[17] It is supposed that a new edition of this map was published in 1549, the year after Sebastian Cabot returned to England. The only evidence of this is contained in a thick duodecimo volume first published in 1594, at Herborn, in Nassau, edited by Nathan Chytræus, entitled Variorum in Europa Itinerum Deliciæ,—a work consisting of monumental and other inscriptions, antique legends, and curious bits of antiquity in prose and verse, picked up by the diligent compiler in almost every country in Europe. He was in England in 1565; and apparently at Oxford he saw a document, “a geographical table,” under which he found several inscriptions in not very elegant Latin, which he copied and printed in his volume, filling twenty-two pages of the book. They are wholly in Latin, and correspond substantially with the Latin inscriptions on the Paris map described above. There is this difference. The inscriptions here are but nineteen in number, whereas on the Paris map there are twenty-two, five of them in Spanish only. No. xviii., of Chytræus, is in the body only of the map, and in Spanish; and No. xix. appears only in Spanish. In Chytræus each inscription has a title prefixed, wanting, as a rule, on the Paris map. There are some verbal variations in the text, owing probably to the contingencies of transcription and of printing. In the legend, No. xvii., which has the title, “Inscriptio sev titulus Auctoris,” the date 1549 is inserted as the year in which the map to which the inscriptions belonged was composed, instead of 1544, as in the Paris map.
[18] I copy here this legend entire, in the original Spanish as on the Paris map:—
“No. 8. Esta tierra fue descubierta por Ioan Caboto Veneciano, y Sebastian Caboto su hijo, anno del nascimiento de nuestro Saluador Iesu Christo de M.CCCC.XCIIII. a ueinte y quarto de Junio por la mannana, a la qual pusieron nôbre prima tierra uista, y a una isla grâde que esta par la dha tierra, le pusieron nōbre sant Ioan, por auer sido descubierta el mismo dia lagente della andan uestidos depieles de animales, usan en sus guerras arcos, y flechas, lancas, y dardos, y unas porras de palo, y hondas. Es tierra muy steril, ay enella muchos orsos plancos, y cieruos muy grâdes como cauallos, y otras muchas animales, y semeiantemête ay pescado infinito, sollos, salmōes, lenguados, muy grandes de uara enlargo y otras muchas diversidades de pescados, y la mayor multitud dellos se dizen baccallaos, y asi mismo ay en la dha tierra Halcones prietos como cueruos Aquillas, Perdices, Pardillas, y otras muchas aues de diuersas maneras.”
In the Latin inscription we read that the discovery was made “hora 5, sub diluculo;” that is, at the hour of five, at daybreak. The Spanish simply says that the discovery was made in the morning.
[19] [We give reduced a part of the North American coast. Other representations will be found in Stevens’s Hist. and Geog. Notes, pl. 4; Kohl’s Discovery of Maine, p. 358; Jurien de la Gravière’s Les Marins du XVe et du XVIe siècle, Paris, 1879, with an essay on the map,—papers originally printed in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1876; Nicholl’s Life of S. Cabot, but inaccurate in the names; Hist. Mag., March, 1868, in connection with Mr. Brevoort’s paper; F. Kidder’s Discovery of North America by John Cabot; Bryant and Gay’s United States, i. 193. Also in Augusto Zeri’s Giovanni e. Sebastiano Caboto, Estratto dalla Rivista Marittima, Marzo, Roma, 1881. The whole of the map is given, but on a much reduced scale, in Judge Daly’s Early History of Cartography, N. Y., 1879.—Ed.]
[20] The following extract of a letter from Sebastian Cabot to the Emperor Charles V., dated London, Nov. 15, 1554, speaks of a sea-chart intended for his Majesty, and refers also to the subject of the variation of the needle, which interested Cabot in an especial manner:—
“With respect to laying down the position of the coast of Guinea conformably with the variation made by the needle with the pole, if the King of Portugal falls into an error, I give your Majesty a remedy.
“The same Francisco de Urista, whom I have named before, takes with him to show to your Majesty two figures which are: a mappe monde divided by the equator, from which your Majesty can see the causes of the variation of the needle, and the reasons why it moves at one time towards the north, at another towards the south pole; the second figure shows how to take the longitude on whatever parallel a man happens to be. The results of both these the said F. de U. will relate to your Majesty as I have here instructed him fully about them, and as he is himself skilled in the art of navigation. In regard to the sea-chart (?) which the said F. de U. has, I have written to your Majesty before about it, that it is of importance to your service, and also [have written] about a relation in my own handwriting to Juan Esquefe, your ambassador, to send it to your Majesty. From what I am told, it is in the possession of the Secretary Eraso. To it I refer you, and I assert that the chart will be of great service in reference to the division line agreed upon between the royal crown of Spain and Portugal for the reasons set forth in my relation.
“I beg you to receive my good will, etc. (Would come in person but am ill, etc.).”
(Col. de Doc. Ined. Madrid, 1843, iii. 512.) Andrés Garcia de Céspedes, in his Regimiento de Navigation, etc., 1606, speaking of the longitude, p. 137, probably alludes to this very map: “Sebastian Cabott de nacion Inglés, Pilóto bien conocido, in un Mapa que dio al Rey de Castilla,” etc.