This year[66] the King[67]—by means of a Venetian which made himself very expert and cunning in knowledge of the circuit of the world and islands of the same, as by a card and other demonstrations reasonable he showed,—caused to man and victual a ship at Bristol, to search for an island which he said he knew well was rich and replenished with rich commodities. Which ship thus manned and victualled at the King’s cost, divers merchants of London ventured in her small stocks, being in her as chief patron, the said Venetian. And in the company of the said ship sailed also out of Bristol three or four small ships fraught with slight and gross merchandises, as coarse cloth, caps, laces, points, and other trifles, and so departed from Bristol in the beginning of May: of whom in this Mayor’s time returned no tidings.
Of three savage men which he brought home, and presented unto the King in the seventeenth year of his reign.
This year also were brought unto the King three men taken in the new found island, that before I spake of in William Purchas’ time, being Mayor. These were clothed in beast’s skins, and ate raw flesh, and spake such speech that no man could understand them, and in their demeanor like to brute beasts, whom the King kept a time after. Of the which upon two years past after, I saw two apparelled after the manner of Englishmen, in Westminster Palace, which at that time I couldnot discern from Englishmen, till I was learned what they were. But as for speech, I heard none of them utter one word.
John Baptista Ramusius, in his Preface to the third volume of the Navigations,writeth thus of Sebastian Gabot:[68]—
In the latter part of this volume are put certain relations of John De Verarzana,[69] a Florentine, and of a great captain, a Frenchman,and the two voyages of Jaques Cartier, a Briton,[70] who sailed into the land set in fifty degrees of latitude to the north, which is called New France: and the which lands hitherto it is not thoroughly known whether they do join with the firm land of Florida and Nova Hispania, or whether they be separated and divided all by the Sea as Islands:and whether by that way one may go by sea into the country of Cathaio:[71] as many years past it was written unto me by Sebastian Gabot, our countryman Venetian, a man of great experience, and very rare in the art of Navigation and the knowledge of Cosmography: who sailed along and beyond this land of New France, at the charges of King Henry the seventh, King of England. And he told me that having sailed a long time West and by North beyond these islands unto the latitude of sixty-seven degrees and a half under the North Pole, and at the 11 day of June, finding still the open sea without any manner of impediment, he thought verily by that way to have passed on still the way to Cathaio, which is in the East and would havedone it, if the mutiny of the shipmaster and mariners had not rebelled, and made him to return homewards from that place. But it seemeth that God doth yet reserve this great enterprise for some great Prince to discover this voyage of Cathaio by this way: which for the bringing of the spiceries from India into Europe were the most easy and shortest of all other ways hitherto found out. And, surely, this enterprise would be the most glorious, and of most importance of all other, that can be imagined, to make his name great, and fame immortal, to all ages to come, far more than can be done by any of all these great troubles and wars, which daily are used in Europe among the miserable Christian people.
This much concerning Sebastian Gabot’s discovery may suffice for a present cast: but shortly, God willing, shall come out in print, all his own maps and discourses, drawn and written by himself, which are in the custody of the worshipful master William Worthington, one of her Majesty’s Pensioners, who—because so worthy monuments should not be buried in perpetual oblivion,—is very willing to suffer them to be overseen and published in as good order as may be,to the encouragement and benefit of our countrymen.[72]