To the western nations of Europe this news was more especially important, and so, when John Cabot petitioned Henry VII, three years later, for permission to make similar discoveries, he obtained a patent from that king without difficulty. Cabot was of Genoese birth, although a naturalized citizen of Venice, and he had been for some years settled at Bristol. He had taken part in the Venetian trade to the Levant, and had on one occasion travelled as far as Mecca. At that place, a busy centre of exchange for eastern goods, he questioned the merchants as to the source of the supply of spices, drugs, perfumes, rare silks, and precious stones, in which they dealt. They replied that these goods were transported by successive caravans from a vast distance, and that they themselves had never visited the countries that produced them. This suggested to Cabot a similar train of reasoning to that of Columbus: it was evident that the long land journey and the laborious transport and exchange from hand to hand must immensely add to the original cost of the produce which Europe valued so highly; great wealth was therefore in store for the man and the country which should first find a practicable sea route to the orient. Cabot, like Columbus, based his plans on the sphericity of the earth, and came to the conclusion that the shortest way to the east was by the west. It is unknown whether it was in consequence of these ideas that he came to England. It may well have been so, for it was evidently of little use to urge such plans in Venice. The Italian merchants stood to lose instead of gaining by any alteration of the trade routes, and, moreover, could be cut off from access to the Atlantic at the pleasure of the power which could block the straits of Gibraltar. Whatever his reasons, John Cabot came to Bristol, bringing his wife and family with him. In after years his son Sebastian, when it suited him to make himself out an Englishman, claimed to have been born in Bristol; but as Sebastian cannot have been born later than 1474, and John was not naturalized as a Venetian till 1476, it is hardly possible that Sebastian’s statement was true. The year 1476, therefore, is the earliest possible date for John Cabot’s arrival in Bristol, and the probability is strong that he did not settle there for several years after that.

Bristol was the largest seaport of the west of England, and, in the fifteenth century, a most important branch of its trade was with Iceland, whence the Bristol ships fetched quantities of stockfish. It is possible that traditions of early Norse voyages to ‘Vineland’ still lingered in northern regions and were picked up by the Bristol sailors. There were other legends current of lands to the west: the island of Brasil, marked on many mediaeval maps; the blissful isle of St. Brandan, actually supposed to have been visited by a shadowy Irish saint of antiquity; and the Seven Cities, said to have been founded by Spanish bishops fleeing from the fury of invading Moors when the Cross fell before the Crescent on the banks of the Guadalete. Moved either by these traditions or by the new scientific reasonings of men like Cabot, the Bristol merchants undoubtedly felt an interest in the possibilities of the unexplored Atlantic. There are rumours of their having sent out ships towards the west before 1497, but unfortunately they rest on no solid basis of proof.

Things were at this stage when, in the winter of 1495–6, Henry VII visited Bristol, and we may suppose that John Cabot took the opportunity of petitioning the king for a charter which should place the enterprise on a more regular footing. On March 5, 1496, the patent was drawn out, in the terms already described. For reasons unknown, more than a year elapsed before John Cabot started on his first recorded voyage. He set out in the early summer of 1497 in a small ship with a crew of eighteen men, mostly Englishmen of the port of Bristol. In addition to Cabot, and possibly his sons, there were among the crew two other foreigners, one a Burgundian, probably a Netherlander, and the other a Genoese. A document, generally known as the Fust MS., and now destroyed, gave the name of Cabot’s ship as the Matthew, and the dates of the voyage as May 2 (departure) and August 6 (return). Authorities are at variance as to the authenticity of the Fust MS. The use of the word ‘America’ in a record ostensibly written several years before that name was first invented seems to brand it as an imposture, but it may have been written up in the form of a year-to-year chronicle several years after the date contained in it, and still have embodied true information. The dates given tally approximately with what is known from other evidence.

After leaving Bristol the explorers passed the south of Ireland, and then steered northwards for an indeterminable time—‘a few days’—Cabot’s intention apparently being to reach a certain parallel of latitude, and then to follow it westwards. He knew that the further north he went, the less would be the distance to be traversed, owing to the decreasing circumference of the earth and the general lie of the land of eastern Asia, which was roughly known. When he had made sufficient way to the north, he turned westwards, and, after considerable wandering, sighted land. The ‘wandering’ may simply mean that he sailed westwards for a long time, or that he was diverted to the north or south. In any case the wording is so vague that the actual course cannot be even approximately laid down.

In the map of 1544 it is stated that the landfall was in the neighbourhood of Cape Breton, and that it was made on June 24 at 5 a.m.; also, that an island near the land was visited on the same day and named the Island of St. John. The doubts cast on the authenticity of this inscription have already been considered. On the whole, Cape Breton seems the likeliest place for the landfall, although the most learned authorities are hopelessly at variance on the point, some favouring Cape Breton, others Newfoundland, and others Labrador. With the knowledge at present available the problem must be pronounced insoluble. The date, June 24, is a little late, as it allows less than half the total duration of the voyage for the coasting and return journey; but this is not impossible if the coasting was restricted and the return was made with more favourable winds than the outward passage. We know, from an absolutely trustworthy source, that Cabot was back in London by August 10, and thus probably at Bristol some days earlier.

The land discovered had a temperate climate. In view of Sebastian Cabot’s accounts, which have sometimes been read as applying to this voyage, it is important to notice that no mention is made of ice or any extraordinary length of day, points which would certainly have been remarked by Pasqualigo or Soncino, if they had been narrated by the returning crew. An immense quantity of fish was encountered off the coast.

After planting the flags of England and Venice at the place where he first landed, John Cabot coasted for some distance. Probably the 300 leagues of Pasqualigo’s letter is a mistake, being incompatible with the total duration of the voyage. It has been suggested that ‘leagues’ should read ‘miles’. The direction of the coasting, whether northwards or southwards, is likewise not stated. Cabot saw signs of habitation, but no actual inhabitants; and doubtless he was not anxious to see any, for a crew of eighteen all told would not furnish a landing party with which he could confidently face all comers. This first voyage was merely for the purpose of reconnoitring and preparing the way for a greater enterprise. It was a pity that the reconnaissance was not more thorough, for it might have saved much disappointment afterwards. As it was, Cabot was firmly convinced that he had reached the north-eastern coast of Asia, ‘the territory of the Grand Cham’, which the Spaniards were thought to be on the track of, although they had not yet arrived there. However, provisions began to run short, and he turned his ship homewards, passing on the way two islands which he had not time to explore. He arrived at Bristol in the early days of August.

John Cabot travelled at once to London to lay his report before the king. He carried with him his charts and a globe with which to demonstrate his discoveries; and he was so far successful in convincing the prudent and parsimonious monarch of the value of the new land that the latter made him an immediate grant of £10 from the Privy Purse (ten to twelve times as much in modern money), and later allotted him a pension of £20 a year. The royal sanction, if not a more substantial aid, was promised for a much larger expedition to sail in the following year for the purpose, not only of exploring, but also of founding colonies and trading posts. Cabot and his contemporaries were still under the impression that he had found the east of Asia. He admitted that he had only touched the fringe of the golden land, but he asserted that he had only to sail with a larger and better-found expedition, with provisions to last for a year’s voyage, and to follow the coast westwards and southwards to the tropic region, to arrive at the wonderful island of Cipango,[[56]] the source of the world’s supply of spices and precious stones. He had a persuasive tongue, and his arguments were absolutely convincing to the minds of all who heard them, from the cool and calculating king to the hard-headed merchants of London, and still more to hot-blooded adventurers, whose ears already tingled with wondrous tales of the Spanish Indies. He was everywhere sought after and fêted. He dressed in silk and assumed the title of Admiral. In their own imagination he and all his men were princes and nobles; to the surgeon of the Matthew he gave an island; to a Burgundian among his crew he gave another.

From London, Cabot went back to Bristol, there to be lionized and to make preparations for the adventure of the following year. On February 3, 1498, the king issued a second patent, made out this time to John Cabot alone, without mention of his sons, empowering him to take six ships and pursue his discoveries on much the same terms as those of the first patent. It is not evident that the State contributed anything to this fleet beyond a cheap and convenient permission to take convicts from the gaols to do the hard work of the proposed colony. Most probably Henry VII was a shareholder in his private capacity, as he seems to have been as much convinced as any of his subjects of the profits that were to accrue.

But soon the king was to receive a significant hint of trouble from a quarter whence he doubtless expected it. Even before Cabot had obtained his first patent, in 1496, Spanish jealousy had been aroused at the prospect of a voyage to the west. De Puebla had evidently reported what was going forward to his sovereigns, and in their reply to him occurs the statement that such enterprises ‘cannot be executed without prejudice to us and to the King of Portugal’. Evidently they were prepared to take their stand on the Bull of Alexander VI, which divided between Spain and Portugal all the undiscovered parts of the world, and which had been confirmed by the Treaty of Tordesillas between those two nations in 1494. Whether de Puebla communicated this protest to Henry or not we do not know. Probably he did not, as he always showed himself extremely anxious to curry favour with that monarch. But in 1498 Pedro de Ayala, another Spanish agent, was also in London, and to him the king frequently spoke of the new voyages in order to sound him as to the opinion of the Spanish court. De Ayala claimed stoutly that the lands which the English were trying to discover were already in the possession of Spain, and he gave his reasons, which, he says, the king did not like. Henry, however, could not afford to quarrel with Spain, and from this time forward he seemed to become half-hearted in his approval of western projects.