Part 3

John Cabot was not, like Columbus, a writer as well as a discoverer; we know little about his life, and the accounts of his discoveries are meager and contradictory. Cabot was born about 1450, so he was a few years younger than Columbus. Like him, he was by birth a native of Genoa. Cabot, however, moved to Venice and became an adopted son of that City of the Sea. He was a good navigator and went East on trading ventures. Having an inquiring turn of mind, when he bought cargoes of spices he tried to learn something about the countries from which they came.

Like most master-navigators of the time, Cabot was a maker of maps and charts. He also believed that the world is round; he thought that Cathay and Cipango and “the spice lands” could be reached by sailing west. He tried in vain to secure the aid of Portugal or of Spain in fitting out an expedition to undertake the westward voyage. Columbus was one of many who were beginning to believe that the world was a sphere; he was bolder and more persistent than most of them, and had the good fortune to prove the truth of his theory.

About 1490 Cabot went to England “to follow the trade of merchandises” and to seek aid in his exploring projects. In 1496 he secured the countenance of Henry VII. of England, who granted John Cabot and his sons, Sebastian, Lewis, and Sanctius permission “for the discovery of new and unknown lands,” “upon their own proper cost and charges.” In return for his countenance the king was to receive one-fifth of all profits. Much uncertainty surrounds Cabot’s first voyage. It is now thought that his son Sebastian did not accompany him, as was long believed to be the case. Some say that Cabot had two ships, some say he had five, but an Italian acquaintance writing at the time says that he made his discovery with only “one little ship of Bristol and eighteen men.”

Cabot set sail from Bristol in May and returned in August. He sailed northwest, and it is supposed that the land which he reached was Labrador. From the time the Norsemen left “Vinland the Good,” Cabot was the first European to touch the mainland of North America. He sailed some distance along the coast of what he thought was “the land of the great Khan.” He saw no inhabitants, but observed that the sea swarmed with fish, and on his return he suggested that England should send fishermen thither instead of depending on the fisheries of Iceland. He noted, too, that “the tides are slack and do not flow as they do here,” that is, in England.

A few days after Cabot’s return, a Venetian who was in England wrote his family an account of the voyage. “His name is Zuan Cabot,” he said, “and he is styled the great Admiral. Vast honor is paid to him; he dresses in silk and the English run after him like mad people.” The Venetian went on to say that Cabot “planted on his New-found land” the flags of England and Venice.

The king was so pleased with Cabot’s first voyage of discovery that it was promised he should have fitted out for a second voyage a fleet of ten ships and to man it he was to have “all prisoners except traitors.” Some merchants of Bristol aided in fitting out the expedition. With these ten ships, Cabot wished to go on westward to the east, hoping to reach Cipango, “where he thinks all the spices of the world and also all the precious stones originate.”

From the time that this second expedition was planned we lose sight of John Cabot. Whether he returned safe or died on the voyage, we do not know. The English did not then attach enough importance to the western world to make records of Cabot’s voyages. They were disappointed at not finding gold and gems nor a direct passage to the East. To England in the early sixteenth century the new-found land was valuable only as a “cod fish coast.”

Sebastian Cabot, the son of the “great Admiral,” was, like his father, a chart-maker and navigator. He is said to have accompanied his father on one or both of his voyages, but there is no proof that he went on either.

The great object of Sebastian Cabot’s ambition was the discovery of a direct route to Asia. He undertook, under authority of the king of Spain, a westward expedition to reach the Pacific. On this voyage he discovered a great river which he named La Plata. Afterwards he returned to England and received from Edward VI. a pension for his services as Great Pilot. In 1553, he took part in the expedition to find a northeast passage to Asia; later, in search of a northwest passage, he sailed along the coast of America as far south, it is said, as Chesapeake Bay.

Sir Francis Drake

A Famous English Adventurer

The first expeditions which came to the New World were bent on discovery, exploration, conquest, and plunder. It was many years before any attempts at settlement were made. The Spaniards, as you know, kept a southernly course and reached the West Indies and the adjacent coasts of North and South America. They reached Mexico and Peru, and made themselves masters of silver, gold, and other treasures.

It never occurred to them that the natives had any rights to be regarded. The only right that they recognized was that of the strongest. Against their war horses and coats of mail and firearms, what were the reed spears and arrows of the natives? The Indians fell before the Spaniards like grain before the scythe.

To the conquered natives, life was a worse fate than death. With brutal cruelty they were driven to labor in the mines for their taskmasters. Ship after ship crossed the ocean, bearing to Spain the treasures taken from these mines, or stolen from the homes and temples of the living and the tombs of the dead.

But the Spaniards were not suffered to possess nor convey in peace their ill-gotten gains. The other nations of Europe took advantage of every pretext to spoil the spoiler. England was foremost in these attacks on Spain. The two countries were not at open war, but they were on unfriendly terms. The expeditions against Spain were undertaken by bold seamen who took as much delight in the damage inflicted on Spain as in the booty gained. They were not openly authorized by the English queen, but it was understood that they would be overlooked and that Elizabeth was not averse to receiving a share of the booty.

Among the freebooters most feared and hated by the Spaniards was Sir Francis Drake. This famous English seamen was born about 1540, in Devonshire, England. He was one of the twelve sons of a poor naval chaplain, and it is said that he was educated at the expense of Sir John Hawkins, a famous naval officer who was his kinsman. At the age of eighteen, Drake had become master of a ship that traded between England and France and Holland. This vessel he sold, “the narrow seas not being large enough for his aspiring mind,” and invested all his savings in Hawkins’s expedition to Mexico. This fleet was defeated by the Spaniards, and Drake, who behaved gallantly in action, lost his all. He “vowed the Spaniards should pay him with interest,” and shortly afterwards he made good his word.

In 1572 with three small ships, he attacked and plundered several Spanish settlements on the Isthmus of Panama and brought away as much silver, gold, and jewels, as he could carry. During this expedition, accompanied by eighteen Englishmen and thirty Indians, he made a journey across the Isthmus. From the top of a tree, he beheld the waters of the Pacific, and expressed his resolve to “sail once in an English ship on that sea.” After his return to England, he served four years in Ireland, but he did not forget either the western ocean or his resolve. Secretly encouraged by Queen Elizabeth, he undertook an expedition “to discomfort the Spanish as far as possible.”

A few days before Christmas in 1577, he set sail from Plymouth, intending to pass through the Straits of Magellan and make the circuit of the globe. Drake’s fleet consisted of five small vessels and a crew of a hundred and sixty-six men. In the end, two of these vessels were left on the coast of Brazil. As Drake passed the western coast of America he stopped to attack the Spanish settlements. We are told that his men “being weary, contented themselves with as many bars and wedges of gold as they could carry, burying above fifteen tons of silver in the sand and under old trees.”

In August, 1578, Drake entered the Straits of Magellan. Adverse currents and storms separated the three vessels and only the Golden Hind, originally called the Pelican, passed through to continue the course. Along the coasts of Chili and Peru the Englishmen sailed, plundering till they were weary of spoils. From one ship they got “a prodigious quantity of gold, silver, and jewels,”--“thirteen chests of coin, eighty pounds of gold, twenty-six tons of silver, besides jewels and plate.” The writers of the time who give an exact list of the captured treasures passed lightly over the natural objects and wonders of the New World. “They saw many strange birds, beasts, fishes, fruits, trees, and plants too tedious to mention,” says one.

Drake coasted along the western shore of America, trying to discover a passage to the Atlantic. He landed and claimed the country, which he called New Albion, for Queen Elizabeth and England. Turning from the severe cold of the northern seas, he sailed across the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, stopping at Java and other islands. Resuming his voyage, he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and sailed along the coast of Africa.

In November, 1579, he re-entered the harbor of Plymouth, having made the circuit of the globe in two years and ten months. He was the first commander to take his ship around the world; Magellan, who had undertaken the same voyage, died on the route. Drake, “the master thief of the unknown world,” at once became a popular hero. He presented to the queen “great stores of silver, gold, and gems,” and received from her the honor of knighthood.

A few years later, war was openly declared between England and Spain. Drake was sent with a fleet to attack the Spanish colonies in America; he captured and plundered several settlements in the West Indies and in Florida, and burned the fort of St. Augustine. Sailing on north to Sir Walter Raleigh’s colony at Roanoke, he brought away the disheartened colonists. It is said that he carried back to England the potato and the tobacco, two plants contributed by the New World to the Old.

Drake reached England in 1586, and the next year he led a fleet to inflict injury on the great Spanish fleet, proudly called the Invincible Armada, which was being collected to invade England. He entered the harbor of Cadiz and burned about a hundred ships. This he called “singeing the beard of the king of Spain.” The Armada, delayed for a year by this mischance, was refitted and sailed to attack England. It is said that when the news of its approach was brought to Plymouth the commanders of the English fleet were playing bowls. Drake, who served as vice-admiral under Lord Howard, insisted on finishing the game, saying, “There is plenty of time to win the game and thrash the Spaniards, too!” The great Armada was defeated by the brave little English fleet, aided by tempests and contrary winds.

In 1589 Drake made an expedition to Portugal and a few years later he and Sir John Hawkins were sent with a fleet to attack the West Indies. He and his old commander could not agree on the plan of action, and their expedition was unsuccessful. Hawkins died at Porto Rico. A few weeks later, Drake died, “his death being supposed to be hastened by his unsuccessfulness in his voyage; his great spirit always accustomed to victory and success, not being able to bear the least check of fortune.”

Sir Walter Raleigh

The Father of American Colonization

You are not to suppose that the English claimed nothing of the New World except what they could plunder from Spain. They were, on the whole, willing to respect the rights of Spain to the West Indies and to the adjacent parts of the continent which Spaniards had discovered and settled.

More and more the English thought that it would be a good thing to have colonies in the New World to hold the land which they claimed by virtue of Cabot’s discoveries. Reasons for “western planting,” or establishing colonies in America, were given by Hakluyt, an Englishman of the sixteenth century. Among its advantages, he said, were these,--(1) the soil yields products needed for England, (2) the passage was so easy “it may be made twice in the year,” (3) “this enterprise may stay the Spanish king from flowing over all the face of that waste firm of America,” (4) it may enlarge the glory of God and “provide safe and sure place” for religious refugees, (5) poor men and those of evil life may there begin anew, (6) wandering beggars “may there be unladen.”

[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH]

The “Father of American Colonization” was an English gentleman, a soldier, courtier, and author, Sir Walter Raleigh. He was born in 1552 in Devonshire, a fair coastland, the home of Drake and many other bold seamen. In Raleigh’s home were several children, an own brother and three half-brothers, the children of his mother by a former marriage. One of these half-brothers, thirteen years his senior, was Humphrey Gilbert who grew to be a brave and enterprising gentleman.

Walter Raleigh seems to have had little schooling in his youth. He chose war as his profession and spent several years fighting in France and the Netherlands. Meanwhile his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, obtained from Queen Elizabeth a grant of land for “planting and inhabiting certain northern parts of America which extended beyond the twenty-fifth degree of north latitude.” Raleigh returned to England and sailed with Gilbert in 1579 to Newfoundland; storms and perhaps an encounter with the Spanish forced them to return without landing.

Raleigh spent two years in Ireland, fighting to suppress the risings there, then returned to England and became a favorite at court. There is a pretty story of the way in which he was first brought to Queen Elizabeth’s notice and favor. It is said that one day the queen was walking with her attendants along the London streets, then rough and unpaved. She came to a mudhole, and hesitated for fear of soiling her shoes. Among the bystanders was Raleigh, a handsome, graceful, gentleman-soldier. He took off his new velvet mantle and spread it upon the ground so that the queen might pass dry-shod.

However he first won the queen’s notice, he had by 1583 become such a favorite that she was not willing for him to join Sir Humphrey Gilbert on a second expedition to Newfoundland. He contributed a large share of the expenses of this expedition, which was even more ill-fated than the former one. Sir Humphrey, it is true, reached Newfoundland and took possession of it, but on the return voyage the fleet was overtaken by storm, and two vessels, in one of which was Sir Humphrey, were lost.

These disasters did not destroy Sir Walter’s interest in discoveries. He got the queen to transfer to him the grant made to his half-brother, giving him for six years the privilege of sending out expeditions “to discover such remote barbarous lands as were not actually possessed by any Christian people,” and to take possession of them in the name of the queen.

Several expeditions were sent out under this grant, or patent, as it was called. The first, in 1584, consisted of two vessels under Captains Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow. They reached the coast of North Carolina and cast anchor on the island of Roanoke, which they claimed in the queen’s name and for Sir Walter’s use. The name Virginia was given to this land in honor of Elizabeth, the virgin queen. No settlement was made at that time but the next year seven vessels under Sir Richard Grenville were sent out with about a hundred colonists. They entered Chesapeake Bay and James River and explored the country. Homesickness and hardships discouraged these colonists, and when Sir Francis Drake came to the settlement, after his expedition against the Spaniards in the West Indies, they embarked with him and returned to England. A few days after their departure, reinforcements and supplies sent by Raleigh reached the deserted colony.

About this time tobacco, introduced into England by Lane, Hawkins, or Drake, was brought into use by Sir Walter Raleigh. Tytler says, “There is a well-known tradition that Sir Walter first began to smoke it privately in his study, and his servant coming in as he was intent upon his book, seeing the smoke issuing from his mouth, threw all the liquor in his face by way of extinguishing the fire; and running down stairs alarmed the family with piercing cries that his master, before they could get up, would be burnt to ashes.”

In 1587 another colony of two hundred and fifty men under John White was sent by Sir Walter Raleigh. That summer a child was born to Eleanor Dare, John White’s daughter; this girl, the first English child born in America, received the name of Virginia Dare.

Fears of the Spanish invasion which threatened England kept Sir Walter for several years from sending aid to the colony. When at last ships reached Roanoke Island the colonists and all signs of them had disappeared; on a tree was found carved the word “Croatoan,” but what this meant no one ever knew.

Raleigh now gave up his patent to a company in London, from which he was to receive one-fifth of gold and silver found in the lands discovered. He gave up his colonizing plans in order to fight the Spaniards. The queen, however, would not consent to his going, as he wished, on the English expedition to seize the Spanish treasure-fleet. His place was taken by Sir Richard Grenville, the story of whose gallant death is told in Lord Tennyson’s ballad, “The Revenge.”

Later, Raleigh sent out an expedition to the interior of South America; he believed that in Guiana was situated El Dorado, a fabled land of gold and treasure. He himself on a later voyage went four hundred miles up the Orinoco River and brought back some gold and the first mahogany wood seen in England. He wrote an account of his “Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana.”

In 1603 James I. succeeded Elizabeth on the English throne, and from that time Raleigh was in disfavor. He was accused of treason; on the unproved charge he was condemned to death and was kept in prison about thirteen years with the sentence hanging over him. During this time he devoted himself to study and wrote his noble “History of the World.”

He was released in 1616 to lead an expedition to the Orinoco. There he had a skirmish with the Spaniards and brought back no treasure to appease the king for this attack on the enemy with which James was trying to keep on friendly terms. The old charge of treason was revived, and Sir Walter was beheaded in 1618, really as a sacrifice to gain the good will of Spain. “We have not such another head to be cut off,” said a bystander at the execution.

Captain John Smith

“Let him not boast who puts his armor on As he who puts it off, the battle done,”

says an American poet. To the credit of John Smith--soldier, leader, reformer, discoverer, author--be it remembered that he never “talked big” till he had “acted big,”--that his deeds ever went before his words.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH]

He was the first Englishman who wrote a book in the United States. His “True Relation of Virginia” was written in the intervals between tree-cutting, house-building, exploration, and adventure, and sent by the vessel which returned to England in June, 1608. Much doubt has been cast--Fiske and other historians assert that it has been unjustly cast--on Smith’s statements. In details--dates and figures--we may believe that the soldier-author was not always accurate. Had he misrepresented facts, or misstated essentials, however, we may be sure he would have been promptly and eagerly contradicted by the “gentlemen of rank” who were actors and eye-witnesses with him, and who never missed an opportunity to vent their jealous hate on plain John Smith who outshone them all.

John Smith was born in Lincolnshire, England, about 1580. As a child he longed for a life of adventure, and when he was thirteen he sold his school-books and planned to go to sea; however, he thought better of the matter and remained at home two years longer with his mother. After her death he went to the Continent and became a soldier. He served in France and in Holland and then drifted East to fight against the Turks. There, he tells us, he had wonderful adventures. During a siege he fought three Turkish soldiers, one after another, and killed them all. Later, he was taken prisoner and sold as a slave, but escaped. He made his way home, through Russia, Austria, Spain, and Morocco. When he reached England in 1605, he found an expedition being planned to settle the New World and he resolved to join it.

The first English expeditions to make settlements in America were sent out under the authority of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other individuals. Later on, the difficult and expensive work of colonization was undertaken by companies. These had regular trading agents and workmen, and expected rich profits from trade with the colonies. The colonies in the New World were encouraged by the sovereign, also, who regarded them as a check on the power of Spain to the south and on that of France to the north.

A band of about a hundred men sent out by the London Company, left England in December, 1606, in three little vessels, the Discovery, the Good Speed, and the Susan Constant. The party was led by Christopher Newport who had served under Raleigh and had himself captured Spanish treasure-ships. After a roundabout voyage by the West Indies, further delayed by contrary winds, in the spring of 1607 the colonists entered a noble bay. “The low shores were covered with flowers of divers colors; the goodly trees were in full foliage, and all nature seemed kind and benignant.”

The Englishmen called the capes on either side of the bay Cape Henry and Cape Charles, in honor of the king’s two sons; the river up which they sailed and the settlement they founded were named for King James. The landing at Jamestown was made May 13, 1607.