3. (Straits of Belle Isle.)
4. (South entrance to Gulf of St. Lawrence.)
5. Tera que foij descuberta por bertomas. (Land discovered by the Bretons.)
6. Teram istam gaspar Corte Regalis portugalemsis primo invenit, etc. (Nova Scotia. Gaspar Cortereal first discovered this country, and he took away wild men and white bears; and many animals, birds and fish are in it. The next year he was shipwrecked and did not return, and so was his brother Michael the following year.) The voyages of the Cortereals will be described in Vol. IV.—Ed.]
John Cabot was now in high favor with the King, who supplied him with money, by which he was able to make a fine appearance. Indeed, the King granted him under the great seal, during the royal pleasure, a pension of twenty pounds sterling per annum, having the purchasing value of two hundred pounds at the present time; to date from the preceding 25th of March. The grant was a charge upon the customs of the port of Bristol. The document authorizing this grant we are able to present here for the first time in print. The order from the King is dated the 13th of December, 1497, and it passed the seals the 28th of January, 1498:[131]—
“Memorandum quod xxviii. die Januarii anno subscripto istæ litteræ liberatæ fuerunt domino Cancellario Angliæ apud Westmonasterium exequendæ:—
“Henry, by the Grace of God King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland, to the most reverend father in God, John Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England and of the apostolic see legate, our Chancellor, greeting:—
“We let you wit that we for certain considerations, us specially moving, have given and granted unto our well-beloved John Calbot, of the parts of Venice, an annuity or annual rent of twenty pounds sterling to be had and yearly paid from the feast of the Annunciation of Our Lady last past, during our pleasure, of our customs and subsidies coming and growing in our port of Bristowe by the hands of our customs there for the time being at Michaelmas and Easter, by even portions. Wherefore we will and charge you that under our great seal ye do make hereupon our letters patents in good and effectual form. Given under our privy seal, at our palace of Westminster, the xiiith day of December, the xiiith year of our reign.”
Preparations were now made for a second voyage, and a license to John Cabot alone, as we have already seen, was issued by the King, for leave to take up six ships and to enlist as many of the King’s subjects as were willing to go. This was evidently a scheme of colonization. Peter Martyr says, if this is the voyage which he is describing, that Sebastian Cabot—for he never speaks of John—furnished two ships at his own charge, and Sebastian Cabot, in Ramusio, says that the King furnished them, and the Bristol merchants are supposed to have furnished three others; and they took out three hundred men.[132] The Fabian manuscript quoted by Hakluyt says they sailed in the beginning of May; and De Ayala says they were expected back by September. There is no doubt that Sebastian Cabot accompanied his father on this voyage. From the documents already cited from Peter Martyr and Ramusio there is some reason to believe that the expedition coasted some distance to the north, and then returning ran down the coast as far as to the 36° N. without accomplishing the purpose for which they went. That this latter course was pursued receives some confirmation from the declarations of John Cabot on his return from the first voyage, that he believed it practicable to reach in that direction the Island of Cipango and the land of the spices. But the prospects were discouraging and their provisions failed. Gomara, in noticing this voyage, says that on their return from the north they stopped at Baccalaos for refreshment. But all the accounts relied on for this voyage are vague and, as we have already seen, unsatisfying.