began to say to himself:
"It is all very well to make a voyage to the west and find the east, but that is not enough. I should like some of the gold and gems and delicious spices found there."
So it came about that John Cabot and his son56 started out on a second voyage. When they reached North America this time they sailed along its shores for a long distance. They saw Indians dressed in skins and wearing ornaments of copper. But they found no gold nor spices.
Cabot still thought he had visited Asia. The king of England did not care about him any longer, however. ”

“ This was the last public appearance of Cabot, or the last of which mention is made in the chronicles, although he lived for a year longer. His death occurred probably in London in 1557, sixty-one years after the first commission issued to the Cabots, John and his sons, from Henry the seventh. As in the case of his father, neither the exact date of his death nor the place of his burial is known, and Englishmen and Americans alike much regret that no monument marks the graves of these discoverers of our continent of North America. ”

“ De Ayala says it was expected back in September, but it had not returned by the last of October. No one knows when the expedition returned, and no one knows what became [58] of John Cabot. When the domestic calendars of the reign of Henry VII. are published, some clew to him may turn up. In the mean time we must wait patiently.
The enterprise was regarded as a failure, and no doubt the Bristol and London adventurers suffered a pecuniary loss. All schemes of Western discovery and colonization were for years substantially abandoned by England. ”

“ Cabot, on his return, found that monarch entirely disinclined to the farther prosecution of a scheme in which he had engaged with some zeal, the commencement of which had been attended with encouraging appearances.
Several causes are supposed to have contributed to suspend the pursuits of the English in America. Previous to its discovery, the Portuguese had explored the Azores, or Western Islands; in consequence of which they claimed this continent, and contended for the exclusion of the Spaniards from the Western Ocean. ”

“ His serious business in life was the management of the Judd farm, and although the care and development of his animals was more of a recreation than a rigid necessity he wasted little money in unsuccessful experiments. Mr. Cabot soon discovered that he was far more practical and business-like than his leisurely manners seemed to indicate. The fondness for animals that seemed one of his strongest characteristics was more an innate affection than a breeder’s fancy. ”

“ Cabot sailed along the whole coast of the present United States, beginning at latitude fifty-six degrees, and terminating at about thirty-six degrees, or Albemarle Sound. His provisions ailing, he returned to England. He made another voyage in 1517, as far south as the {xxviii}Brazils; but failing to discover a western passage to the East Indies, he again returned to England. *
In the same month when young Cabot sailed from Bristol, Amerigo Vespucci departed from Cadiz on his first voyage to the New World. ”

“ On his father’s map he found an island of St. John off this promontory, or he knew it from the tradition of Reinel’s and later maps, and so placed his “Prima tierra vista” at Cape Breton. If the view that C. de Ynglaterra is Cape Race be regarded as correct, it might be assumed that Cauo descubierto was really the place where Cabot first made the land, perhaps in the neighbourhood of Cape Breton, and that from thence he sailed eastward, the supposed 300 leagues, along the south coast of Newfoundland. ”

“ Besides these, we received from time to time a present from the Doña Joaquina or Don Simon, and altogether our living was better than we had ever known in exploring ruins. Latterly, however, on account of the thickness of the woods. Doctor Cabot had become disgusted with sporting; having no dog, it was sometimes impossible to find one bird out of six, and he confined his shooting to birds which he wanted for dissection. At this time, too, we received intelligence that the fowls at the hacienda were running short, and the eggs gave out altogether. ”

“ The “y de s. Juan,” the present Prince Edward Island, is laid down on the map; and although Dr. Kohl thinks that the name was given by the French, and that Cabot may have taken it, not from his own survey, but from the French maps, I have seen no evidence of the application of the name on any map before this of Cabot. Cartier gave the name “Sainct Jean” to a cape on the west coast of Newfoundland, in 1534, discovered also on St. John’s Day; but this fact was not known, in print at least, till 1556, when the account of his first voyage was published in the third volume of Ramusio. ”

“ England remained passive till 1501, when a new movement was started in the Cabots’ home city of Bristol. Three Bristol merchants—Richard Ward, 92Thomas Ashehurst, and John Thomas—and three Portuguese mariners—John Fernandus, Francis Fernandus, and John Gundlur—came together for a venture in the track of the Cabots. A patent was obtained from King Henry, under date of March 19, 1501, which conferred upon them the same powers that had originally been given the Cabots, and was in terms similar to the Cabot patents. Whether they sent out an expedition that year is not known. ”

“ Cabot rose from his seat and stood beside him in front of the fire. “The only mystery, in my opinion, is a vivid imagination that sometimes gets the better of your facts; or rather combines with your facts and gets the better of yourself. ”

“ This was evidently a scheme of colonization. Peter Martyr says, if this is the voyage which he is describing, that Sebastian Cabot—for he never speaks of John—furnished two ships at his own charge, and Sebastian Cabot, in Ramusio, says that the King furnished them, and the Bristol merchants are supposed to have furnished three others; and they took out three hundred men. [132] The Fabian manuscript quoted by Hakluyt says they sailed in the beginning of May; and De Ayala says they were expected back by September. There is no doubt that Sebastian Cabot accompanied his father on this voyage. ”

“ Seals were seen, and the ships plowed through such shoals of codfish as had never before been heard of. Labrador was again seen. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine were next explored. The whole coast of New England and of the Middle States was now, for the first time since the days of the Norsemen, traced by Europeans. Nor did Cabot desist from this work, which was bestowing the title of discovery on the crown of England, until he reached Cape Hatteras.
6. The future career of Cabot was a strange one. Henry VII. was slow to reward the discoverer. ”

“ On the morning of the 24th of June, the gloomy shore of Labrador was seen. This was the real discovery of the American continent. Fourteen months elapsed before Columbus reached the coast of Guiana, and more than two years before Vespucci saw the main land of South America.
2. Cabot explored the coast of the country for several hundred miles. He supposed that the land was a part of the dominions of the Khan of Tartary; but finding no inhabitants, he went on shore and took possession in the name of the English king. No man forgets his native land ”

“ Any native will give them to you by the yard, but the hero, under no conditions, ever alludes to them himself.”
“Which probably proves,” said Mr. Cabot, “that the hero is the only one to be relied on. It is such fun to believe in the incredible! That is the charm of miracles, that they are impossible.”
The rosy guest turned to the daughter with a smile, saying: “And there is nothing like a hard-headed old lawyer to drag you back to earth.”
“What were these tales, Mr. Fettiplace? ”