With regard to John Cabot’s second voyage, only the intentions of the explorer and the circumstances of his start from Bristol are known. The former were as follows: Sailing with several ships laden with English manufactured goods—‘coarse cloth, caps, laces, points, and such other’—he proposed to return to the land which he had discovered on the first voyage, and thence to follow the coast which, as he had observed, trended towards the south-west, until he arrived in the tropical latitudes. There he expected to find, over against the land, the rich island of Cipango—the island replenished with great commodities of the chronicles—and in it to establish, if not a colony in the true sense of the word, at least a permanent trading post. This is evidenced by the proposal to take several priests, and also the convicts, who would be useless on the voyage, but would do the hard work of planting a new settlement. The programme was naturally very distasteful to the Spaniards, since the position of Cipango, in John Cabot’s ideas, must have been in the same latitude as their own discoveries, although lying further to the west.
Everything in the contemporary letters, and also in the chronicles, points to the fact that Cabot, in common with every other thinking man in 1497–8, had no suspicion of the existence of the separate continent now called America, and that he intended to make for the tropical region of the coast of eastern Asia. Indeed, it is inconceivable that he, a much-travelled man, who had experience of tropical climates and their products, should have sailed northwards to look for spices, unless we are to assume that he knew that America was not Asia and was consequently looking for a north-west passage. That assumption a careful reading of the evidence renders untenable. This matter of the intended destination of the second voyage is the point at which the commonly received versions of the Cabot problem go astray, the accepted theory being that the second expedition was an attempt to force a passage round the north of the new continent and so into the Pacific. But it cannot be too strongly emphasized that John Cabot had not the remotest intention of sailing round the north of what he took to be Asia, since such a course, if persisted in, would have brought him, according to his charts, back to the North Sea and the British Isles!
All preparations being complete, he sailed from Bristol in the beginning of May 1498. He had with him his own ship, manned and victualled, if the chroniclers are to be believed, at the king’s private expense, and three or four smaller vessels fitted out by the merchants of London and Bristol, some of whom had also been financed from the Privy Purse. Pedro de Ayala states that the fleet numbered five in all, and also reports, but only as a rumour, that one of them put back to an Irish port in consequence of damage, sustained presumably in a storm. The ships were provisioned for a year, and Cabot expected to be home again by September. In the outcome, however, nothing had been heard of him as late as the end of October.
Here unfortunately our knowledge of John Cabot leaves the realm of sober fact, and degenerates into mere theory and speculation. History is totally silent as to the progress of this voyage, launched with such a great acclaim; as to its vicissitudes, as to the date, place, and circumstances of its ending, nothing whatever is known. It is only through the cumulative effect of side-winds, none of them absolutely conclusive, that it can be deduced that Cabot’s squadron reached the American coast, and that he himself, with part at least of his men, returned in safety.
First, as to his personal survival. This was always considered extremely doubtful until the discovery of the Bristol Customers' accounts for 1497–9, which prove beyond doubt that, until Michaelmas 1499, annual pension of £20 was still being paid. It is conceivable of course, that the pension was being drawn by an accredited agent, his wife for example, so that there is no positive proof that he was in Bristol during that year. But it may, as a minimum, be confidently asserted that he was not known to be dead, since in that case no agent could have drawn the pension without obtaining fresh official papers. Hence, either Cabot returned in safety from the 1498 voyage, or else no word had been heard of his fleet for nearly eighteen months. The balance of probability is certainly in favour of the former alternative.
One of the persons to whom loans were granted from the Privy Purse was Launcelot Thirkill, of London, ‘going towards the new island’. A later document shows this man to have been in England in 1501. Consequently, if he accompanied the fleet, as he evidently intended, some part of it must have returned in safety.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC.
From the map of Juan de la Cosa, 1500. The earliest map showing English discoveries.
A still more probable testimony to the return of Cabot’s expedition, and to its having coasted extensively on the other side of the Atlantic, is furnished by the map of the Spanish pilot, Juan de la Cosa, drawn up in the year 1500. It is a map of the world as known at the time, and includes a part of the east coast of North America, with flags marking the places visited by the English. The flags are intended to represent the English standard, and some of the names, although translated into Spanish, are such as English explorers might have given; others are unintelligible. They are as follows, reading from south-west to north-east:
Mar descubierto por Yngleses, cavo descubierto, C. de S. Jorge, lagofor, anfor, C. de S. Luzia, requilia, jusquei, S. Luzia, C. de lisarto, menistre, argair, fonte, rio longo, ilia de la trenidat, S. Nicolas, Cavo de S. Johan, agron, C. fastanatra, Cavo de Ynglaterra, S. Grigor, y verde.