[303] To be perfectly accurate, the distance on La Cosa’s map between Ireland and Cauo de Ynglaterra is 1290 geographical miles; between Bristol and the same cape 1620 miles; while the distance between Cauo de Ynglaterra and the name of Cauo descubierto is 1080 miles. If we reckon 17½ leagues to a degree, these distances correspond respectively to 376, 472 and 315 leagues; while 20 leagues to a degree give 430, 540 and 360 leagues. As the name of Cauo descubierto stands out in the sea to the west of the cape it belongs to, the distance will be less, very nearly 300 leagues. Along the upper margin of the map a scale is provided, each division of which, according to the usual practice, corresponds to 50 miglia. This gives us the distance from Ireland to Cauo de Ynglaterra as 1425 miglia, and from the latter to the name of Cauo descubierto 1200. Reckoning 4 miglia to a legua, these distances will be 356 and 300 leagues.
[304] I here disregard altogether the common assertions that Cabot arrived on the east coast of Newfoundland (at Cape Bonavista, or to the north of it), or even on the coast of Labrador. This cannot possibly be reconciled with La Cosa’s map, nor does it agree with the accounts of Pasqualigo and Soncino, nor, again, with the information on the map of 1544 (by Sebastian Cabot ?), if we are to attach any weight to this. Other trustworthy documents are unknown. No importance can be attributed to the evidence of Cabot’s having arrived in Labrador in 1497 which Harrisse (1896, pp. 78, ff.) thinks may be seen in the circumstance that the English discoveries are placed in the northernmost part of the east coast of North America (between 56° and 60°) on the official Spanish maps of the first half of the sixteenth century; this does not by any means counterbalance La Cosa’s map, which speaks plainly enough. Even if Sebastian Cabot had the superintendence of these later maps, this proves little or nothing. If it was to his interest not to offend the Spaniards by emphasising his father’s discoveries, he would scarcely have hesitated to omit them, or allow them to be moved to the north. For on these very maps (e.g., Ribero’s of 1529) it is claimed that the whole coast to the south-west of Newfoundland (“Tiera nova de Cortereal”) was discovered by Spaniards (Gomez and Ayllon). But in addition to this, in so far as any importance can be attributed to the inscriptions attached to “Labrador” on the Spanish maps, they evidently, like others of the statements attributed to Sebastian Cabot, do not refer to Cabot’s discoveries of 1497, which are found on La Cosa’s map, but to discoveries made on later English voyages from Bristol, on which ice was met with. If the map of 1544 can be attributed to the collaboration of Sebastian Cabot, it further shows clearly enough that he had no knowledge of the northern part of the east coast of America, since he makes it extend to the east and north-east, which is due to Greenland (Labrador) being included in it. The map is a plagiarism of an earlier French one. Harrisse’s view results in complete embarrassment in the interpretation of La Cosa’s map [cf. 1900, p. 21], and he is obliged to abandon the attempt to make anything of it, since, of course, it contradicts all he thinks may be concluded from the much later Spanish maps. Moreover, since Harrisse insists so strongly on the importance of the northerly latitudes of the English discoveries on these maps (and on La Cosa’s) as a proof of their being on the coast of Labrador, it should be pointed out that the latitudes of Newfoundland, for instance, and Greenland, to say nothing of the West Indian islands, vary on the maps; this shows that no weight can be attached to evidence of this kind.
[305] It has been maintained that “Cauo descubierto” must denote the land he first sighted; but the name only means “discovered cape,” and says nothing as to its being discovered first or last. There may indeed have been more about it on Cabot’s original map, and it happens that on La Cosa’s map there is a hole in the parchment just after this name. That it should be the same cape that on “Sebastian Cabot’s” map of 1544 is called “Prima tierra vista” is not likely, as this lies at the extreme east of the promontory of Cape Breton.
[306] For determining this I have to some extent relied on later maps, chiefly the Cantino map, where the direction of the north-eastern coast of Newfoundland gives a magnetic error of between 31° and 38°, and the direction between Cape Farewell and Cape Race gives an error of 28°, which is certainly somewhat too high.
[307] To this it might be objected that he says “the tides are sluggish, and do not run” as in England (“le aque e stanche e non han corso come qui”). The tide is considerable inside the Bay of Fundy, but on the coast of Maine and in the outer waters of Nova Scotia it is slight in comparison with the tide Cabot was acquainted with in the Bristol Channel.
[308] It must always be remembered that La Cosa did not have Cabot’s original chart, on which the coast and the Bay of Fundy may have been represented more in accordance with reality.
[309] La Cosa’s map may point to his having made a cruise in the open sea westward from Cauo descubierto before turning, and having seen the coast extending on, until in the far west it turned southward towards a headland, perhaps Cape Cod, where La Cosa put his westernmost flag. But this seems doubtful, and is only guessing.
[310] That the distance between these islands and Cauo de Ynglaterra is less than half what it ought to be on La Cosa’s map cannot be considered of decisive importance, since, as we have seen, the distances on this map are in general not to be relied on. The name “S. Grigor” must certainly be due to the Englishmen, while “Y. verde” may be due to Cabot or to La Cosa, and may be the same name as is found on compass-charts of the fifteenth century (cf. above, [p. 279]). La Cosa or Cabot may have taken these two islands to be the same as “Illa verde” and “Illa brazil” on these older charts, and while one of the islands has been given a new name perhaps because there were other islands with the name of Brazil (?), or because this island was nameless on some of the compass-charts; see above, [p. 281], the other has been allowed to retain the old name, which was originally a translation of Greenland. This old land of the Norsemen is here brought far to the south, and reduced to a very modest size, being confused with peninsulas of Newfoundland.
[311] As evidence that a homeward voyage of twenty-three days would not be unusually fast sailing for that time, it may be mentioned for comparison that Cartier, in June and July 1536, took nineteen days from Cape Race to St. Malo. Champlain made the same voyage in 1603 in eighteen days, and in 1607 he took twenty-seven days from Canso, near Cape Breton, to St. Malo.
[312] Cf. Dawson, 1897, pp. 209, ff.