chapter 15._

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AMERICA: A. D. 1498. Voyage and Discoveries of Sebastian Cabot. The ground of English claims in the New World.

"The son of John Cabot, Sebastian, is not mentioned in this patent [issued by Henry VII., February 3, 1498], as he had been in that of 1496. Yet he alone profited by it. For the father is not again mentioned in connection with the voyage. … Sebastian was now, if Humboldt's supposition is true that he was born in 1477, a young man of about 20 or 21 years of age. And as he had become proficient in astronomy and mathematics, and had gained naval experience in the voyage he had made in company with his father; and as he knew better than anyone else his father's views, and also the position of the newly discovered regions, he may now have well appeared to Henry as a fit person for the command of another expedition to the northwest. Two ships, manned with 300 mariners and volunteers, were ready for him early in the spring of 1498; and he sailed with them from Bristol, probably in the beginning of the month of May. We have no certain information regarding his route. But he appears to have directed his course again to the country which he had seen the year before on the voyage with his father, our present Labrador. He sailed along the coast of this country so far north that, even in the month of July, he encountered much ice. Observing at the same time, to his great displeasure, that the coast was trending to the east, he resolved to give up a further advance to the north, and returned in a southern direction. At Newfoundland, he probably came to anchor in some port, and refreshed his men, and refitted his vessels after their Arctic hardships. … He probably was the first fisherman on the banks or shores of Newfoundland, which through him became famous in Europe. Sailing from Newfoundland southwest, he kept the coast in view as much as possible, on his right side, 'always with the intent to find a passage and open water to India.' … After having rounded Cape Cod, he must have felt fresh hope. He saw a coast running to the west, and open water before him in that direction. It is therefore nearly certain that he entered somewhat that broad gulf, in the interior corner of which lies the harbor of New York. … From a statement contained in the work of Peter Martyr it appears … certain that Cabot landed on some places of the coast along which he sailed. This author, relating a conversation which he had with his friend Cabot, on the subject of his voyage of 1498, says that Cabot told him 'he had found on most of the places copper or brass among the aborigines.' … From another authority we learn that he captured some of these aborigines and brought them to England, where they lived and were seen a few years after his return by the English chronicler, Robert Fabyan. It is not stated at what place he captured those Indians; but it was not customary with the navigators of that time to take on board the Indians until near the time of their leaving the country. Cabot's Indians, therefore, were probably captured on some shore south of New York harbor. … The southern terminus of his voyage is pretty well ascertained. He himself informed his friend Peter Martyr, that he went as far south as about the latitude of the Strait of Gibraltar, that is to say, about 36° North latitude, which is near that of Cape Hatteras. … On their return from their first voyage of 1497, the Cabots believed that they had discovered portions of Asia and so proclaimed it. But the more extensive discoveries of the second voyage corrected the views of Sebastian, and revealed to him nothing but a wild and barbarous coast, stretching through 30 degrees of latitude, from 67½° to 36°. The discovery of this impassable barrier across his passage to Cathay, as he often complained, was a sore displeasure to him. Instead of the rich possessions of China, which he hoped to reach, he was arrested by a New found land, savage and uncultivated. A spirited German author, Dr. G. M. Asher, in his life of Henry Hudson, published in London in 1860, observes: 'The displeasure of Cabot involves the scientific discovery of a new world. He was the first to recognize that a new and unknown continent was lying, as one vast barrier, between Western Europe and Eastern Asia.' … When Cabot made proposals in the following year, 1499, for another expedition to the same regions, he was supported neither by the king nor the merchants. For several years the scheme for the discovery of a north-western route to Cathay was not much favored in England. Nevertheless, the voyage of this gifted and enterprising youth along the entire coast of the present United States, nay along the whole extent of that great continent, in which now the English race and language prevail and flourish, has always been considered as the true beginning, the foundation and cornerstone, of all the English claims and possessions in the northern half of America."

_J. G. Kohl, History of the Discovery of Maine,

ALSO IN: _R. Biddle, Memoir of Sebastian Cabot,

_J. F. Nicholls, Life of Sebastian Cabot,