Encouraged by his success he then set out again with a larger expedition in 1501, after April 21, at which date he was still in Lisbon. This time the expenses were again borne by himself and his brother Miguel in partnership. According to the King’s letters patent of January 1502, he had three ships on this voyage, of which two returned. This does not agree with the letters of the two Italian Ministers, which distinctly say that he left with two ships. But these letters, it is true, do not mutually agree in their statements as to the ship that had returned: Pasqualigo says that the ship arrived at Lisbon on October 9 in one of his letters, on the 8th in the other, and that it brought seven natives; while Cantino says that the ship arrived on October 11 and brought fifty natives to the King. As Pasqualigo says that the other ship was expected daily with fifty natives, it has been thought (cf. Harrisse) that this was the ship referred to by Cantino; but in that case it is puzzling that two Ministers in the same city should have heard of two different ships, and that they should both be ignorant of more than one ship having arrived, although there was an interval of no more than two or three days between each ship’s arrival, and they are both writing a week after that time. Besides, both mention that the second ship, and only one, is expected, and Pasqualigo calls it the commander’s caravel (caravella capitania). We may readily suppose that it is the arrival of the same ship that is alluded to by the two Ministers (no importance need be attached to the discrepancy of dates, since we see that Pasqualigo alters the date of his ship’s arrival from one letter to the other). They may both have heard of fifty natives having been captured, of which they had seen some (seven, for instance); but while Cantino understood that the whole fifty had arrived, Pasqualigo thought that only the seven he had seen had come, while the other fifty were expected on the next ship. Considerable weight must be attached to the fact that in the legend on the Cantino map, which must evidently have been drawn from Portuguese documents, only one ship is mentioned as having returned. The chief difficulty is that this is in direct conflict with the King’s later letters patent to Miguel. We should then have to suppose that the statement in this document as to three ships having sailed and two returned is due to a clerical error or a lapse of memory, which may seem surprising. But the question is, after all, of minor importance. The main point is that Gaspar Corte-Real’s ship never returned.
In estimating the degree of trustworthiness or accuracy to be attributed to Pasqualigo’s and Cantino’s statements about the voyage, it must be remembered that they are both only repeating what they have heard said on the subject in a language not their own, and that when the letters were written they had probably seen no chart of the voyage or of the new discoveries. Cantino says that he was present when the captain of the ship gave his account to the King, and that he is writing down everything that was then said; so that perhaps he had only heard the narrative once, and without a chart, which easily explains his obvious errors; it is no difficult matter to fall into gross errors and misunderstandings in reproducing the account of a voyage which one hears in this way told even in one’s own language. Pasqualigo does not tell us how he had heard about the voyage, but it may have been on the same occasion. The letters of the two Italians reproducing the Portuguese narrative cannot therefore be treated as exact historical documents, every detail of which is correct.
Cantino says in his letter (of October 1501) that Gaspar Corte-Real had sailed nine months before, that is, in January 1501. Pasqualigo says that he left in the previous year, which agrees with Cantino, since the civil year at that time began on March 25. But the existing receipt of April 21, 1501, from Gaspar Corte-Real proves with certainty that the two Italians were mistaken on this point. It may be supposed that they regarded the expeditions of the two consecutive years as a connected voyage (?), but even this will not agree with Cantino’s nine months. According to Cantino’s letter, Corte-Real on leaving Portugal held a northerly course (“towards the pole” are the words), and Pasqualigo says something of the same kind; but this is scarcely to be taken literally, for otherwise we should have to suppose that from Portugal he sailed northward towards Iceland; besides which, Pasqualigo says in both his letters that the land discovered was between north-west and west. Cantino’s statement about the ice might give us firm ground for determining Corte-Real’s route; if it were not unfortunately the case that there are here two possibilities, and that Cantino’s words do not agree well with either of them. The description of the ice points most probably to Corte-Real’s having first met with icebergs; he may have come upon these in the sea off the southern end of Greenland, and as in continuing his course he found the “sea frozen,” he may have reached the edge of the ice-floes. As nothing is said about land, we must suppose that he did not sight Greenland. It is a more difficult matter when, by changing his course to the north-west and west, he finally in this direction sighted land, which according to the description, and the Cantino map, must have been Newfoundland. To arrive there from the Greenland ice he would have had to steer about west-south-west by compass, and in fact Newfoundland (Terra del Rey de portuguall) lies approximately in this direction in relation to the southern point of Greenland on the Cantino map. But it may be, of course, that Cantino’s statement of the direction is due to a misunderstanding;[347] he may have heard that the newly found land lay to the north-west and west from Lisbon, as Pasqualigo says.
Another possibility is that it was on the Newfoundland Banks that Corte-Real met with icebergs; but in that case he must have held a very westerly course, almost west-north-west, all the way from Lisbon, and there would then be little meaning in the statement that he altered his course to north-west and west to avoid the ice, even if we take into account the possibility of the variation of the compass having been 20° greater on the Newfoundland Banks than at Lisbon. Another difficulty is that on the Newfoundland Banks he would hardly have found “the sea frozen,” if by this ice-floes are meant; for that he would have had to be (in June ?) farther to the north-west in the Labrador Current. In neither case would he have been very far from land, so that the times mentioned, three months with a favourable wind from the ice to land, and four months from Lisbon, are out of proportion.[348]
Thus Cantino’s words cannot be brought into agreement with facts; but at the same time many things point to its having been the Greenland ice that Corte-Real first met with in 1501. Doubtless it might be objected that he is said in the previous year to have already found part of Newfoundland, and in that case he would be likely to make straight for it again; but Pasqualigo’s letter gives one the impression that Gaspar Corte-Real may have been interested in finding out whether the land he had found was mainland and continuous with the country (Greenland) which in the previous year (1500) had been seen by the other caravels (João Fernandez ?), and thus it may have been natural that he should first steer in that direction, but he was then forced by the ice westward towards the land he himself had discovered.
Modern map Cantino map Reinel’s map King map
The eastern coast-line of Newfoundland, with possibly the southern part of Labrador
That it was really Newfoundland, and not the coast of Labrador farther north, that Corte-Real arrived at, appears plainly enough from the maps (the Cantino map, the King map, etc.), and may also be concluded from the descriptions in the letters of Pasqualigo and Cantino. We read, amongst other things, that many great rivers ran through that country into the sea. The east coast of Labrador has no rivers of importance, with the exception of Hamilton River; but the entrance to this is by a long estuary, Hamilton Inlet and Lake Melville, up which they would hardly have sailed. On the other hand, there are in Newfoundland several considerable rivers falling into the sea on the east coast, up the mouths of which Gaspar Corte-Real might have sailed. The allusion to the country as fertile, with trees and forests of pines of remarkable height and size, and to there being abundance of timber for masts, etc., also agrees best with Newfoundland. In addition, the coast-line of the country, both on the Cantino map and on later Portuguese maps, agrees remarkably well with the coast-line along the east and north-east sides of Newfoundland.
The statement in Pasqualigo’s letter of October 18, that they sailed “along the coast of the said land for a distance of six hundred miglia and more,” which agrees with the extent of the coast on the Cantino map, must be an exaggeration. It is a common error to exaggerate the distance during a voyage along a coast so indented as that of Newfoundland, where Corte-Real may perhaps have sailed in and out of bays and inlets.