On December 9 (18), 1502, Henry VII. again granted letters patent to Thomas Ashehurst, Joam Gonzales, Francisco Fernandes and Hugh Elliott for a voyage of discovery to parts not hitherto found by English subjects. That this projected expedition took place in 1503 is possibly shown by an entry in the accounts of the King’s privy purse: “1503, Nov. 17. To one that brought hawkes from the Newfounded Island. 1.L.” [cf. Harrisse, 1882, p. 270].
It seems that it must be the same voyage to the north-west that is mentioned by Robert Thorne of Bristol in his letter of 1527 to Henry VIII.’s Ambassador in Spain. Thorne was then living in Seville, and was interested in Indian enterprises. He tries to induce Henry VIII. to send an expedition to the Indies by way of the Polar Sea, and sends with his project a rough copy he has had made of a Spanish mappamundi. He says that he has inherited the “inclination or desire of this discoverie” from his
“father, which with another marchant of Bristow named Hugh Eliot, were the discoverers of the New found lands, of the which there is no doubt, (as nowe plainely appeareth) if the mariners would then have bene ruled, and followed their Pilots minde, the lands of the West Indies (from whence all the gold commeth) had bene ours. For all is one coast, as by the Carde appeareth, and is aforesayd.”
On the map the northern east coast of America extends uninterruptedly to the north (see the reproduction), and upon it is written: “the new land called laboratorum,” and along the coast there is: “the land that was first discovered by the English.” It might appear as though it was really the present Labrador that was then discovered; but this is hardly the case; what we see on the map is probably Greenland,[328] which is here moved over to America as on other Spanish maps, and the east coast of which is given a northerly direction as on Ruysch’s map of 1508.
It is possible that another expedition set out in 1504; for in the accounts of the King’s privy purse we find an entry on April 8, 1504, of £2 “to a preste that goeth to the new Islande.” We see thus that there is a probability of many expeditions having left England for the west and north-west at this time, and that thus Greenland, Newfoundland, and doubtless also Labrador had been reached by the English; and this would explain their being recorded on Spanish maps as discoverers of the northern part of the east coast of America. But we have no further information about these voyages.
Just as we have seen that the note on Robert Thorne’s map of 1527 (that the English had discovered the northern part of the east coast of America) must probably refer to the expedition of 1501 or to one in the following year, so it is doubtless discoveries of the same voyages that are alluded to on Maggiolo’s compass-chart of 1511 (see reproduction, [p. 359]), where a peninsula to the north of Labrador is marked as “Terra de los Ingres” [the land of the English]. On later maps, such as Verrazano’s of 1529, Ribero’s of 1529 (see reproduction, [p. 357]), the Wolfenbüttel map of 1530, and others, Labrador is marked as having been discovered by the English, sometimes, indeed, with the addition that they came from Bristol. As already mentioned, no hint is to be found in trustworthy documents of Sebastian Cabot’s having taken part in these expeditions or having been in any way connected with them, and there is therefore no ground for assuming this. And the remarkable thing is that even his father’s name is not mentioned in connection with them, though it was so few years since he had sailed from the same port.
Accounts of a voyage of Sebastian Cabot in 1508-1509
We find, however, in various works of the sixteenth century records of voyages to northern or north-western waters, supposed to have been made by Sebastian Cabot; which may be due, directly or indirectly, to himself. Formerly there was a tendency to connect these statements with John Cabot’s voyages of 1497 and 1498 [cf. Harrisse], but this assumption seems to have little probability. G. P. Winship [1899, pp. 204, ff.], on the other hand, has pointed out with good reason that according to Sebastian Cabot’s own words the voyage was undertaken by himself in the years 1508-9; but even this appears to me uncertain; in any case I doubt that he reached America.
We hear of a voyage to the north-west said to have been undertaken by Sebastian Cabot from Peter Martyr (in his Decades, 1516), from the Venetian Minister to Spain, Contarini, especially in a report to the Venetian Senate in 1536, from Ramusio (1550-1554 and 1556), from Gomara (1553), and from Antonio Galvano (1563).[329]
We may expect the most trustworthy of these authorities to be Peter Martyr, who was the oldest, and who knew Sebastian Cabot personally; but certain main features of the voyage are to some extent common to all the accounts. If we compare these, the voyage is said to have taken place somewhat in the following manner: the expedition, consisting of two ships with three hundred men,[330] was according to Peter Martyr fitted out at Sebastian’s own cost, but according to Ramusio it was sent out by the King. They sailed so far to the north (according to Gomara, even in the direction of Iceland) that in the month of July they found enormous masses of ice floating on the sea; daylight was almost continuous, and the land was in places free of ice which had melted away. According to the various accounts Cabot is said to have reached 55°, 56°, 58°, or 60°.[331]