Reginald W. Jeffery - The History of the Thirteen Colonies of North America - 1497-1763 (Illustrated)

History of Henry VII. , refers to Cabot's now celebrated voyage. "There was one Sebastian Gabato, a Venetian living in Bristow, a man seen and expert in cosmography and navigation. This man seeing the success and emulating perhaps the enterprise of Christopherus Columbus in that fortunate discovery towards the south-west, which had been by him made some six years before, conceited with himself that lands might likewise be discovered towards the north-west. And surely it may be that he had more firm and pregnant conjectures of it than Columbus had of his at the first. For the two great islands of the Old and New World, being in the shape and making of them broad towards the north and pointed towards the south, it is likely that the discovery just began where the lands did meet. And there had been before that time a discovery of some lands which they took to be islands, and were indeed of America towards the north-west." 3Bacon is here calling attention to what has since become the great controversial question of whether or not the Norsemen discovered the American continent in the eleventh century. It is very improbable that the Cabots knew anything of this tradition; and this voyage was solely the outcome of the discoveries of Columbus. Their object is definitely stated to have been a "great desire to traffique for the spices as the Portingals did." 4It is a remarkable fact that very little is known of this voyage, and there are practically no English records available in which to find the history of so great an event. A Bristol book contains this terse mention of the exploring expedition: "In the year 1497, the 24th of June, on St John's day, was Newfoundland found by Bristol men in a ship called the Mathew ." 5Carrying out the commands of the charter, John Cabot and his son planted the English standard upon American soil, but they did little besides: no explorations were made into the interior; they were completely satisfied with the all-important fact of discovery. As a proof of their success, Sebastian Cabot brought back three Indians "in their demeanour like to bruite beastes," but who seem to have settled down and taken up English customs, for Robert Fabian says, "of the which upon two yeeres after, I saw two apparelled after the maner of Englishmen in Westminster pallace, which that time I could not discerne from Englishmen." 6

The restless ambition of the Cabots incited them to a further voyage in February 1498, the charter on this occasion being granted only to the father. They again started from Bristol, and sailed along the North American coasts from the ice-bound shores of Newfoundland 7to the sunny Carolinas or Florida. The younger Cabot afterwards wrote that he sailed "unto the Latitude of 67 degrees and a halfe under the North Pole ... finding still the open Sea without any maner of impediment, he thought verily by that way to have passed on still the way to Cathaia which is in the East." 8This voyage is recorded by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and was frequently quoted as a reason for England's claim to North America. "The countreys lying north of Florida, God hath reserved the same to be reduced unto Christian civility by the English nation. For not long after that Christopher Columbus had discovered the Islands and continent of the West Indies for Spaine, John and Sebastian Cabot made discovery also of the rest from Florida northwards to the behoofe of England." 9The Cabots disappear from English history for a time and there are no records of the reception of this voyage. It was undoubtedly of twofold importance; it started that "will o' the wisp" of the North-West Passage, that led so many men to risk and lose their lives; and it may also be regarded as the foundation-stone of the English power in the West.

The next few years of the history of the exploration of America is filled with the records of Spaniards, Italians, and Frenchmen. The voyage of the Bristol merchants by which North America had just been discovered had no effect, and awakened no enthusiasm in the hearts of the English during the early portion of the sixteenth century. Henry VII. and his more adventurous son were both such severe and orthodox Catholics that they hesitated to trespass upon the limitations laid down by the bull of Alexander VI., by which everything on the western side of an imaginary line between the forty-first and forty-fourth meridians west of Greenwich belonged to Spain; while the Brazil coast, the East Indies, and Africa south of the Canary Islands fell to Portugal. Between 1500 and 1550 only two true voyages of discovery have been chronicled. The first was in 1527, when a canon of St Paul's, erroneously named Albert de Prado, sailed with two ships in search of the Indies. It is probable that this was the voyage of John Rut of the Royal Navy, with whom, there is reason to suppose, a Spaniard, called Albert de Prado, sailed. They failed to make any real discoveries, but brought back a cargo of fish from the inhospitable shores of Newfoundland and Labrador. The second voyage was that of Master Hore, in 1536, who, it is supposed, set out in the spirit of a Crusader, but who was more probably a briefless barrister accompanied by "many gentlemen of the Innes of Court and of the Chancery." 10They were shipwrecked on the Newfoundland coast, where, as none of them knew how to fish, and although Hore told them they would go to unquenchable fire, they began to eat one another. "On the fieldes and deserts here and there, the fellowe killed his mate, while he stooped to take up a roote for his reliefe, and cutting out pieces of his bodie whom he had murthered, broyled the same on the coles and greedily devoured them." 11Luckily for the remainder, a French ship was blown into the harbour, and they seized her with all the food she had on board, sailing home in safety, leaving the French sailors to a horrible fate, which they seemed to have escaped; for "certaine moneths after, those Frenchmen came into England and made complaint to King Henry the 8: the king ... was so mooved with pitie, that he punished not his subjects, but of his owne purse made full and royale recompense unto the French." 12

The two voyages here set forth are the only ones that are actually recorded, but there is reason for supposing that English ships were quite familiar with the coast of what was afterwards called Maine. Between 1501 and 1510 there are many scattered intimations of English voyages; and one patent in particular, in the first year of the sixteenth century, shows that men of some importance were granted leave to sail and discover in the West. In 1503 a man brought hawks from Newfoundland to Henry VII.; and in the next year a priest is paid £2 to go to the same island. In or about the eighth year of Henry VIII., Sebastian Cabot was again in the employ of the English and in command of an expedition to Brazil, which only failed owing to "the cowardise and want of stomack" of his partner, Sir Thomas Pert. 13It is evident from the first Act of Parliament relating to America, passed in 1541, that the Newfoundland fishery was carried on by Devonshire fishermen almost continuously from the discovery of the island; and the Act of 1548, prohibiting the exaction of dues, shows "that the trade out of England to Newfoundland was common." 14Anthony Parkhurst corroborates this fact in a letter to Richard Hakluyt in 1578, in which he says, "The Englishmen, who commonly are lords of the harbors where they fish, and do use all strangers helpe in fishing if need require, according to an old custome of the countrey." 15It may, therefore, be inferred that the growth of the Newfoundland fisheries, together with the increasing knowledge of the country and its products, helped to suggest to the Englishmen of the period the possibilities of future colonisation.

The great voyager Sebastian Cabot returned to England in 1548 from his sojourn in Spain. Under the patronage of Charles V. he had made several voyages, including one of particular importance to the Rio de la Plata. On his arrival in England he was rewarded by Edward VI. with a pension of £166, 13s. 4d., as a slight evidence of that king's appreciation of his manifold services. Old man though he was, his mind still ran on the discovery of a North-West, or North-East Passage to the Indies, and he became the governor of a company of merchant adventurers for the discovery of regions beyond the sea. He did not participate in any of these discoveries, "because there are nowe many yong and lustie Pilots and Mariners of good experience, by whose forwardnesse I doe rejoyce in the fruit of my labours and rest with the charge of this office." 16Amongst the young and lusty pilots were Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor, who turned their attentions to a North-East passage. The former died on his vessel in the midst of the ice floes in 1553, while the latter succeeded in reaching Archangel, and so brought about, through a successor, Anthony Jenkinson, the foundation of the Muscovy Company.

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