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months before Columbus, on his third voyage, came 1498. in sight of the main land; and almost two years 1499. before Amerigo Vespucci sailed west of the Canaries. But England acquired through their energy such a right to North America, as this indisputable priority could confer. Henry VII. and his successors recognized the claims of Spain and Portugal, only so far as they actually occupied the territories to which they laid pretension; and, at a later date, the English parliament and the English courts derided a title, founded, not upon occupancy, but upon a grant from the Roman pontiff.(1)

Confidence and zeal awakened; and Henry grew 1498. circumspect in the concession of rights, which now seemed about to become of immense value. A new patent (2) was issued to John Cabot, less ample in the privileges which it conferred; and his son Sebastian, a native of Bristol, a youthful adventurer of great benevolence and courtesy, daring in conception and patient in execution, a man whose active mind for more than half a century was employed in guiding the commercial enterprise which the nations of the west were developing, and whose extraordinary merits have been recently vindicated with ingenious and successful diligence, pursued the paths of discovery which he, with his father, had opened. A voyage was again undertaken; purposes of traffic were connected with it; and the frugal king was himself a partner (3) in the expenditure. The object of this new expedition was, in part, to explore "what manner of landes (4) those Indies were to inhabit:" and perhaps, also, a hope was entertained of reaching the rich empire of Cathay. Embarking in May, Sebastian Cabot, with a company of three hundred men, sailed for Labrador, by way of Iceland, and reached the continent in the latitude of fifty-eight degrees. The severity of the cold, the strangeness of the unknown land, and his declared pur

(1) Debates of the House of Commons, 1620 and 1621, i. 250, 251.

(2) Stow's Chronicle, 1498, in Hakluyt, iii. 30, 31. Memoir of Cabot, 75 and 80-86.

(3) Memoir of Seb. Cabot, 85.

(4) Peter Martyr, of Anghiera, d. iii. 1. vi. Also in Eden, fol. 124, 125, and in Hakluyt, v. 283, and Hakluyt, iii. 29, 30. Gomara, Historia de las Indias, c. xxxix. The passage is quoted in Eden and Willes, fol. 228, and less perfectly in Hakluyt, iii. 30. Herrera, d. i. 1. vi. c. xvi. is confused. Compare also the conversation in Ramusio, where we must suppose that. the narrator confounds this with the preceding voyage. Ramusio, i. fol, 403, or Eden and Willes, fol. 267. I am indebted for the use of Ramusio, and of many other valuable works, to E. Everett, of Charlestown.

pose of exploring the country, induced him to turn to the south; and, having proceeded along the shores of the United States to the southern boundary of Maryland,(1) or perhaps to the latitude of Albemarle Sound, (2) want of provisions hastened his return to England.

Curiosity desires to trace the further career of the great seaman, who, with his father, gave a continent to England. The maps which he sketched of his discoveries, and the accounts which he wrote of his adventures, have perished, and the history of the next years of his life is involved in obscurity. Yet it does not admit of a reasonable doubt,

that, perhaps in 1517,(3) after he had been in the em1517. ployment of Ferdinand of Spain, and before he received the appointment of Pilot-Major from Charles V., he sailed once more from England to discover the North-Western passage. The testimony respecting this expedition is confused and difficult of explanation; the circumstances which attended it are variously related, and are assigned to other and earlier voyages. A connected and probable account can be given only by comparing the evidence, and extracting the several incidents from different and contradictory narratives. Yet the main fact is indisputable; Sebastian Cabot passed through the straits and entered the bay, (4) which, after the lapse of nearly a century, took their name from Hudson. He himself wrote a "discourse of navigation," in which the entrance of the strait was laid down with great precision on a card, drawn by his, own hand."(5) He boldly prosecuted his design, making his way through regions, into which it was, long afterwards, esteemed an act of the most intrepid maritime adventure to penetrate, till, on June the eleventh, as we are informed from a letter written by the navigator himself, he had attained the altitude of sixty-seven and a half

1) Gomara. Treinta i ocho Grados.

66

(2) Peter Martyr. Ut. Herculei freti latitudinis fere gradus equarit, &c. (3) See Eden, in Mem. of Cabot, 102, and Thorne's letter, ib. 103. Compare chaps xiii. xiv. and xv. of the Memoir. The account in Hakluyt, iii. 591, 592, may give the date of the voyage correctly; but then there must be a gross mistake as to its destination. Peter Martyr, d. iii. c. v. merits regard. Expectat indies, ut navigia sibi parentur, quibus arcanum hoc naturæ latens jam tandem detegatur. Martis mense anni futuri MDXVI. puto ad explorandum discessurum. Failing to sail from Spain, Cabot went to England.

(4) Anderson was the first of the later writers to mention the fact. History of Commerce, An. 1496.

(5) Ortelius, Map of America in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Eden and Willes, fol. 223. Sir H. Gilbert, in Hakluyt, iii. 49, 50.

degrees, (1) ever in the hope of finding a passage into the Indian ocean. The sea was still open; but the cowardice of a naval officer, and the mutiny of the mariners, compelled him to return, though his own confidence in the possibility of effecting the passage remained unimpaired.

The career of Sebastian Cabot was in the issue as honourable, as it had in the opening been glorious. He conciliated universal regard by the placid mildness of his character. Without the stern enthusiasm of Columbus, he was distinguished by serene contentment. For nearly sixty years, during a period when marine adventure engaged the most intense public curiosity, he was reverenced for his achievements and his skill. He had attended the congress, (2) which assembled at Badajoz to divide the islands of the Moluccas between Portugal and Spain; he subsequently sailed to South America, under the auspices of Charles V., though not with entire success.(3) On his return to his native land, he advanced the commerce of England by opposing a mercantile monopoly, and was pensioned and rewarded for his merits as the

1526.

Great Seaman.(4) It was he who framed the instruc1549. tions for the expedition which discovered the passage to Archangel.(5) He lived to an extreme old age; and so

loved his profession to the last, that in the hour of 1553. death his wandering thoughts were upon the ocean.(6) The discoverer of the territory of our country was one of the most extraordinary men of his age: there is deep cause for regret, that time has spared so few memorials of his career. Himself incapable of jealousy, he did not escape detraction.(7) He gave England a continent, and no one knows his burial-place.

It was after long solicitations, that Columbus had obtained the opportunity of discovery. Upon the certainty of success, a throng of adventurers eagerly engaged in voyages, to explore the New World, or to plunder its inhabitants. The king of Portugal, grieved at having

(1) Discorso del Ramusio sopra il terzo volume, &c.

(2) Eden's Travayles, fol. 449.

Compare

(3) Eden's Travayles, fol. 226. Herrera, d. iii. 1. ix. c. iii. Herrera, d. iii. 1. x. c. i. near the close of the chapter. The Spaniard praises but sparingly the great navigator who had rendered more important services to England than to Spain.

(4) Hazard, i. 23. Memoir of Cabot, 185.

(5) Hakluyt, i. 251-255.

(6) Memoir of Cabot, 219.

Purchas's Pilgrims, i. 915.

(7) Peter Martyr, d. iii. 1. vi.; in Eden, fol. 125.

neglected Columbus, readily favoured an expedition for 1500. northern discovery. Gaspard Cortereal (1) was ap1501. pointed commander of the enterprise. He reached the shores of North America, ranged the coast for a distance of six or seven hundred miles, and carefully observed the country and its inhabitants. The most northern point (2) which he attained was probably about the fiftieth degree. Of the country along which he sailed, he had occasion to admire the brilliant freshness of the verdure, and the density of the stately forests. The pines, well adapted for masts and yards, promised to become an object of gainful commerce. But men were already with the Portuguese an established article of traffic; the inhabitants of the American coast seemed well fitted for labour; and Cortereal freighted his ships with more than fifty Indians, whom, on his return, he sold as slaves. It was soon resolved to renew the expedition; but the adventurer never returned. His death was ascribed to a combat with the natives, whom he desired to kidnap; the name of Labrador, transferred to a more northern coast, is, probably, a memorial of his crime; (3) and is, perhaps, the only permanent trace of Portuguese adventure within the limits of North America.

1504.

The French entered without delay into the competition for the commerce and the soil of America. Within seven years of the discovery of the continent, the fisheries of Newfoundland were known to the hardy mariners of Brittany and Normandy.(4) The island of Cape Breton acquired its name from their remembrance of home, and in France it was usual to esteem them the discoverers of the country.(5) A map of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence 1506. was drawn by Denys,(6) a citizen of Honfleur; and the fishermen of the north-west of France derived wealth

(1) See the leading document on the voyage of Cortereal, in a letter from Pietro Pasqualigo, Venetian ambassador in Portugal, written to his brother, October 19, 1501, in Paesi novamente ritrovati et Novo Mondo da Alberico Vesputio Florentino intitulato. L. vi. c. cxxv. The original and the French translation are both in the library of Harvard College.

(2) Herrera, d. i. l. vi. c. xvi. Gomara, c. xxxvii. Also in Eden, fol. 227. Galvano, in Hakluyt, iv. 419. Purchas, i. 915, 916. Memoir of Cabot, b. ii. c. iii. and iv.

(3) Memoir of Cabot, 242. Navarette, Viages Menores, iii. 43, 44.

(4) Charlevoix, Hist. Gen. de la Nouv. Fr. i. 3, edition of 1744, 4to.; Champlain's Voyages, i. 9. Navarette, &c. iii. 176-180, argues against the statement in the text. Compare Memoir of Cabot, 316.

(5) Verrazzani, in Hakluyt, iii. 363.

(6) Charlevoix, i. 3. and 4. Mémoire sur les Limites de l'Acadie, 104-a good historic outline.

from the regions, which, it was reluctantly confessed, had been first visited by the Cabots.

The fisheries had for some years been successfully pur1508. sued; savages from the north-eastern coast had 1518. been brought to France ;(1) plans of colonization in North America had been suggested by De Lery and Saint Just; (2) when at length Francis I., a monarch who had invited Da Vinci and Cellini to transplant the fine arts into his kingdom, employed John Verrazzani, another

1524.

Florentine, to explore the new regions, which had 1523. alike excited curiosity and hope. It was by way of the isle of Madeira, that the Italian, parting from a fleet which had cruised successfully along the shores of Spain, sailed for America, (3) with a single caravel, resolute to make discovery of new countries. The Dolphin, though it had "the good hap of a fortunate name," was overtaken by as terrible a tempest as mariners ever encountered; and fifty days elapsed before the continent appeared in view. At length, in the latitude of Wilmington, (4) Verrazzani could congratulate himself on beholding land which had never been seen by any European. But no convenient harbour was found, though the search extended fifty leagues to the south. Returning towards the north, he cast anchor on the coast; all the shore was shoal, but free from rocks, and covered with fine sand; the country was flat. It was the coast of North Carolina. Mutual was the wonder of the inquisitive foreigners, and the mild and feeble natives. The russet colour of the Indians seemed like the complexion of the Saracens; their dress was of skins; their ornaments garlands of feathers. They welcomed with hospitality the strangers whom they had not yet learned to fear. As the Dolphin ploughed its way to the north, the country seemed more inviting; it was thought that imagination could not conceive of more delightful fields and forests; the groves, redolent with fragrance, spread their perfumes far from the shore, and gave promise of the spices of the East. The mania of the times raged among the crew; in their eyes the colour of

(1) Charlevoix, N. F. i. 4.

(2) L'Escarbot, 21. Mémoire, &c. 104.

(3) See Verrazzani's letter to Francis I. from Dieppe, July 8, 1524, in Hakluyt, iii. 357-364, or in N. Y. Hist. Coll. i. 45--60. It is also in Ramusio. Compare Charlevoix, N. F. i. 5-8.

(4) S. Miller, in N. Y. Hist. Coll. i. 23. In the Libreria Strozziana in Florence, there is a copious manuscript account of Verrazzani's voyage and discoveries. Tiraboschi, vii. 261, 262.

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