bability attained by this course to India.* Animated by such a project, Cabot addressed himself to Henry VII., and found immediate encouragement from that monarch, who, though of a cold and cautious disposition, was seldom slow to listen to any proposal which promised an increase of wealth to his exchequer. On the 5th of March 1495, the king granted his royal commission to John Cabot, citizen of Venice, and his sons, Louis, Sebastian, and Sanchez, committing to him and them, and to their heirs and deputies, full authority to sail to all countries and seas of the East, West, and North, under the banner of England, with five ships of whatever burden and strength in mariners they might choose to employ. The equipment of this squadron was cautiously stipulated to be made "at their own proper costs and charges;" and its object stated to be the discovery of the isles, regions, and provinces of the Heathen and Infidels, which hitherto had been unknown to all the nations of Christendom, in whatever part of the globe they might be placed. By the same deed the Cabots were empowered to set up the banners and ensigns of England in the newly-discovered countries; to subdue and possess them as lieutenants of the king; and to enjoy the privilege of exclusive trade;-the wary monarch, however, annexing to these privileges the condition, that he was to receive the fifth part of the capital gain upon every voyage, and binding their ships to return to the port of Bristol.+

6. § 24.

* Tiraboschi, Storia della Letter. Ital., vol. vi. b. i. cap. I have nearly followed the words of this important document, which is still preserved. Rymer, Fœdera Angliæ, vol. xii. p. 595.

JOHN CABOT DISCOVERS NORTH AMERICA.

21

Two important facts are ascertained by this authentic document: It proves that John Cabot, a citizen of Venice, was the principal author of, and adventurer in, the project; and that no voyage with a similar object had been undertaken prior to the 5th of March 1495.

The expedition, however, did not sail till the spring of 1497, more than a twelvemonth subsequent to the date of the original commission. What occasioned this delay it is now difficult to determine; but, as the fleet was to be equipped at the sole expense of the adventurers, it is not improbable that Cabot had required the interval to raise the necessary capital. It is much to be regretted that in no contemporary chronicle is there any detailed account of the voyage. We know, however, that it was conducted by John Cabot in person, who took with him his son Sebastian, then a very young man. Its result was undoubtedly the discovery of North America; and although the particulars of this great event are lost, its exact date has been recorded by an unexceptionable witness, not only to a day but even to an hour. On an ancient map, drawn by Sebastian Cabot, the son, whose name appears in the commission by the king, engraved by Clement Adams, a contemporary, and published, as there is reason to believe, under the eye of Sebastian, was written in Latin the following brief but clear and satisfactory account of the discovery :-" In the year of our Lord 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, and his son Sebastian, discovered that country, which no one before his time had ventured to approach, on the 24th of June, about five o'clock in the morning. He called the land Terra Primum Visa, because, as

I conjecture, this was the place that first met his eyes in looking from the sea. On the contrary, the island which lies opposite the land he called the Island of St John,—as I suppose, because it was discovered on the festival of St John the Baptist. The inhabitants wear beasts' skins and the intestines of animals for clothing, esteeming them as highly as we do our most precious garments. In war their weapons are the bow and arrow, spears, darts, slings, and wooden clubs. The country is steril and uncultivated, producing no fruit; from which circumstance it happens that it is crowded with white bears, and stags of an unusual height and size. It yields plenty of fish, and these very large; such as seals and salmon: there are soles also above an ell in length; but especially great abundance of that kind of fish called in the vulgar tongue Baccalaos. In the same island, also, breed hawks, so black in their colour that they wonderfully resemble ravens; besides which there are partridges and eagles of dark plumage.”*

Such is the notice of the discovery of North America; and as some doubt has lately been thrown upon the subject, it may be remarked that the evidence of the fact contained in this inscription is perfectly unexceptionable. It comes from Clement Adams, the intimate friend of Richard Chancelor; and Chancelor lived, as is well known, in habits of daily intercourse with Sebastian Cabot, who accompanied his father on the first voyage of discovery. Unfortunately, both the original map and the engraving are lost; but happily Purchas has preserved the information, that the engraved map by Adams bore the date of 1549;t at which time Sebastian

*

Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 6. + Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. iii. p. 807.

Cabot was in such great reputation at the court of Edward VI., that for his services he had received a princely pension. This young monarch, as we learn from Burnet, showed a peculiar fondness for maritime affairs. He possessed a collection of charts, which were hung up in his cabinet, and amongst them was the engraving of Cabot's map. The inscription, therefore, must have been seen there and elsewhere by Sebastian; and, when we consider that the date of the engraving corresponds with the time when he was in high favour with the king, it does not seem improbable that this navigator, to gratify his youthful and royal patron, employed Adams to engrave from his own chart the map of North America, and that the facts stated in the inscription were furnished by himself. The singular minuteness of its terms seems to prove this; for who but he, or some one personally present, after the lapse of fiftytwo years, could have communicated the information that the discovery was made about five o'clock in the morning of the 24th June? If, however, this is questioned as being conjectural, the fact that Se. bastian must have seen the inscription is sufficient to render the evidence perfectly conclusive upon the important point of John Cabot being the discoverer of North America. That he had along with him in his ship his son Sebastian, cannot, we think, in the opinion of any impartial person, detract from or infringe upon the merit of the father. But, to complete the proof, a late writer has availed himself of an imperfect extract from a record of the rolls, furnished by the industrious Hakluyt, to discover an original document which sets the matter altogether at rest. This is the second commission

for discovery, granted by Henry VII. on the 3d of February, and in the thirteenth year of his reign, to the same individual who conducted the first expedition. The letters are directed to John Kabotto, Venetian, and permit him to sail with six ships "to the land and isles of late found by the said John in our name and by our commandment."* It presents a singular picture of the inability of an ingenious and otherwise acute mind to estimate the weight of historical evidence, when we find the biographer of Sebastian Cabot insisting, in the face of such a proof as this, that the glory of the first discovery of North America is solely due to Sebastian, and that it may actually be doubted whether his father accompanied the expedition at all.+

Immediately after the discovery the elder Cabot appears to have returned to England; and on the 10th of August we find, in the privy purse expenses of Henry VII., the sum of ten pounds awarded to him who found the New Isle, which was probably the name then given to Newfoundland. Although much engrossed at this moment with the troubles which arose in his kingdom in consequence of the Cornish rebellion, the war with Scotland, and the attempt upon the crown by Perkin Warbeck, the king determined to pursue the enterprise, and to encourage a scheme for colonization under the conduct of the original discoverer. To this enterprising navigator he, on the 3d of February 1497, granted those second letters-patent just alluded to, which conferred an ampler authority and more favourable terms than the first commission. He empowered John Kabotto,

* Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, p. 76. Old style,-1498, new style.

+ Ibid.

p. 50.