[50] "The application to King Henry VII. was not made until 1488, as would appear from the inscription on a map which Bartholomew presented to the king. Las Casas intimates, from letters and writings of Bartholomew Columbus, in his possession, that the latter accompanied Bartholomew Diaz in his voyage from Lisbon, in 1486, along the coast of Africa, in the course of which he discovered the Cape of Good Hope."—Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i., cap. vii.
[51] "The American Continent was first discovered under the auspices of the English, and the coast of the United States by a native of England (Sebastian Cabot told me that he was born in Bristowe)."—History of the Travayles in the East and West Indies, by R. Eden and R. Willes, 1577. fol. 267. Posterity hardly remembered that they[52] (the Cabots) had reached the American Continent nearly four months before Columbus, on his third voyage, came in sight of the main-land.—Bancroft's Hist. of the United States, vol. i., p. 11. Charlevoix's "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," and the "Fastes Chronologiques," endeavor to discredit the discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot, but the testimonies of cotemporary authors are decisive. Unfortunately, no journal or relation remains of the voyages of the Cabots to North America, but several authors have handed down accounts of them, which they received from the lips of Sebastian Cabot himself. See Hakluyt, iii., 27; Galearius Butrigarius, in Ramusio, tom. ii.; Ramusio, Preface to tom. iii.; Peter Martyr ab Angleria, Dec. III., cap. vi.; Gomara, Gen. Hist. of the West Indies, b. ii., c. vi. In Fabian's Chronicle, the writer asserts that he saw, in the sixteenth year of Henry VII., two out of three men who had been brought from "Newfound Island" two years before. The grant made by Edward VI. to Sebastian Cabot of a pension equal to £1000 per annum of our money, attests that "the good and acceptable service" for which it was conferred was of a very important nature. The words of the grant are handed down to us by Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 31.—See Life of Henry VII., by Lord Bacon; Bacon's Works, vol. iii., p. 356, 357.
[52] "The only immediate fruit of Cabot's first enterprise is said to have been the importation from America of the first turkeys ever seen in Europe. Why this bird received the name it enjoys in England has never been satisfactorily explained. By the French it was called 'Coq d'Inde,' on account of its American original, America being then generally termed Western India."—Graham's Hist. of the United States, vol. i., p. 7.
[53] Baccalaos was the name given by the natives to the codfish with which these waters abounded. Pietro Martire, who calls Sebastian Cabot his "dear and familiar friend," speaks of Newfoundland as Baccalaos; also, Lopez de Gomara and Ramusio.
[54] Mr. Bancroft pronounces this "fact to be indisputable," though he acknowledges that "the testimony respecting this expedition is confused and difficult of explanation." Sebastian Cabot wrote "A Discourse of Navigation," in which the entrance of the strait leading into Hudson's Bay was laid down with great precision "on a card, drawn by his own hand."—Ortelius, Map of America in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; Eden and Willis, p. 223; Sir H. Gilbert, in Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 49, 50; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 12.
[55] The learned and ingenious author of the "Memoirs of Sebastian Cabot" has brought forward strong arguments against the discovery of the Continent of America by Jean Vas Cortereal in 1494.—Humboldt's Géog. du Nouveau Continent, vol. i., p. 279; vol. ii., p. 25.
"The discoverer of the territory of our country was one of the most extraordinary men of his age. There is deep cause for regret that time has spared so few memorials of his career. He gave England a continent, and no one knows his burial-place."—Bancroft, vol. i., p. 14.
[56] Ramusio, vol. iii., p. 417. This discovery is also attributed to Jacques Cartier, who entered the gulf on the 10th of August, 1535, and gave it the name of the saint whose festival was celebrated on that day.—Charlevoix.
[57] In an old map published in 1508, the Labrador coast is called Terra Corterealis.
[58] It has been conjectured that the name Terra de Laborador was given to this coast by the Portuguese slave merchants, on account of the admirable qualities of the natives as laborers.—Picture of Quebec.