The expedition, and others that followed, succeeded in opening up Russia and extending English trade across the Caspian Sea into Central Asia—to the jubilant delight of the organiser of them! Stephen Boroughs, who commanded the last of these expeditions (a little pinnace called the "Swiftsure") gives the following quaint picture of the Ancient Mariner, who came aboard the pinnace to see them off:—
"The goode olde gentleman, Master Cabota, gave to the poore most liberall almes, wishing them to praye for the good fortune and prosperous successe of the 'Serchthrift,' our pinnesse. And then, at the sign of the Christopher, he and his friends banketted, and made me and them that were in the companie great cheere; and, for very joy that he had to see the towardness of our intended discovery, he enter'd into the dance himself, amongst the rest of the younge and lusty company; which being ended, he and his friends departed, most gently commending us to the governance of Almighty God."
This is the last public appearance of Cabot of which we have any record. How long he lived, or where he died, is not known, and can only be inferred from the facts that his pension ceased to be drawn after 1557, and that Eden, who lived in London, was present at his deathbed.
The only literary relics of Cabot known to exist are the engraved map of 1544 and its facsimile. Of his other "remains," voluminous though they must have been, there is no trace. Hakluyt, writing of Cabot in 1582, says, "Shortly shall come out in print all his own mappes and discourses drawne and written by himselfe, which are in the custody of the Worshipful Master William Worthington." The publication was never made, and no one knows what has become of them. It is, however, strongly suspected that they found their way to Spain, through the instrumentality of the said "Master Worthington" (Cabot's associate in office), who seems to have been but indifferent honest. If this were so, there is hope that they are still in existence and may some day be restored.
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One relic we had of Cabot—the famous portrait, painted when he was an old man, and which in 1625, hung in the King's gallery at Whitehall. In 1792, this picture was presented to Charles J. Harford, Esquire, of Bristol, who discovered it while in Scotland; but, unfortunately for Bristolians, he sold it to Mr. John Biddle of Pittsburg, and it perished in the destruction of that gentleman's house by fire in 1848. Several copies exist in America, and an excellent engraving of the picture was made by Rawle of Bristol. Cabot is represented in his robe and chain as Governor of the Merchant Adventurers. There is also a painting of John Cabot and his three sons in the Ducal Palace, Venice.
Although the maps and charts of the Cabots are so far, lost to us whom they most concern, clear traces of them exist in the work of foreign cosmographers, and especially in the famous map of Juan de la Cosa, published in 1501, only three years after the voyage of John Cabot; where the row of British flags, commencing at the southern end with Mar descubierta por inglese, "sea discovered by the English;" and ending at the north with Cavo de ynglaterra, "Cape of England," mark unmistakably the discoveries of Cabot, and could have been obtained only from his map.
The most curious evidence, however, comes from none other than the supreme Pontiff himself, and testifies, not only to the fact of Cabot's discoveries, but also that he hailed from Bristol!