“The Venetian, our countryman, who went with a ship from Bristol to search for a new island, is returned, and says that seven hundred leagues from here he discovered firm land (Terra ferma), the territory of the Grand Khan. He coasted for three hundred leagues and landed; saw no human beings, but he has brought here to the king certain snares which had been set to catch game, and a needle for making nets; he also found some felled trees, by which he judged there were inhabitants. He returned to his ship in doubt, and he was three months on the voyage, and on his return saw two islands to starboard, but would not land, time being precious, as he was short of provisions. This has greatly pleased the king. He [Caboto] says that the tides are slack there and do not flow as they do here.
“The king has promised him, in the spring, ten ships, armed to his order, and at his request has conceded him all the prisoners, except those confined for high treason, to man his fleet. The king has also given him money with which he may amuse himself until that time, and he is now in Bristol with his sons and his wife, who is also a Venetian.[238] His name is Juam Talbot and he is called the great admiral. Great honor is paid him; he dresses in silk, and these English run after him like insane people, so that he can enlist as many of them as he pleases, and a number of our own rogues besides.
“The discoverer of these places planted on this newly found land a large cross, with one flag of England and another of Saint Mark, on account of his being a Venetian, so that our banner has floated very far afield.”[239]
Raimondo di Soncino, the minister of the duke of Milan, at the court of England, in a letter, written on the twenty-fourth of August, 1497, also speaks of the return of Caboto, saying that he “found two very large and fertile islands, having likewise discovered the Seven Cities, four hundred leagues from England, on the western passage. This next spring his majesty intends to send him with fifteen or twenty ships.”[240]
The discovery of the two islands mentioned by Soncino is spoken of in two inscriptions placed on a large map of the world, preserved in the National library in Paris. The Spanish inscription reads: “This land was discovered by Ioan Caboto, a Venetian, and by Sebastian Caboto, his son, in the year of the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, M.CCCC. xciiii [M.CCCC. xcvii?], on the twenty-fourth of June, in the morning, to which they gave the name, Prima tierra vista (First land seen), and to a large island, which is by the said land, they gave the name of Sant Joan (Saint John), because it was discovered the same day.”[241]
A copy of a part of a map of the world in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, known as the Cabot map of 1544. (The original is about one-third larger than this copy.)
The map, on the margin of which this inscription appears, seems to be a copy of one made by Sebastiano Caboto, in 1544, if the following statement of another Spanish inscription placed on the chart be true: “Sebastian Caboto, captain and chief pilot of his sacred christian catholic majesty, the emperor, Charles V. of that name, and king, our sovereign, made this large planisphere, in the year of the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, 1544, drawn with degrees of latitude and longitude, and with winds like a marine chart, copying in part the maps of Ptolemy, and in part those of the modern discoverers, Spaniards as well as Portuguese, and in part those made by his father and by him.”[242]
As will be seen on the map, the inscription Prima tierra uista is placed opposite the tract of land on the forty-eighth parallel of north latitude, now known as Cape Breton Island. Evidently to obviate a misconception respecting the situation of the land first described, the words prima uista (first seen) are inscribed on the peninsula to which the former inscription directs the eye. On this map also is seen a large island, lying northwest of the land of Prima Vista, bearing the name, Yᵃ de S. Juan (Island of St. John).