History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0115/01154.txt

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$Unique_ID{how01154}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Discovery Of America
Part I}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Fiske, John}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{cabot
footnote
bristol
john
sebastian
coast
harrisse
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$Date{1892}
$Log{}
Title:       Discovery Of America
Book:        Chapter VII: Mundus Novus
Author:      Fiske, John
Date:        1892

Part I

     Sometimes in Wagner's musical dramas the introduction of a few notes from
some leading melody foretells the inevitable catastrophe toward which the
action is moving; as when in Lohengrin's bridal chamber the well-known sound
of the distant Grail motive steals suddenly upon the ear, and the heart of the
rapt listener is smitten with a sense of impending doom.  So in the drama of
maritime discovery, as glimpses of new worlds were beginning to reward the
enterprising crowns of Spain and Portugal, for a moment there came from the
north a few brief notes fraught with ominous portent.  The power for whom
destiny had reserved the world empire of which these southern nations - so
noble in aim, so mistaken in policy - were dreaming stretched forth her hand,
in quiet disregard of papal bulls, and laid it upon the western shore of the
ocean.  It was only for a moment, and long years were to pass before the
consequences were developed.  But in truth the first fateful note that
heralded the coming English supremacy was sounded when John Cabot's tiny craft
sailed out from the Bristol channel on a bright May morning of 1497.

     The story of the Cabots can be briefly told.  Less is known about them
and their voyages than one could wish. ^1 John Cabot, a native of Genoa, moved
thence to Venice, where, after a residence of fifteen years, he was admitted
to full rights of citizenship in 1476.  He married a Venetian lady and had
three sons, the second of whom, Sebastian, was born in Venice some time before
March, 1474.  Nothing is known about the life of John Cabot at Venice, except
that he seems to have been a merchant and mariner, and that once in Arabia,
meeting a caravan laden with spices, he made particular inquiries regarding
the remote countries where such goods were obtained.  It is not impossible
that he may have reasoned his way, independently of Columbus, to the
conclusion that those countries might be reached by sailing westward; ^2 but
there is no evidence that such was the case.  About 1490 Cabot moved to
England with his family and made his home in Bristol, ^3 and he may have been
one of the persons who were convinced at that time by the arguments of
Bartholomew Columbus.

[Footnote 1: The best critical discussion of the subject is that of M.
Harrisse, Jean et Sebastien Cabot, Paris, 1882.  Most of the author's
conclusions seem to me very strongly supported.]

[Footnote 2: This seems to be implied by the words of the late Dr. Charles
Deane: - "Accepting the new views as to 'the roundness of the earth,' as
Columbus had done, he was quite disposed to put them to a practical test."
Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., vol. iii. p. 1.  But is it not strange to find
so learned a writer alluding to the ancient doctrine of the earth's globular
form as "new" in the time of Columbus!]

[Footnote 3: M. d'Avezac's suggestion (Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie,
Paris, 1872, 6 ^e serie, tom. iv. p. 44) that Columbus may have consulted with
Cabot at Bristol in 1477 seems, therefore, quite improbable.]

     Bristol was then the principal seaport of England, and the centre of
trade for the Iceland fisheries. ^1 The merchants of that town were fond of
maritime enterprise, and their ships had already ventured some distance out
upon the Atlantic.  William of Worcester informs us that in the summer of 1480
the wealthy merchant John Jay and another sent out a couple of ships, one of
them of eighty tons burthen, commanded by Thomas Lloyd, "the most scientific
mariner in all England," in order to find "the island of Brazil to the west of
Ireland," but after sailing the sea for nine weeks without making any
discovery foul weather sent them back to Ireland. ^2 From a letter of Pedro de
Ayala, one of the Spanish embassy in London in 1498, it would appear that
several expeditions, beginning perhaps as early as 1491, may have sailed from
Bristol, at the instigation of John Cabot, in search of the imaginary islands
of Brazil and Antilia. ^1

[Footnote 1: See Hunt's Bristol, pp. 44, 137; Magnusson, Om de Engelskes
Handel paa Island, Copenhagen, 1833, p. 147.]

[Footnote 2: "1480 die jullij navis . . . et Joh[ann]is Jay junioris ponderis
80 doliorum inceperunt viagium apud portum Bristolliae de Kyngrode usque ad
insulam de Brasylle in occidentali parte Hiberniae, sulcando maria per . . .
et . . . Thlyde [i.e. Th. Lyde=Lloyd] est magister scientificus marinarius
tocius Angliae, et noua venerunt Bristolliae die lune 18 die septembris, quod
dicta navis velaverunt maria per circa 9 menses nec invenerunt insulam sed per
tempestas maris reversi sunt usque portum . . . in Hibernia pro reposicione
navis et mariniorum." Itinerarium Willelmi de Wyrcestre, MS. in library of
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, No. 210, p. 195, apud Harrisse, op. cit. p.
44.  See also Fox-Bourne, English Merchants, vol. i. p. 105.  Though the Latin
says nine months, it is evident that only nine weeks are meant to be included
between "a day of July" and the 18th day of September.]

[Footnote 1: Ayala to Ferdinand and Isabella, July 25, 1498; Harrisse, p. 329.
The reader has doubtless already observed these fabulous islands on the
Toscanelli map.]

     We are told that the news of the first voyage of Columbus was received by
the Cabots and their English friends with much admiration. To have reached the
coast of China by sailing westward was declared a wonderful achievement, and
it was resolved to go and do likewise.  On the 21st of January, 1496, the
Spanish ambassador Puebla informed his sovereigns that "a person had come,
like Columbus, to propose to the king of England an enterprise like that of
the Indies." On the 28th of March the sovereigns instructed Puebla to warn
Henry VII. that such an enterprise could not be put into execution by him
without prejudice to Spain and Portugal. ^2 But before this remonstrance
arrived, the king had already issued letters patent, authorizing John Cabot
and his three sons "to sail to the east, west, or north, with five ships
carrying the English flag, to seek and discover all the islands, countries,
regions, or provinces of pagans in whatever part of the world." ^3 The
expedition must return to the port of Bristol, and the king was to have one
fifth of the profits.  By implicitly excluding southerly courses it was
probably intended, as far as possible, to avoid occasions for conflict with
Spain or Portugal.

[Footnote 2: Ferdinand and Isabella to Puebla, March 28, 1496; Harrisse, p.
315.]

[Footnote 3: "Pro Johanne Cabot et filiis suis super Terra Incognita
investiganda," March 5, 1496; Harrisse, p. 313.]

     The voyage seems to have been made with a single ship, named the Matthew,
or Matthews, after the evangelist, or perhaps after some English patron. ^1
The crew numbered eighteen men.  Sebastian Cabot may quite probably have
accompanied his father.  They sailed from Bristol early in May, 1497, ^2 and
discovered what was supposed to be the Chinese coast, "in the territory of the
Grand Cham," on the 24th of June.  By the end of July they had returned to
Bristol, and on the 10th of August we find thrifty Henry VII. giving "to hym
that founde the new isle" the munificent largess of Pound 10 with which to
celebrate the achievement. ^1

[Footnote 1: Barrett, History and Antiquities of Bristol, 1789, p. 172. A
contemporary MS., preserved in the British Museum, says that besides the
flagship equipped by the king there were three or four others, apparently
equipped by the king there were three or four others, apparently equipped by
private enterprise: - "In anno 13 Henr. VII.  This yere the Kyng at the besy
request and supplicacion of a Straunger venisian, which [i.e. who] by a
Coeart [i.e. chart] made hymself expert in knowyng of the world caused the
Kynge to manne a ship wt vytaill and other necessairies for to seche an Iland
wherein the said Straunger surmysed to be grete commodities: wt which ship by
the Kynges grace so Rygged went 3 or 4 moo oute of Bristowe, the said
Straunger beyng Conditor of the saide Flete, wheryn dyuers merchauntes as well
of London as Bristow aventured goodes and sleight merchaundises, which
departed from the West Cuntrey in the begynnyng of Somer, but to this present
moneth came nevir Knowlege of their exployt." See Harrisse, p. 316.  On page
50 M. Harrisse seems disposed to adopt this statement, but its authority is
fatally impaired by the last sentence, which shows that already the writer had
mixed up the first voyage with the second, as was afterwards commonly done.]

[Footnote 2: The date is often incorrectly given as 1494, owing to an old
misreading of M. CCCC. XCIIII instead of M. CCCC. XCVII.]

[Footnote 1: Harrisse, pp. 51, 59.  "Fazi bona ziera," says Pasqualigo; "pour
s'amuser," says Harrisse, or, as one might put it, "to go on a spree." It must
be remembered that Pound 10 then was equivalent to at least Pound 100 of
to-day.  The king also granted to Cabot a yearly pension of Pound 20, to be
paid out of the receipts of the Bristol custom-house.]

     The news in England seems to have taken the form that Cabot had
discovered the isles of Brazil and the Seven Cities, and the kingdom of the
Great Khan.  A Venetian gentleman, Lorenzo Pasqualigo, writing from London
August 23, 1497, says that "honours are heaped upon Cabot, he is called Grand
Admiral, he is dressed in silk, and the English run after him like madmen." ^2
It seemed to Cabot that by returning to the point where he had found land, and
then proceeding somewhat to the southward, he could find the wealthy island of
Cipango, and this time we do not hear that any dread of collision with Spain
prevailed upon the king to discountenance such an undertaking.  A second
expedition, consisting of five or six ships, sailed from Bristol in April,
1498, and explored a part of the coast of North America.  In a despatch dated
July 25, Ayala told his sovereigns that its return was expected in September.
One of the vessels, much damaged by stress of weather, took refuge in an Irish
port.  When the others returned we do not know, nor do we hear anything more
of John Cabot.  It is probable that he sailed as commander of the expedition,
and it has been supposed that he may have died upon the voyage, leaving the
command to his son Sebastian.  It has further been supposed, on extremely
slight evidence, that Sebastian may have conducted a third voyage in 1501 or
1503.

[Footnote 2: The letter is given in Harrisse, p. 322.]

     Sebastian Cabot married a Spanish lady, and seems to have gone to Spain
soon after the death of Henry VII. ^1 He entered the service of Ferdinand of
Aragon October 20, 1512.  In 1518 Charles V. appointed him Pilot Major of
Spain; we shall presently find him at the congress of Badajoz in 1524; from
1526 to 1530 he was engaged in a disastrous expedition to the river La Plata,
and on his return he was thrown into prison because of complaints urged
against him by his mutinous crews. The Council of the Indies condemned him to
two years of exile at Oran in Africa, ^2 but the emperor seems to have
remitted the sentence as unjust, and presently he returned to the discharge of
his duties as Pilot Major. In 1548 he left the service of Spain and went back
to England, where he was appointed governor of a company of merchants,
organized for the purpose of discovering a northeast passage to China. ^3 This
enterprise opened a trade between England and Russia by way of the White Sea;
and in 1556 the Muscovy Company received its charter, and Sebastian Cabot was
appointed its governor.  He seems to have died in London in 1557, or soon
afterwards.

[Footnote 1: Peter Martyr, dec. iii. lib. vi. fol. 55.]

[Footnote 2: Navarrete, Biblioteca maritima, tom. ii. p. 699.]

[Footnote 3: Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., vol. iii. p. 6.]

     The life of the younger Cabot thus extended over the whole of the period
during which Europeans were gradually awakening to the astounding fact that
the western coasts of the Atlantic were not the coasts of Asia, but of a new
continent, the existence of which had never been suspected by any human being,
except in the unheeded guess of Strabo cited in a previous chapter.  The sixty
years following 1497 saw new geographical facts accumulate much faster than
geographical theory could interpret them, as the series of old maps reproduced
in the present volume will abundantly show.  By the end of that time the
revolution in knowledge had become so tremendous, and men were carried so far
away from the old point of view, that their minds grew confused as to the
earlier stages by which the change had been effected.  Hence the views and
purposes ascribed to the Cabots by writers in the middle of the sixteenth
century have served only to perplex the subject in the minds of later
historians.  In Ramusio's collection of voyages an anonymous writer puts into
the mouth of Sebastian Cabot more or less autobiographical narrative, in which
there are almost as many blunders as lines.  In this narrative the death of
John Cabot is placed before 1496, and Sebastian is said to have conducted the
first voyage in that year.  It thus happened that until quite recently the
discovery of the continent of North America was attributed to the son, while
the father was wellnigh forgotten.  It is to Ramusio's narrator, moreover,
that we owe the ridiculous statement - repeated by almost every historian from
that day to this - that the purpose of the voyage of 1498 was the discovery of
a "northwest passage" to the coast of Asia!  As I shall hereafter show, the
idea of a northwest passage through or around what we call America to the
coast of Asia did not spring up in men's minds until after 1522, and it was
one of the consequences of the voyage of Magellan.  There is no reason for
supposing that Sebastian Cabot in 1498 suspected that the coast before him was
anything but that of Asia, and it does not appear that he contributed anything
toward the discovery of the fact that the newly found lands were part of a new
continent, though he lived long enough to become familiar with that fact, as
gradually revealed through the voyages of other navigators.

[Footnote 1: Ramusio, Raccolta di Navigationi e Viaggi, Venice, 1550 tom. i.]

     The slight contemporary mention, which is all that we have of the voyages
of the Cabots in 1497 and 1498, does not enable us to determine with precision
the parts of the North American coast that were visited. We know that a chart
of the first voyage was made, for both the Spanish envoys, Puebla and Ayala,
writing between August 24, 1497, and July 25, 1498, mentioned having seen such
a chart, and from an inspection of it they concluded that the distance run did
not exceed 400 leagues.  The Venetian merchant, Pasqualigo, gave the distance
more correctly as 700 leagues, and added that Cabot followed the coast of the
"territory of the Grand Khan" for 300 leagues, and in returning saw two
islands to starboard.  An early tradition fixed upon the coast of Labrador as
the region first visited, and until lately this has been the prevailing
opinion.

     The chart seen by the Spanish ministers in London is unfortunately lost.
But a map engraved in Germany or Flanders in 1544 or later, and said to be
after a drawing by Sebastian Cabot, ^1 has at the north of what we call the
island of Cape Breton the legend "prima tierra vista," i.e.  "first land
seen;" and in this connection there is a marginal inscription, Spanish and
Latin, saying: - "This country was discovered by John Cabot, a Venetian, and
Sebastian Cabot, his son, in the year of our Saviour Jesus Christ M. CCCC.
XCIIII ^2 on the 24th of June in the morning, which country they called prima
tierra vista, and a large island near by they named St. John because they
discovered it on the same day." Starting from this information it has been
supposed that the navigators, passing this St. John, which we call Prince
Edward island, coasted around the gulf of St. Lawrence and passed out through
the strait of Belle Isle. The two islands seen on the starboard would then be
points on the northern coast of Newfoundland, and a considerable part of
Pasqualigo's 300 leagues of coasting would thus be accounted for.  But
inasmuch as the Matthew had returned to Bristol by the first of August, it may
be doubted whether so long a route could have been traversed within five
weeks.

[Footnote 1: It was discovered in 1843 in the house of a clergyman in Bavaria,
and is now in the National Library at Paris.  There is a beautiful facsimile
of it in colours in Harrisse's Jean et Sebastien Cabot, and it is described by
M. d'Avezac, Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie, 1857, 4 ^e serie, tom. xiv.
pp. 268-270.]

[Footnote 2: This date is wrong.  The first two letters after XC should be
joined together at the bottom, making a V.]