The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

It is not my intention to wander over all the debatable ground of the Cabot voyages, where every circumstance bristles with conflicting theories. The original authorities are few and scanty, but mountains of hypotheses have been built upon them, and too often the suppositions of one writer have been the facts of a succeeding one. Step by step the learned students before alluded to have established certain propositions which appear to me to be true, and which I shall accept without further discussion. Among these I count the following:

1. That John Cabot was a Venetian, of Genoese birth, naturalized at Venice on March 28, 1476, after the customary fifteen years of residence, and that he subsequently settled in England with all his family.

2. That Sebastian, his second son, was born in Venice, and when very young was taken by his father to England with the rest of the family.

3. That on petition of John Cabot and his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancio, letters-patent of King Henry VII were issued, under date March 5, 1496, empowering them, at their own expense, to discover and take possession for England of new lands not before found by any Christian nation.

4. That John Cabot, accompanied perhaps by his son Sebastian, sailed from Bristol early in May, 1497. He discovered and landed upon some part of America between Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, and Cape Chidley, in Labrador; that he returned to Bristol before the end of July of the same year; that, whatever might have been the number of vessels which started, the discovery was made by John Cabot's own vessel, the Matthew of Bristol, with a crew of eighteen men.

5. That thereupon, and in consideration of this discovery made by John Cabot, King Henry VII granted new letters-patent, drawn solely to John Cabot, authorizing a second expedition on a more extended scale and with fuller royal authority, which letters-patent were dated February 3, 1498; that this expedition sailed in the spring of 1498, and had not returned in October. It consisted of several ships and about three hundred men. That John and Sebastian Cabot sailed on this voyage. When it returned is not known. From the time of sailing of this expedition John Cabot vanishes into the unknowable, and from thenceforth Sebastian alone appears in the historic record.

These points are now fully supported by satisfactory evidence, mostly documentary and contemporary. As for John Cabot, Sebastian said he died, which is one of the few undisputed facts in the discussion; but if Sebastian is correctly reported in Ramusio to have said that he died at the time when the news of Columbus' discoveries reached England, then Sebastian Cabot told an untruth, because the letters-patent of 1498 were addressed to John Cabot alone. The son had a gift of reticence concerning others, including his father and brothers, which in these latter days has been the cause of much wearisome research to scholars. To avoid further discussion of the preceding points is, however, a great gain.

From among the numerous opinions concerning the landfall of John Cabot three theories emerge which may be seriously entertained, all three being supported by evidence of much weight: 1. That it was in Newfoundland. 2. That it was on the Labrador coast. 3. That it was on the island of Cape Breton.

Until a comparatively recent period it was universally held by English writers that Newfoundland was the part of North America first seen by Cabot. The name "Newfoundland" lends itself to this view; for in the letters-patent of 1498 the expression "Londe and iles of late founde," and the wording of the award recorded in the King's privy-purse accounts, August 10, 1497, "To hym that founde the new ile £I0," seem naturally to suggest the island of Newfoundland of our day; and this impression is strengthened by reading the old authors, who spell it, as Richard Whitbourne in 1588, "New-found-land," in three words with connecting hyphens, and often with the definite article, "The Newe-found-land." A cursory reading of the whole literature of American discovery before 1831 would suggest that idea, and some writers of the present day still maintain it. Authors of other nationalities have, however, always disputed it, and have pushed the English discoveries far north to Labrador, and even to Greenland. Champlain, who read and studied everything relating to his profession, concedes to the English the coast of Labrador north of 56° and the regions about Davis Straits; and the maps, which for a long period, with a few notable exceptions, were made only by Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians, bear out Champlain's remonstrances. It seems, moreover, on a cursory consideration of the maps, probable that a vessel on a westerly course passing south of Ireland should strike somewhere on the coast of Newfoundland about Cape Bonavista, and, Cabot being an Italian, that very place suggests itself by its name as his probable landfall. The English, who for the most part have had their greatness thrust upon them by circumstances, neglected Cabot's discoveries for fifty years, and during that time the French and Portuguese took possession of the whole region and named all the coasts; then, when the troubled reign of Henry VIII was over, the English people began to wake up, and in fact rediscovered Cabot and his voyages. A careful study, however, of the subject will be likely to lead to the rejection of the Newfoundland landfall, plausible as it may at first sight appear.