On the following 7th of March the ambassador again wrote to the Chiefs of the Ten, saying that Cabot had been several times to see him, and that he was disposed to come to Venice to carry his purpose into effect, but that he did not then dare ask leave for fear he might be suspected of going to England, and he must wait three months longer; and that Cabot desired the Council to write him a letter urging him to come to Venice for the dispatch of his affairs (meaning his private business). On the 28th of April the Council, in the name of the Ragusan friar, wrote to Cabot what had been done to discover where his property was; that there was good hope of recovering the dower of his mother and aunt, and that had he been present no doubt the object would have been attained before. He is therefore urged to come at once, “for your aunt is very old.” The Council say they have caused this letter to be written “touching his private affairs, in order that it may appear necessary for him to quit Spain.” On the 26th of July, Contarini again writes that Cabot, who had been residing at Seville, had come to Valladolid on his way to Venice, and was endeavoring to get leave of the Imperial Councillors to go, and that the Signory would be informed of the result of the application. Probably he never went. The next mention of him in the Venetian correspondence, during his residence in Spain, is under the date of September 21, 1525,—that Sebastian Cabot is captain of the fleet preparing for the Indies.[112]
Cabot still kept up his intrigues with Venice, even after his return to England. On the 12th of September, 1551, the Council of Ten write to their ambassador in England, telling him to assure Cabot that they are gratified by his offer, and that they will do all they can about the recovery of his property there, but that it is necessary that he should come personally to Venice, as no one there knows him; that the matters concerned are over fifty years old, and by the death of men, decay of houses, and perishing of writings, as well as by his own absence, no assured knowledge can be arrived at. He should therefore come at once. Ramusio, the Secretary of the Council, had been put in trust by Cabot of all such evidences as should come to hand regarding Cabot’s business, and he would use all diligence towards establishing his rights. In the mean time the ambassador is to learn from him all he can about this navigation.
Whether this talk about Cabot’s property in Venice, the dowry from his mother and his aged aunt, was all fictitious, perhaps never can be known. That these alleged facts were used as a pretext or “blind” in this correspondence, was on both sides avowed.[113]
It has been already mentioned, that, after Cabot’s return to England, and his entry into the service of Edward VI.,—a warrant for his transportation hither from Spain having passed the Privy Council on the 9th of Oct. 1547,—the King, on the 6th of January, 1548/9, granted him a pension for life of £166 13s. 4d., “in consideration of good and acceptable service done and to be done by him.” But in the following year a little contretemps occurred between Cabot and the Emperor Charles V. Through the Spanish ambassador, Jan. 19, 1549/50, Charles had demanded the return of Cabot to Spain, saying that he was the “Grand Pilot of the Emperor’s Indies, ... a very necessary man for the Emperor, whose servant he was, and had a pension of him.” The Council replied that Cabot was not detained by them, but that he had refused to go, saying that being the King’s subject there was no reason why he should be compelled to go. The ambassador insisted that Cabot should declare his mind to him personally; and an interview was held, at which Cabot made a declaration to the same import, but said he was willing to write to the Emperor, having good-will towards him, concerning some matters important for the Emperor to know. He was then asked if he would return to Spain if the King of England and the Council should demand of him to go; to which Cabot made an equivocal answer, but which the Council, to whom a report of the conversation was made by a third person present, interpreted to mean that he would not go, as he had divers times before declared to them.[114]
In March, 1551, Sebastian Cabot received from the King a special reward of £200. On the 9th of September, 1553, soon after the accession of Philip and Mary, the Emperor, Charles V., again made an earnest request that Cabot should return to Spain. But he declined to go. On the 27th of November, 1555, Cabot’s pension was renewed to him. Edward VI. having died two years previous, the former grant had probably expired with him. On the 27th of May, 1557, Cabot resigned his pension, and on the 29th a new grant was made to him and to William Worthington, jointly, of the same amount, so that Cabot was bereft of half his pay.[115] Cabot died not long afterwards, the precise date, however, not being known.
Mr. Biddle was strongly impressed with the belief that Cabot suffered great neglect and injustice in his last days from Philip, through the jealousy of Spain of the growing commerce and maritime enterprise of England, stimulated by one who had left his father’s service and refused to return, and “who was now imparting to others the benefit of his vast experience and accumulated stores of knowledge.” And he believed that William Worthington, who was associated with Cabot in the last grant to him of his pension, was a creature of Spain, who finally got possession of Cabot’s papers, and confiscated them beyond the reach of the students and statesmen of England.
I will now call attention to some documents recently made public, principally derived from the archives of Venice and of Spain, which reveal John Cabot again to our view and show him to have been the real discoverer of North America.[116]
John Cabot, or in the Venetian dialect, Zuan Caboto, was probably born in Genoa or its neighborhood, and came to Venice as early as 1461. He there married a daughter of the country, by whom he had three sons. On the 28th of March, 1476, by the unanimous consent of the Senate, he obtained his naturalization as a citizen of Venice,[117] “within and without,” having resided there fifteen years.[118] He engaged in the study of cosmography and the practice of navigation, and at one time visited Mecca, where the caravans brought in the spices from distant lands. He subsequently left Venice with his family for England and took up his residence in Bristol, then one of the principal maritime cities of that country. Sebastian is reported as saying that his father went to England to follow the trade of merchandise. When this removal took place is uncertain. Peter Martyr says that Sebastian, the second son, at the time was a little child (pene infans), while Sebastian himself says, if correctly reported, that he was very young (che egli era assai giouare), yet that he had some knowledge of the humanities and of the sphere. He therefore must have arrived at some maturity of years.[119] Eden[120] says that Sebastian told him that he was born in Bristol, and was taken to Venice when he was four years old, and brought back again after certain years. He told Contarini, at a most solemn interview, that he was born in Venice and bred (nutrito) in England, which is probably true. It is reasonable to suppose that the three sons were of age when the letters patent were granted to them and their father in March, 1496, in which case Sebastian, being the second son, must have been born as early as 1473, or three years before his father took out his papers of naturalization in Venice.[121]
In a letter from Ferdinand and Isabella to Doctor de Puebla, in London, dated March 28, 1496, they say, after acknowledging his letter of the 21st of January: “You write that a person like Columbus has come to England for the purpose of persuading the King to enter into an undertaking similar to that of the Indies, without prejudice to Spain and Portugal. He is quite at liberty.” But Puebla is further charged to see that the King of England, who they think has had this temptation laid before him by the King of France, is not deceived in this matter, for that these undertakings cannot be executed without prejudice to Spain and Portugal.[122]