The peace that ensued had given a new impetus to commerce as well as to enterprise, and it is said, in a letter of Don Pedro de Azala, written in 1498, that for seven years the people had been sending out vessels from Bristol to find the islands of Brazil and the island of the Seven Cities. In 1495 a patent was granted to John Cabot (or Kabotte) and his sons Lewis, Sebastian and Sanctus, authorizing them to go in search of islands, provinces or regions hitherto unseen by Christians, and to take possession of them for the English crown, the exclusive right of trade being awarded to them on condition that one fifth of their gains should be paid to the King. Under this authority John Cabot, accompanied by his son Sebastian, sailed from Bristol in May, 1497, and at the distance of "some seven hundred leagues," according to his computation, arrived, as he supposed, at the shores of the kingdom of the Grand Cham. He must have suffered a revulsion of feelings as he saw the land, for he had actually come upon the dreary shores of Cape Breton Island, or possibly of Labrador, which he called "Prima Vista." * It was the twenty-fourth of June. Cabot set up a large cross, planted the banner of England with that of Venice, and took possession of the country in the name of King Henry VII. After coasting along the shores for three hundred leagues, and seeing no inhabitants, he returned to England, arriving at Bristol in August.

*Mr. Richard Biddle, in his "Memoir of Sebastian Cabot," contends that "Prima Vista" was Labrador, but on the "Mappe-Monde " of Cabot, made in 1544, the name is given to the end of Cape Breton Island. See proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, for April, 1867, remarks of Charles Deane, LL. D.

Henry received Cabot with honor, furnished him money, and encouraged him to continue his expeditions. A license was given him for this purpose by the king, but he does not appear to have made any voyages by virtue of it. The origin and end of John Cabot the discoverer of the American continent, are alike involved. in obscurity. It is not certainly known of what country he was a native. He was not an Englishman, and though he had long lived in Venice, the fruitful foster-mother of adventurous discoverers, he was not a native of that city. Not an original like Columbus, he was a wise and skilful navigator, and though he probably took his suggestion from Columbus, he deserves credit for the sagacity which led him to accept the conclusions of that navigator, and to risk life and fortune in the effort to find the Indies by sailing westward.

Sebastian Cabot, the second son of John, born probably about 1475, perhaps in Venice, was bred to the profession of his father, and early took up with enthusiasm the work which he, to us, so mysteriously had laid down. It is supposed, and there is no good reason for doubting the supposition, that he had accompanied his father on the voyage which resulted in the discovery of our continent; and though little over twenty-one, he started again on the search for a northwest passage to India, in 1498, at nearly the same time that Columbus embarked on the third voyage, from which he came home in irons. Cabot encountered icebergs as he steered to the northwest, and, turning to the southward, sailed along the American coast, where he saw the copper-tinted aborigines and made some observations on their customs.

He

THE NORTHEASTERN ROUTE.

31

returned to England, considering his voyage to have been a failure, which, indeed, it was, so far as the discovery of a northwest passage is concerned, but in no other sense. He was unfortunate in having his achievements brought to notice at the time when Europe was ringing with reports of the discovery by Vasco de Gama, of the route to India by the Cape of Good Hope.

The date of the death of Sebastian, like that of his birth, is unknown. He probably drew his latest breath near the time that Elizabeth ascended the throne; when he was about eighty-five years of age. He was honored as a great seaman during all of his long life. In 1518 he was invited, by Ferdinand of Spain, to come to that country, where he was made "Pilot Major" of the realm, and one of the Council for the "New Indies." In 1526 he commanded an expedition which was sent out to find a passage to India by a southwestern route, and he then entered the La Plata and discovered Paraguay. In 1547, the first year of the reign of Edward VI., he was recalled to England, and pensioned, for the good work that he had done and was yet to do. In 1553 he directed an unsuccessful expedition to find a passage to India by a northeastern route.* On the accession of Queen Mary he was invited by Charles V., to go again to Spain, but he refused to leave England. In 1556, he appears for the last time in authentic records

*This attempt has been often repeated since the day of the Cabots, and it was left for a daring explorer of our own day to succeed in it. Baron Adolf Eric Nordenskiold, sailed from Gothenburg in July, 1878, and arrived at Yokohama in September, 1879. He considers the voyage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the Siberian Sea, practicable, but useless to commerce.

as president of a new company formed for discovery. Octogenarian that he was, he so much rejoiced at the prospects of a new expedition, that he actually joined in a dance on the occasion of the banquet which was given as the vessel was about to start.

The long and eventful life of Sebastian Cabot comprised almost the whole century of discovery that followed the first expedition of Columbus. He saw

FIORENTINE

Amerigo Vespucci make his

four voyages, and have his

name given to the new con tinent, in 1507.

Vespucci

was an astronomer of Ven ice, who accompanied the expeditions with which his name is associated in inferior capacities. In later

years he was a warm friend of Columbus, and he was always an honest man, an enthusiastic discoverer, a good manager and a superior astronomer. His name was given to the country by a German geographer, Martin Waldseemuller, who published an account of the four voyages of Vespucci at St. Dié, Lorraine, in 1507.

In 1501 Gaspar Cortereal was sent to the Western . Hemisphere by the King of Portugal. He made two

expeditions, returned from the first with a cargo of the natives, whom he sold as slaves, and was never heard of after he left Portugal the second time. Some three years later the French made voyages to New

*The voyages of Vespucci are clouded in obscurity, and it is by many doubted if he made four. See Irving's "Columbus," vol. iii., P. 344.