to that time regarded himself as the legal proprietor of all the real estate in Christendom, issued a bull,[1] the material parts of which are still extant, granting the new territory to Spain.
It is interesting to note how all the great plans and projects of the period tended and verged to one point. There was a Venetian merchant living in Bristol, England, who had paid particular attention to science, and who had long housed in his heart a scheme of going to Cathay by the north. It was John Cabot. He was incited to active effort by the prospect of obtaining spices and other valuable articles of trade independent of haughty Venice. His son Sebastian, then a promising youth about nineteen years of age,[2] was, like his sire, stimulated by the fame of Columbus, and anxious to attempt some notable thing. He was a scholar, had been thoroughly drilled in mathematics, astronomy, and the art of navigation, and accompanied the elder Cabot to the Court of Henry VII., in order to obtain the royal consent to their proposed researches. Henry is well known to have been one of the most penurious monarchs who ever sat upon a throne. He listened graciously, and, upon condition that the whole enterprise should be conducted at their own private expense, issued a patent guaranteeing protection and privileges. But he cunningly reserved to himself one fifth of the profits.[3]
The Cabots first steered directly for Iceland, where they stopped for a few days. For some years a steady and profitable commerce had been carried on between Bristol and that country. Iceland, although the heroic age of the Northmen had long since passed, was pretty well peopled, and its inhabitants had many wants which their northern land was unable to supply. The English sold them cloth, corn, wheat, wines, etc., and took fish, chiefly cod, in exchange. Some of the Norwegian authors say that in April, 1419, a heavy snow-storm destroyed more than
- ↑ Vattel's Law of Nations, Book I. Chap. 18.
- ↑ Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen, Vol II. p. 445.
- ↑ It is a mooted question whether John Cabot, the father, was the leader of the expedition in 1497. Sebastian Cabot lived for more than sixty years afterwards, and became a celebrated personage; his fame so far eclipsed that of his father as to cause much to be accredited to him that his father actually performed. But his extreme youth and inexperience at that time would hardly induce the belief that the shrewd Henry YII. would intrust him with such an important command. The Venetian ambassador’s letters of 1497, preserved in the Sforza archives of Milan, furnish direct evidence in favor of the father. (Pasqualigo’s Letter, August 23, 1497.) M. d’Avezac, an able French writer, has found what he esteems sufficient proof to establish the fact that the Cabots’ first voyage was made in 1494, when they only saw land; the second in 1497, when they navigated three hundred leagues along the coast; the third in 1498, by Sebastian alone; and the fourth in 1517. M. d’Avezac to Leonard Woods, dated Paris, December 15, 1868, in Doc. Hist. Maine; by Willis. But the evidence of any voyage in 1494 is so slight that all allusion to it is omitted in the body of this work.
