[313] Hakluyt [Principal Navigations, London, 1589] gives a corresponding inscription from the copy of this map which at that time was in the queen’s private gallery at Westminster; it was engraved in London in 1549 by the well-known Clement Adams. As in 1549 Sebastian Cabot held a high position with the King of England as adviser on all maritime matters, and especially as cartographer, we must suppose that he was consulted in the publication of so important a map, especially as it was attributed to himself. We may therefore assume that the inscription was revised by Sebastian Cabot. Hakluyt mentions this legend on Clement Adams’s map for the first time in 1584 [cf. Winship, 1900, p. 56] and then says, as in the first edition of Principal Navigations, that the date of the discovery was 1494; but in the 1600 edition of Principal Navigations he corrected it to 1497, for what reason is uncertain [cf. Taducci, 1892, p. 47; Harrisse, 1892, 1896; Winship, 1900, pp. 20, f.]. How the certainly erroneous date 1494 got on to the map of 1544 is unknown; it may be supposed that MCCCCXCIIII is an error of reading or writing for MCCCCXCVII, the two strokes of V being taken to be divided: II [cf. Harrisse, 1896, p. 61].
[314] Another possible explanation is that Cauo de Ynglaterra, Cabot’s most eastern point of the country, was Cape Race in Newfoundland, in spite of Sebastian Cabot’s having placed it at Cape Breton. As has been said, it is very doubtful whether Sebastian Cabot was with his father in 1497, though on the other hand he probably knew his father’s map, and in 1544 had a copy of it, or at any rate of La Cosa’s. Then he saw the French maps representing Cartier’s discoveries, e.g., Deslien’s map of 1541; and it was a question of identifying his father’s discoveries with this map. It would then be perfectly natural to assume that C. de Ynglaterra answered to Cape Breton, which looked like the easternmost point of the mainland in that region, while farther east there was a group of islands which might well answer to S. Grigor and Y. Verde on La Cosa’s map. Perhaps he also had a note to the effect that it was on St. John’s day that the first land was sighted. On his father’s map he found an island of St. John off this promontory, or he knew it from the tradition of Reinel’s and later maps, and so placed his “Prima tierra vista” at Cape Breton. If the view that C. de Ynglaterra is Cape Race be regarded as correct, it might be assumed that Cauo descubierto was really the place where Cabot first made the land, perhaps in the neighbourhood of Cape Breton, and that from thence he sailed eastward, the supposed 300 leagues, along the south coast of Newfoundland. The two islands he discovered to starboard might then be Grand Miquelon and St. Pierre, though this is not very probable, and he would then have sailed between them and the land. But in that case we have a difficulty with the two islands, S. Grigor and Y. Verde, which must then lie east of Cape Race, where no islands exist. That they were icebergs taken for islands is not very likely. It is more probable that, as already suggested, they are the ghosts of the “Illa Verde” and “Illa de Brasil” of earlier compass-charts (of the fifteenth century; see above, pp. [279], [318]). But the whole of this explanation seems rather artificial, and the even coast of La Cosa’s map is difficult to reconcile with the extremely uneven coast-line we should get between Cape Breton Island and Cape Race. There is the further difficulty, if La Cosa’s coast was the south coast of Newfoundland, that we should have to assume that John Cabot was aware of the variation of the compass, and allowed for it on his chart.
[315] This would be, according to the reckoning of that time, February 3, 1497, since the civil year began on March 25; in New Style it will therefore be February 12, 1498.
[316] The MS. is preserved in the British Museum. Cf. G. P. Winship, 1900, p. 47.
[317] The text has “vicinidades,” but Desimoni [1881, Pref. p. 15] supposes it to be a misreading for “septe citades,” i.e., “the Seven Cities.”
[318] “Spero” is obviously a slip of the pen for “spera.”
[319] Harrisse’s contention [1896, pp. 129, ff.], that this expression, “surmysed to be grete commodities,” points to the chronicler here having introduced statements about the first voyage, in 1497, is hardly well founded. For Cabot discovered, according to the statements, no commodities (except fish) in 1497; on the other hand, he supposed that by penetrating farther to the west along the coast he would reach these treasures.
[320] Cf. G. P. Winship, 1900, p. 47. In the Cottonian Chronicle this account is given under the thirteenth year of Henry VII.’s reign, which lasted from August 22, 1497, to August 21, 1498. This has led some to think it referred to the voyage of 1497, but that is impossible, as, of course, Cabot had returned before the thirteenth year of Henry’s reign began.
[321] In the note preceding this statement taken from Fabyan, Hakluyt has made Sebastian Cabot leader of the expedition; but there is nothing to this effect in the text.
[322] It was suggested above that the Burgundian who took part in Cabot’s voyage in 1497 may have been from the Azores. It might be supposed that he also accompanied João Fernandez or Corte-Real in 1500, and now took part with Fernandez in the English undertaking, and in this way we should get a connection; but all this is mere guessing.