Fig. 40.—Lines of the Santa Maria.
In 1497 the first English expedition was made to America under John Cabot. We have no particulars of the ship in which Cabot sailed, but it could not have been a large one, as it is known that the crew only numbered eighteen. The expedition sailed from Bristol in the month of May, and land, which was probably Cape Breton, was sighted on June 24. Bristol was reached on the return journey at the end of July. In the following year Cabot made another voyage, and explored the coast of North America from Cape Breton to as far south as Cape Hatteras. Many other expeditions in the same direction were fitted out in the last years of the fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth centuries.
While Cabot was returning from his first voyage to North America, one of the most famous and most epoch-making expeditions of discovery of modern times was fitted out in Portugal. On July 24, 1497, Vasco da Gama set sail from the Tagus in the hope of reaching India via the Cape of Good Hope. His squadron consisted of three ships, named the San Gabriel, the San Raphael, and the Birrio, together with a transport to carry stores. There is a painting in existence at Lisbon of the San Gabriel, which is supposed to be authentic. It represents her as having a high poop and forecastle, very like the caravel Santa Maria. She had four masts and a bowsprit. The latter and the fore and main masts were square-rigged. The San Gabriel was, however, a much larger vessel than the Santa Maria. She is said to have been constructed to carry 400 pipes of wine. This would be equivalent to about 400 tons measurement, or, from 250 to 300 tons register.[15] The other two ships selected were of about the same dimensions, and of similar equipment and rig, in order that, in the event of losses, or accidents, each of the ships might make use of any of the spars, tackle, or fittings belonging to the others.
It may here be mentioned that the ships reached Quilimane, on the east coast of South Africa, on January 22, 1498. After many visits to East African ports, during which they satisfied themselves that the arts of navigation were as well understood by the Eastern seamen as by themselves, they set sail for India early in August, and after a voyage of twenty, or, as some say, twenty-three days, they sighted the coast, and shortly afterwards arrived in Calicut, nearly fourteen months after they started from Lisbon.
About this time the Memlook Sultans of Egypt absolutely cut off the trade which had been carried on for centuries between the Italian Republics and the Malabar coast of India via the overland route and the Red Sea. It was this fact that gave the discovery of the sea-route to India such enormous importance, and, ultimately, it was one of the causes of the commercial downfall of the Italian Republics. The Cape route became the great high-road of commerce to the East, and remained so down to the present reign, when the re-establishment of the overland route, and, eventually, the successful cutting of the Suez Canal, restored commerce to its old paths.
The discoveries of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, John Cabot, and their successors, had an enormous influence upon shipbuilding, as they not only widened the area of seaborne commerce, but offered strong inducements to navigators to venture on the great oceans, far from land, in craft specially adapted for such voyages. Hitherto, sailors had either navigated the great inland seas of Europe or had engaged in the coasting trade, and the longest voyages undertaken before the end of the fifteenth century were probably those which English merchants made between Bristol and Iceland, and between our Eastern ports and Bergen.
Henry VII. not only encouraged commerce and voyages of discovery, but also paid great attention to the needs of the Royal Navy. He added two warships to his fleet, which were more powerful vessels than any previously employed in this country. One of them, named the Regent, was copied from a French ship of 600 tons, and was built on the Rother about 1490. She carried four masts and a bowsprit, and was armed with 225 small guns, called serpentines. The second ship was named the Sovereign, and it is remarkable, as showing the connection at that time between land and naval architecture, that she was built under the superintendence of Sir Reginald Bray, who was also the architect of Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster Abbey, and of St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The Sovereign carried 141 serpentines.
The Regent was burnt in an action off Brest in the reign of Henry VIII., in the year 1512. She caught fire from a large French carrack, called the Marie la Cordelière, which she was attacking. Both ships were utterly destroyed.