Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius. This patent is interesting as the earliest surviving document which connects England with the New World. It gave the patentees full authority to sail with five ships under the royal ensign, and to set up the royal banner on any newly-found land, as the vassals and lieutenants of the king. They were bound on their return to sail to Bristol and to pay a royalty of one-fifth upon all clear gain. The direction of the voyage, the cargo and size of the ships, and the mode of dealing with the natives, are all left to the discretion of the commander. The first voyage. Of the details of the voyage itself, so full of interest for every Englishman, we have but the scantiest knowledge. In this respect the fame of Sebastian Cabot has fared far worse than that of the great discoverer with whom alone he . may be compared. We can trace Columbus through every stage of his enterprise. We seem to stand by the side of the great admiral in his difficulties, his fears, his hopes, his victory. We can almost fancy that we are sharing in his triumph when at last he sails on that mission whose end he saw but in a glass darkly, victorious over the intrigues of courtiers, the avarice of princes, and the blindness of mere worldly wisdom. Our hearts once more sink as the cowardice of his followers threatens to undo all; the prize that had seemed won is again in danger. We feel all the intensity of suspense as night after night land is promised and the morning brings it not. When at length the goal is reached, we can almost trick ourselves with the belief that we have a part in that glory, and are of that generation by whom and for whom that mighty work was wrought. No such halo of romantic splendor surrounds the first voyage of Sebastian Cabot. A meagre extract from an old Bristol record: "In the year 1497, June 24, on St. John's Day, was Newfoundland found by Bristol men, in the ship called the 'Matthew'"-a few dry statements such as might be found in the note-book of any intelligent sea-captain -these are all the traces of the first English voyage which reached the New World. We read in an account, probably published under the eye of Cabot himself, that on June 24, at five o'clock in the morning, he discovered that land which no man before that time had attempted, and named it Prima Vista. An adjacent island was called St. John, in commemoration of the day. A few statements about the habits of the natives and the character of the soil, and the fisheries, make up the whole story CABOT'S SECOND VOYAGE. 25 We may perhaps infer that Cabot meant this as a report on the fitness of the place for trade and fishing, knowing that these were the points which would excite most interest in England. One entry from the privy purse expenses of Henry VII., " 10l. to hym that found the new isle," is the only other record that remains to us. Columbus was received in solemn state by the sovereigns of Aragon and Castile, and was welcomed by a crowd greater than the streets of Barcelona could hold. Cabot was paid ten pounds. The dramatic splendor of the one reception, the prosaic, mercantile character of the other, represent the different tempers in which Spain and England approached the task of American discovery. But though our own annals give us so scanty an account of the reception of the two Cabots, the want is to some extent supplied from a foreign source. Letters are extant from the Venetian ambassador, in which he describes with just pride the enthusiasm with which his countryman was received by the people when he walked along the streets. The next year saw Cabot again sailing with a fresh patent. Several points in it are worthy of notice. John Cabot is alone mentioned by name. From this it might be, and, Second patent. indeed, has been inferred that the part played by Sebastian Cabot in the first voyage was merely secondary, and that John was the principal conductor of the first voyage, as he was by the patent designated to be of the second. He is authorized in person or by deputy to take six English ships of not more than two hundred tons burden each, and to lead them to the land which he had lately discovered. There is no limitation, either of departure or return to Bristol, and no mention is made of royalties. Probably the original provisions were still regarded as binding, except so far as rescinded or modified by the second patent. Sebastian In 1498 Sebastian Cabot sailed from Bristol with one vessel manned and victualed at the king's expense, accompanied by three ships of London and probably some of Bristol Cabot's itself. His cargo consisted of " grosse and sleighte wares," for trafficking with the natives. So scanty are the records of Cabot's two expeditions, that, although we have the geographical extent of his discoveries, yet it is impossible to second voyage. 1 Bacon's Life of Henry VII., published in Messrs. Ellis and Spedding's edition of Bacon's works, vi. p. 179, London, 1857. assign to each voyage its proper share. We know that in one or other of them he reached sixty-seven and a half degrees of north latitude and persuaded himself that he had found the passage to Cathay. The fears, however, of his sailors, justified, perhaps, by the dangers of the north seas, withheld him from following up the the enterprise. He then turned southward and coasted till he came into the latitude of thirty-eight. Of the result of the second voyage, and of Sebastian Cabot's reception in England, we hear nothing. He disappears for a while from English history, carrying with him the unfulfilled hope of a Northwest passage, destined to revive at a later day, and then to give birth to some of the most daring exploits that have ever ennobled the names of Englishmen. 1501. There may have been various causes beside lack of enterprise to withhold Henry VII. and his subjects from adventures and Patents of discoveries in the direction of America. The bull of Alexander VI. could not fail to have some effect with a nation which had not yet cast off its allegiance to the Papacy, and the importance of the Spanish alliance may have made the king chary of encroaching on the treasures of the New World. Still, he did not altogether neglect American discoveries. In the next seven or eight years we find scattered intimations that voyages were made, though of their circumstances we know nothing. We find a patent granted to three Englishmen, Thomas Ashurst, Richard Warde, and John Thomas, and three Portuguese, John Gonsalo and John and Francis Fernando, bearing date March, 1501. The social position of the patentees may be in some measure inferred from the fact that we find John Fernando twelve years later in the English navy commanding a ship with a crew of a hundred men against France.1 Eliot, who appears as one of the patentees in a like document a little later, is mentioned twice in the State Papers as belonging to the retinue of the deputy of Calais.2 In the first entry he is called a draper; in the second a merchant or draper. The explorers of that day seem to have been substantial merchants or shipmasters; not, like Gilbert or Raleigh, or the other voyagers of seventy years later, members of the landed aristocracy, nor needy adventurers like Pizarro and Cortez. The patent of 1501 is much more ample than either of those granted to John Cabot.3 Full Calendar of State Papers, Henry VIII., edited by Mr. Brewer, i. 4535. Ib. 3919, 5388. The patent was discovered by Mr. Biddle among the Archives, and is published in an appendix to his Memoirs of Sebastian Cabot. VOYAGES ABOUT 1500. 27 power is given to the patentees to explore and appropriate all districts not yet discovered by Christians. No limitation is placed on the number or tonnage of their vessels. All English subjects are to have full right of settlement in the lands to be discovered. The patentees are allowed, if necessary, to defend their territory from encroachment by arms. The office of admiral, with the full powers appertaining to it, is vested in them. The three Portuguese and their descendants are admitted to the rights of subjects, with the important reservation that they are still to pay alien duties. The patentees are empowered to punish offenders, and special mention is made of any attacks on the virtue of the native women. Indeed, the whole character of the patent seems to speak of a time in which the dangers of intercourse with barbarous countries were to some extent understood. A monopoly of trade for ten years is secured to the patentees, and in consideration of the expense of the adventure, they are at liberty to import one ship's cargo of goods duty free for four years. All infringement of the monopoly was to be punished by a forfeiture of goods, one-half to go to the Crown and one-half to the patentees. The tariff for carriage of goods is fixed. English merchants were allowed to carry imports to England, paying, besides the ordinary customs, one-twentieth to the patentees. To enforce this the patentees were to have representatives to inspect the unloading of such ships. The permission to carry goods at all was restricted to the subjects of the English Crown, and any aliens attempting even to land in the newly-discovered territory, without leave of the patentees, might be expelled, or detained and punished by the patentees at their discretion. It is worthy of notice that in the original draft of the patent a special provision is inserted guarding against any claim which might be advanced by foreigners on the strength of concessions made by the king under the grand seal. This clause, inserted in the original draft of the patent, was struck out before it was finally granted. It is not unlikely that this provision may refer to Cabot, and that a dispute arising out of his claims may have been the cause of his sudden disappearance. In the December of the same year we find another patent, in favor of Hugh Eliot and Thomas Ashurst, merchants of Bristol, and John Gonsalo and Francis Fernando, esquires. This patent The patent is given in Rymer, xiii, 37. Second differs from the first in various points, some of considerable im portance. A provision is inserted that no previous grant which had not yet been acted upon should be allowed to interfere with the proceedings of the present patentees, and a special clause is added revoking the patent of the previous year. The provision which limits the discovery of lands yet undiscovered is omitted, but a special reservation is inserted in favor of the King of Portugal. The monopoly of trade is extended from ten to forty years, and the patentees are allowed to import in one vessel, duty free for fifteen years, and in one vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, duty free for five years. The foreigners are by this patent placed on exactly the same footing as the English subjects, without any of the commercial restraints imposed by the earlier instrument. Altogether, it does not seem rash to infer that the provisions of the first patent had been found too irksome, and that more favorable terms were granted, with the hope of tempting the patentees into a voyage. That a voyage, if not voyages, was made about this time cannot be doubted. We read in a letter from Robert Thorne, a Voyages London merchant, written in 1527, that his father about 1500. and Hugh Eliot "discovered the Newfoundland, and that had they followed their pilot's mind, the lands of the West Indies had been ours."1 Traces of such voyages are to be found in the records of the time which still exist. We read in the king's privy purse accounts such entries as these:— 17th November, 1503. To one that brought hawkes from the Newfoundland isle, 17. 8th April, 1504. To a preste that goeth to the islande, 27. 25th August, 1505. To Clay's going to Richmond with wyld catts and popyngays of the new found island, for his costs 13s. 4d. To Portugales that brought popyngais and catts of the mountayne, with the stuff, to the king's grace, 51.a Savages, we are told, were seen in London in 1502; probably brought over in one of these voyages.3 1 Hakluyt, i, 243. This may possibly refer to Cabot's voyage. Extract from the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VII., made by Mr. Biddle, p. 234. "This yeere [1502) were brought into the king, taken in ye Newfoundland by Sebastian Gaboti before named in anno 1498. These men were clothed in beasts' skins, and eate raw flesh, but spake such a language as no man could understand, of the which three men, two of them were seen in the king's court at Westminster two yeeres after. They were clothed like Englishmen, and could not be discerned from Englishmen."-Stow's Chronicle, edited by Howe, 1631, p. 483. It is improbable that if these men had been brought over by Cabot in 1498 as Stow supposes, and still retained their nature, customs, and language four years later, two years could afterwards have made so great a change in them. |