“Cabotto himself called these regions Baccallaos (Baccallaos Cabottus ipse terras illas appellavit), because in the sea there he found great shoals of certain large fish resembling tunnies, which name was given them by the natives.[254] These fish were so numerous that sometimes they retarded the progress of his ships. He found the people of these regions covered only with skins, but the natives were not wholly destitute of reason. He also relates that in these regions there is a great number of bears which eat fish. They plunge into the water where they see a shoal of fish and fasten their claws between the scales of the fish, and in this way convey them to the shore, where they devour them. The hunger of the bears being appeased, they do not annoy men. He declares further that in many places he saw copper (orichalcum) among the natives.”[255]
Gomara, the Spanish historian, says: “But he who made this land more widely known was Sebastian Gaboto, a Venetian.[256] He equipped two ships in England (he having been taken there when he was little), (do tratava desde pequeño,) at the cost of King Henry VII., who desired the trade in spices the same as the king of Portugal. Others say at his own expense, and that he promised King Henry to go by the north to Cathay, and to bring spices there in less time than the Portuguese from the south. He also went to see if there was any land in the Indies on which a colony might be settled. He took three hundred men and steered a course by the way of Iceland, above the cape of Labrador, going as far as fifty-eight degrees, though he says much farther, stating that in the month of July it was so extremely cold and that there were so many icebergs floating in the sea, that he did not dare to go farther.... So Caboto, having inspected the cold and strange country, changed his course to the west, and returning again to the Baccalaos (los Baccalaos), he followed the coast as far as thirty-eight degrees, and then returned to England.”[257]
Galvano, the Portuguese historian, says that when Sebastiano Caboto returned from the north, he diminished “the altitude till he came to thirty-eight degrees, and from there returned to England. Others will have it that he went as far as the point of Florida, which is in twenty-five degrees.”[258]
In the discourse of Sir Humphrey Gilbert respecting “a new passage to Cataia,” it is said: “Furthermore, Sebastian Cabota by his personall experience, and trauell, hath set foorth, and described this passage, in his Charts, whiche are yet to be seene in the Queenes Maiesties priuie Gallerie, at Whitehall, who was sent to make this discoverie by King Henrie the seauenth, and entered the same fret: affirming, that he sailed very far westward, with a quater of the North, on the north side of Terra de Labrador[259] the eleuenth of June, vntil he came to the septentrional latitude of 67½ degrees and finding the seas still open said that he might, and would have gone to Cataia, if the mutinie of the Maister and Mariners had not ben.”[260]
It is further related that in the eighteenth year of the reign of King Henry VII.,[261] three Indians were brought to England from the islands discovered by Sebastiano Caboto: “Thys yeare, were brought vnto the Kyng three men taken in the new founde Ilands, by Sebastian Gabato, before named in Anno 1468, these men were clothed in Beastes skinnes, and eate raw Flesh, but spake such a language as no man could vnderstand them, of the which three men, two of them were seene in the Kings Court at Westminster two yeares after, clothed, like Englishmen, and could not bee discerned from Englishmen.”[262]
The field of the discoveries of Giovanni Caboto, represented on the map made by Juan de la Cosa, in 1500, and on the one of 1544, in the National library, in Paris, was apparently the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton Island[263] and of Nova Scotia. The part of the peninsula designated Prima Vista, (First Seen,) on the map of 1544, appears to be the same as that which on La Cosa’s chart is denominated Cavo de Inglaterra (Cape of England). The coast, from Cape Breton southwestward to the Bay of Fundy, the sea discovered for the English (mar descubierta por inglese),[264] is delineated by La Cosa with approximate accuracy.
The information given by Peter Martyr, Gomara, and Galvano respecting the voyage of Sebastiano Caboto, makes the fact evident that the latter sailed northwestwardly along the coast of Labrador almost to the sixtieth parallel, where he was so far to the west “that he had the island of Cuba on his left hand” and had nearly reached the longitude of the island. On his return, after running along the coast of Baccallaos, he sailed southward, but too far east of the mainland to see its coast, and reached the latitude of the thirty-eighth parallel; whence he steered for England. If Sebastiano Caboto had explored any part of the present coast of the United States he certainly would have imparted some information respecting its physical features, its inhabitants, its flora and fauna, to the inquisitive chroniclers of his age. The descriptions of the regions explored by him only apply to the more northern parts of the continent, represented on the map of 1544, to which territory was given the name La Tierra de los Bacallaos (Land of Codfish).[265] On the planisphere of 1544, the following statement is inscribed concerning the country discovered by Sebastiano Caboto. “The people wear clothes made of the skins of animals, use bows and arrows, lances, darts, knob-headed clubs, and slings in their wars. The country is very sterile. In it are many white bears, and deer as large as horses, and many other animals of the same class; also immense numbers of fish such as soles, salmon, very large lings, a yard in length, and many other kinds of fish, but the most numerous are those called bacallaos. In this country there are falcons as black as ravens, eagles, partridges, linnets, and many other birds of different kinds.”[266]
“This much concerning Sebastiano Gabotes discouerie may suffice for a present cast,” says Hakluyt, “but shortly, God willing, shall come out in print all his owne mappes and discourses, drawne and written by himselfe, which are in the custodie of the worshipfull master Williā Worthington, one of her Maiesties Pensioners who (because so worthie monumentes shoulde not be buried in perpetuall obliuion) is very willing to suffer them to be ouerseene and published in as good order as may bee, to the encouragement and benefite of our Countriemen.”[267] The English collector also remarks that “the map of Sebastiano Caboto cut by Clement Adams, concerning the discovery of the the West Indies, ... [is] to be seene in her Maiesties priuie gallerie at Westminster, and in many other anchient merchants houses.”[268]
Although three hundred years have passed since Hakluyt promised the early publication of Sebastiano Caboto’s maps and discourses, they are still covered with the pall of oblivion.[269]