Hakluyt also prints in this precious little volume the substance of Sebastian Cabot’s letter to Ramusio, printed in the beginning of his third volume, in which he mentions the degree of latitude, 67½° N., which Cabot reached in his voyage in search of a way to Cathay.
He also prints for the first time the two well-known letters of Robert Thorne, in the latter of which, addressed to Dr. Ley, the English ambassador to Spain, the writer says that his father and another merchant of Bristol, Hugh Eliot, were the discoverers of the new-found lands. Some have conjectured that these merchants went out with the Cabots, and others that they were in some later expedition not well defined. Hakluyt also prints here an English version of “Verarzanus,” and Hacket’s “Ribault.” The volume also contains two maps, one of which, prepared by Michael Locke, was made, he says, “according to Verarzanus’s plat,” an “old excellent map, which he gave to King Henry VIII., and is yet in the custody of Master Locke.” The map of Locke was probably made only in its general features according to the original model, and contained some more modern additions by its compiler. It has one interesting inscription upon it,—namely, on the delineation of C. Breton we read, “J. Gabot, 1497.” This is the first time I have seen this date assigned as the date of the discovery.[75]
Hakluyt’s little volume expressed the interest felt in England on the subject of North American colonization, and furnished the ground on which England based her title to the country. He also announced in this book that Sebastian Cabot’s maps and discourses were then in the custody of one of Cabot’s old associates, William Worthington, who was willing to have them seen and published.
The interest in the contemplated voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who made the first serious attempt in that century at colonization for England, culminated next year, when he sailed and never returned. Among the reports of that voyage was one written by Mr. Edward Haies in 1583, in which he says: “The first discovery of these coasts (never heard of before) was well begun by John Cabot the father, and Sebastian the son, an Englishman born, who were the first finders out of all that great tract of land stretching from the Cape of Florida unto those islands which we now call the Newfoundland; all which they brought and annexed unto the crown of England.”[76]
Sir George Peckham, a large adventurer with Gilbert, also wrote in 1583 on the same theme, and he makes mention of the title of England in the following language: “In the time of the Queen’s grandfather of worthy memory, King Henry VII., letters patent were by his Majesty granted to John Cabota, an Italian, to Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius, his three sons, to discover remote, barbarous, and heathen countries, which discovery was afterwards executed to the use of the Crown of England in the said King’s time by Sebastian and Sancius, his sons, who were born here in England.”[77] It seems to have been thought that the title of England would be strengthened by the statement that the discoverers, or some of them, were native subjects of the Crown of England. This seems to have been one reason why it has always been insisted on that Sebastian Cabot, so long supposed to be the discoverer, was born in England.[78]
LOK’S MAP, 1582.—REDUCED.
I have already spoken of an edition of Peter Martyr’s Decades in the original Latin, De Orbe Novo, published at Paris in 1587, under the editorship of Richard Hakluyt, who was then residing in that city in connection with the British Embassy. It was dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom, three years before, Hakluyt had written the Discourse on Westerne Planting. It was the first time the Decades had been printed entire since the first edition of them appeared at Alcala in Spain in 1530. It has been suggested by Mr. Brevoort that the Spanish Government did not favor their circulation, or encourage their republication. In Hakluyt’s edition there was inserted an excellent map of North and South America, of small size, six and a half by seven and a half inches, and dedicated to him by the maker, “F. G.” On the delineation of the coast of Labrador, there is inscribed just north of the River St. Lawrence, “Baccalaos Ab Anglis, 1496.” This date was without doubt supplied by Hakluyt himself, who, in his Discourse on Westerne Planting, insisted on that erroneous date as the true year of discovery,—citing the conversation in the first volume of Ramusio for his authority, as we have seen.
In tracing down the notices in print of John or Sebastian Cabot, we come now to a book of considerable interest, published in Venice in 1588, some years after the death of its author, Livio Sanuto. It was entitled Geographica Distincta, etc., and related in part to matters connected with naval science. The author was deeply interested in the subject of the variation of the needle, and having heard that Sebastian Cabot had publicly explained this subject to the King of England (supposed to be Edward VI., on Cabot’s return to England), he applied to the Venetian ambassador there resident to ascertain from Cabot himself where he had fixed the point of no variation. The information was accordingly procured and published by Sanuto. In the course of his investigations the author made use of a map composed by Cabot himself, in which the position of this meridian was seen to be one hundred and ten miles to the west of the island of Flores, one of the Azores. Mr. Biddle,[79] who dwells at some length on this volume, calls attention to the fact “that the First Meridian on the maps of Mercator, running through the most western point of the Azores, was adopted with reference to the supposed coincidence in that quarter of the true and magnetic poles.” Sanuto makes frequent reference to the map of Cabot in his book, and also makes mention of Cabot’s observations relating to the variation of the compass at the equator. I have already called attention to one of the legends on Cabot’s map of 1544, no. 17, which relates in part to the variation of the needle. In Prima Parte, lib. ii. fol. 17, Sanuto gives a brief account of Cabot’s voyage, which Mr. Biddle[80] says corresponds minutely with that which Sir Humphrey Gilbert derived from the map hung up in Queen Elizabeth’s gallery. Sanuto, however, evidently copied from Cabot’s letter in the preface of the third volume of Ramusio, from which also the language in Gilbert is drawn.
In 1589 Hakluyt published his first folio of 825 pages entitled, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, a monument of his industry as a collector. In this first folio Hakluyt included several pieces from his little quarto tract of 1582, and he collected and put into English other most important evidence relating to the discovery of North America by the Cabots. He gave the passage in Peter Martyr, the conversation in Ramusio, the extract from Gomara, added to those documents reprinted from the quarto tract, all of which have been here noticed in the order in which they appeared in print. It may be added that in the passage from Fabian Hakluyt introduced the name of John Cabot as the Venetian, though he allowed the name of Sebastian to stand in the heading, probably through inadvertence. He also brought the marginal date into the text.