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JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT. [1497-1498.

It was, therefore, not difficult for John Cabot, a Venetian merchant, residing at Bristol, to engage Henry VII. in plans for discovery. Under a patent obtained from that monarch, and containing the worst features of colonial monopoly and commercial restriction, John Cabot, and his celebrated son Sebastian, embarked, in 1497, for the west. Of what tempests they encountered, what mutinies they calmed, no record has been preserved. The discovery of the American continent, on the twentyfourth day of June, probably in the latitude of fifty-six degrees, far, therefore, to the north of the Straits of Belle Isle, among the polar bears, the rude savages, and the dismal cliffs of Labrador, - was the fruit of the voyage. The navigators hastened homewards to announce their success. Thus the discovery of our continent was an exploit of private, mercantile adventure; and the possession of the new-found "land and isles was a right vested, by an exclusive patent, in the family of a Bristol merchant. Yet the Cabots derived little benefit from the expedition, which their genius had suggested, and of which they alone had defrayed the expense. Posterity hardly remembered that they had reached the American continent nearly fourteen months before Columbus, on his third voyage, came in sight of the main land, and almost two years before Amerigo Vespucci sailed west of the Canaries. But England acquired, through their energy, such a right to North America as this indisputable priority could confer.

Confidence and zeal awakened; and Henry grew circumspect in the concession of rights, which now seemed about to become of immense value. In February, 1498, a new patent was issued to John Cabot, less ample in the privileges which it conferred; and his son Sebastian a native of Bristol, a youthful adventurer of great benevolence and courtesy, daring in conception, and patient in execution-pursued the paths of discovery which he, with his father, had opened. The object of the new expedition was, in part, to explore "what manner of landes those Indies were to inhabit;

"

1498-1553.]

SEBASTIAN CABOT.

5

and perhaps, also, a hope was entertained of reaching the rich empire of Cathay. Embarking in May, Sebastian Cabot, with a company of three hundred men, sailed for Labrador, by way of Iceland, and reached the continent in the latitude of fifty-eight degrees. The severity of the cold, the strangeness of the unknown land, and his declared purpose of exploring the country, induced him to turn to the south; and, having proceeded along the shores of the United States to the southern boundary of Maryland, or perhaps to the latitude of Albemarle Sound, want of provisions hastened his return to England.

The maps which he sketched of his discoveries, as well as the accounts which he wrote of his adventures, have perished; and the history of the next years of his life is involved in obscurity. Yet it does not admit of a reasonable doubt that, perhaps in 1517, sailing once more from England to discover the North-Western passage, Sebastian Čabot passed through the straits, and entered the bay, which, after the lapse of nearly a century, took their name from Hudson. He himself wrote a "Discourse of Navigation," in which the entrance of the strait was laid down, with great precision, "on a card drawn by his own hand." He boldly prosecuted his design, making his way through regions into which it was long afterwards esteemed an act of the most intrepid adventure to penetrate, till, on June the eleventh, as we are informed from a letter written by the navigator himself, he had attained the altitude of sixtyseven and a half degrees, ever in the hope of finding a passage into the Indian Ocean. The sea was still open; but the cowardice of a naval officer, and the mutiny of the mariners, compelled him to return, though his own confidence in the possibility of effecting the passage remained unimpaired.

The career of Sebastian Cabot was in the issue as honorable as its opening had been glorious. He conciliated universal regard by the benevolent mildness of his character. For nearly sixty years he guided maritime adventure; was revered for his achievements and

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VOYAGE OF CORT EREAL.

[1500-1504

skill; and, at last, was pensioned and rewarded for his merits as the Great Seaman. It was he who framed the instructions for the expedition which discovered the passage to Archangel. He lived to an extreme old age, and so loved his profession to the last, that, in the hour of death, his wandering thoughts were upon the ocean. The discoverer of the territory of our country was one of the most extraordinary men of his age: there is deep cause for regret, that time has spared so few memorials of his career. He gave England a continent, and no one knows his burial-place.

Upon the certainty of success, a throng of adventurers eagerly engaged in voyages to explore the New World, or to plunder its inhabitants. The king of Portugal, grieved at having neglected Columbus, readily favored an expedition for northern discovery. Gaspar Cortereal was appointed commander of the enterprise. In 1501, he reached the shores of North America; ranged the coast for a distance of six or seven hundred miles, probably as far north as the fiftieth degree; and carefully observed the country and its inhabitants. The pines, well adapted for masts and yards, promised to become an object of gainful commerce. But men were already with the Portuguese an established article of traffic; and Cortereal freighted his ships with more than fifty Indians, whom, on his return, he sold as slaves. It was soon resolved to renew the expedition; but the adventurer never returned. The name of Labrador, transferred to a more northern coast, is a memorial of his crime, and the only permanent trace of Portuguese adventure within the limits of North America.

The French entered without delay into the competition for the commerce and the soil of America. Within seven years of the discovery of the continent, the fisheries of Newfoundland were known to the hardy mariners of Brittany and Normandy. The island of Cape Breton acquired its name from their remembrance of home; and in France it was usual to esteem them the discoverers of the country.

1524.] VOYAGE OF VERRAZZANI FOR FRANCE.

The fisheries had for some years been successfully pursued; savages from the north-eastern coast had been brought to France; plans of colonization in North America had been suggested by De Lery and St. Just; when, at length, in 1524, Francis I., a monarch who had invited Da Vinci and Cellini to transplant the fine arts into his kingdom, despatched John Verrazzani, another Florentine, with a single caravel, to make discovery of new countries. Fifty days elapsed before the continent, in the latitude of Wilmington, appeared in view; and Verrazzani, vainly searching for a convenient harbor, cast anchor on the coast of North Carolina. The russet color of the Indians seemed like the complexion of the Saracens; their dress was of skins; their ornaments, garlands of feathers. They welcomed with hospitality the strangers, whom they had not yet learned to fear. As the Dolphin ploughed its way to the north, it was thought that imagination could not conceive of more delightful fields and forests; the groves, redolent with fragrance, gave promise of the spices of the East; and the color of the earth argued an abundance of gold.

The harbor of New York especially attracted notice, for its great convenience and pleasantness. In the spacious haven of Newport Verrazzani remained for fifteen days. The natives were "the goodliest people" that he had found in the whole voyage-liberal and friendly, yet too ignorant even to covet instruments of steel and iron. Leaving the waters of Rhode Island, the persevering mariner sailed along the coast till, on the fifth of May, he approached the latitude of fifty degrees. The natives of the more northern region had learned the use of iron, and were willing to traffic for knives and weapons of steel. In July, Verrazzani was once more in France. His own narrative of the voyage is the earliest original account, now extant, of the coast of the United States. He advanced the knowledge of the country; and he gave to France some claim to an extensive territory, on the pretext of discovery.

FATE OF VERRAZZANI. CARTIER. [1534.

The historians of maritime adventure agree that Verrazzani again embarked upon an expedition. One writer asserts that he was thrice on the coast of America, and that he gave a map of it to the English monarch. It is the common tradition, that he perished at sea, having been engaged in an expedition of which no tidings were ever heard. It is probable that Verrazzani had only retired from the fatigues of the life of a mariner, and, while others believed him buried in the ocean, was enjoying the delights of tranquil employment. Yet such is the obscurity of the accounts respecting his life, that certainty cannot be established.

The subsequent misfortunes of the French monarchy did not affect the industry of its fishermen. There exists a letter to Henry VIII., from the haven of St. John, in Newfoundland, written in 1527, by an English captain, in which he declares, he found in that one harbor eleven sail of Normans and one Breton, engaged in the fishery. The French king himself became interested in the design of exploring and colonizing the New World; and James Cartier, descended from the enterprising Normans who first occupied the rock of St. Malo, was selected to lead the expedition. His several voyages are of great moment; for they had a permanent effect in guiding the attention of France to the region of the St. Lawrence. It was on the twentieth of April, 1534, that the mariner, with two ships, left his home; and prosperous weather brought him in twenty days upon the coasts of Newfoundland. Having almost circumnavigated the island, he turned to the south, and, crossing the gulf, entered the bay, which he called Des Chaleurs, from the intense heats of midsummer. Finding no passage to the west, he sailed along the coast as far as the smaller inlet of Gaspé; where a lofty cross was raised, bearing a shield, with the lilies of France and an appropriate inscription. Leaving the Bay of Gaspé, Cartier, the first to conduct Northmen into the great river of Canada, sailed, in August, up its channel, till he could discern land on either side. Unprepared to remain during the winter, the little fleet