Thorne also expressed his ideas in greater detail to Doctor Lee, Henry’s ambassador at that time in Spain.[[232]] He enclosed a map, which Hakluyt has preserved, and entered into elaborate calculations to show that the northern route to the Pacific was much shorter than those used by either the Spaniards or the Portuguese. He referred to the Spanish expedition which had sailed from Seville in the previous year for the Spice Islands, and mentioned that he and his partner had invested 1,400 ducats so as to have an excuse for sending two Englishmen to accompany it and report on those regions.[[233]] He claimed that his father and Hugh Elyot were the original discoverers of Newfoundland, and that they would have reached the Indies but for a mutiny.
That the book to Dr. Lee was written in the first quarter of 1527 is evidenced by a reference to Cabot’s squadron of 1526 as having sailed ‘in April last past’, but there is no clue to the month of the letter to the king. Hence it cannot be stated with certainty that the expedition which we have next to consider was a consequence of that letter.
Whether it was or not, the fact remains that two ships were commissioned in 1527 and placed under the command of John Rut, a master mariner who, like Spert, had served in the navy during the French wars. Grafton’s Chronicle has a brief entry relative to their departure: ‘This same month (May, 1527) the king sent two fair ships, well manned and victualled, having in them divers cunning men, to seek strange regions; and so forth they set out of the Thames the 20th day of May; if they sped well you shall hear at their return.’ In spite of which promise, the Chronicle makes no further mention of them. Hakluyt attempted to glean some further information about this voyage, with very little success. Martin Frobisher and Richard Allen told him that one of the ships was called the Dominus Vobiscum, and that a canon of St. Paul’s, whose name they did not know, but who was a great mathematician, was a promoter of the enterprise and went with it in person: and that, ‘sailing very far north westward, one of the ships was cast away as it entered into a dangerous gulf, about the great opening between the north parts of Newfoundland and the country lately called by Her Majesty Meta Incognita. Whereupon the other ship, shaping her course towards Cape Breton and the coasts of Arambec, and oftentimes putting their men on land to search the state of those unknown regions, returned home about the beginning of October of the year aforesaid.’
Although Hakluyt was ignorant of the fact, however, two letters from members of the expedition were in existence, and Purchas printed one of them in his Pilgrims.[[234]] This, the first letter on record from America to England, is worth quoting in full for the quaintness of its style and the unconscious picture which it affords of the mind of an early Tudor seaman. Purchas remarks: ‘John Rut writ this letter to King Henry in bad English and worse writing, Over it was this superscription:
“Master Grube’s two ships departed from Plymouth the 10 day of June, and arrived in the Newfoundland in a good harbour, called Cape de Bas, the 21 day of July: and after we had left the sight of Selle (Scilly), we had never sight of any land, till we had sight of Cape de Bas.”’
The letter itself runs thus:
‘Pleasing your honourable Grace to hear of your servant John Rut, with all his company here, in good health, thanks be to God, and your Grace’s ship the Mary Gilford, with all her ... thanks be to God: And if it please your honourable Grace, we ran in our course to the northward, till we came into 53 degrees, and there we found many great islands of ice and deep water, we found no sounding, and then we durst not go further to the northward for fear of more ice; and then we cast about to the southward, and within four days after we had one hundred and sixty fathom, and then we came into 52 degrees and fell with the mainland. We met with a great island of ice, and came hard by her, for it was standing in deep water; and so went with Cape de Bas, a good harbour and many small islands, and a great fresh river going far up into the main land, and the main land all wilderness and mountains and woods, and no natural ground but all moss, and no inhabitation nor no people in these parts: and in the woods we found footing of divers great beasts, but we saw none, not in ten leagues. And please your Grace, the Samson and we kept company all the way till within two days before we met with all the islands of ice, that was the first day of July at night, and there rose a great and a marvellous great storm, and much foul weather; I trust in Almighty Jesu to hear good news of her. And please your Grace, we were considering and a writing of all our order, how we would wash us and what course we would draw, and when God do send foul weather, that with the Cape de Sper she should go, and he that came first should tarry the space of six weeks one for another, and watered at Cape de Bas ten days, ordering of your Grace’s ship and fishing, and so departed toward the southward to seek our fellow: the third day of August we entered into a good haven, called St. John, and there we found eleven sail of Normans, and one Brittaine, and two Portugall barks, and all a fishing, and so we are ready to depart toward Cape de Bas, and that is twenty five leagues, as shortly as we have fished, and so along the coast till we may meet with our fellow, and so with all diligence that lies in me toward parts to that islands that we are commanded by the Grace of God, as we were commanded at our departing: And thus Jesu save and keep your honourable Grace, and all your honourable Rever(ences), in the Haven of Saint John, the third day of August, written in haste, 1527.
‘By your servant John Rut to his uttermost of his power.’
Purchas continues: ‘I have by me also Albert de Prato’s original letter, in Latin style, almost as harsh as the former English, and bearing the same date, and was indorsed: Reverend. in Christo Patri Domino Domino Cardinali & Domino Legato Angliae: and began Reverendissime in Christo Pater salutem. Reverendissime Pater, placeat Reverendissimae paternitati Vestrae scire, Deo favente postquam exivimus a Plemut quae fuit x Junii, &c. (the substance is the same with the former and therefore omitted). Datum apud le Baya Saint Johan in Terris Novis, die x Augusti, 1527. Rever. Patr. vest. humilis servus, Albertus de Prato. (The name written in the lowest corner of the sheet.)’
How were these letters dispatched to England? Probably by one of the fishing vessels which was on the point of returning to Europe. It was evident that Rut had no immediate intention of turning back. The ‘Master Grube’ of the endorsement must certainly be a perversion of Rut’s name. It is impossible that there should have been two independent pairs of ships both departing from Plymouth on the same day and both making the same landfall in Newfoundland at the same time. Unfortunately Purchas’s editing was very careless, as witness his remark that Rut’s and de Prato’s letters were of the same date; and, in spite of his assurance of their identity in substance, one cannot help suspecting that important details may have been contained in de Prato’s letter.