[128] Venetian Calendars, i. 260. These papers were for the first time printed in America by the American Antiquarian Society, in their Proceedings for October, 1866, in an interesting communication from the Rev. Edward E. Hale, D.D., principally relating to the Cabot voyages. [Mr. Rawdon Brown, who calendared these papers, made his discoveries the subject of a paper on the Cabots in the Philobiblion Society’s Collections, ii. 1856; and in the preface to the first volume of the Venetian Calendars, A.D. 1202 to 1509, he describes the archives at Venice, which yield these early evidences. The late Professor Eugenio Albèri edited at Florence Le Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato durante il Seclo xvio, in fifteen volumes, which contain numerous reports of English transactions at that time.—Ed.]
[129] And is copied by Cornelio Desimoni, in his Giovanni Caboto, Genoa, 1881.
[130] “John Cabot’s Voyage of 1497,” in Hist. Mag. xiii. 131 (March, 1868), with a section of the Cabot (Paris) map. See also “The Discovery of North America by John Cabot in 1497,” by Mr. Frederic Kidder, in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. (Oct. 1878), xxxii. 381 [who reproduces also a part of the same map, and gives a sketch-map marking Cabot’s track around the Gulf. He bases his argument partly on Pasqualigo’s statement that Cabot found the tides “slack,” and shows that the difference in their rise and fall in that region is small compared with what Cabot had been used to, at Bristol. In the confusion of the two Cabot voyages, which for a long while prevailed (see an instance in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. x. 383, under date, 1663), the track of his first voyage is often made to extend down the eastern seaboard of the present United States, and it is thus laid down on the map in Zurla’s Di Marco Polo e degli viaggiatori Veneziani, Venezia, 1818. Stevens, Hist. and Geog. Notes, does not allow that on either voyage the coast south of the St. Lawrence was seen; and urges that for some years the coast-line farther south was drawn from Marco Polo’s Asiatic coasts; and he contends for the “honesty” of the Portuguese Portolano of 1514, which leaves the coast from Nova Scotia to Charleston a blank, holding that this confirms his view. It may be a question whether it was honesty or ignorance. Dr. Hale, Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc. Oct. 21, 1871, gives a sketch-map to show the curious correspondence of the Asian and American coast lines. Observe it also in the Finæus map, already given.—Ed.]
[131] I am indebted to Professor Franklin B. Dexter, of Yale College, for the privilege of using this paper, copied by him from the collection of Privy Seals, no. 40, in her Majesty’s Public Record Office in London. Other valuable memoranda, including a copy of the renewal to Sebastian Cabot, in 1550, of the patent of 1495/6, were also generously placed in my hands by Professor Dexter.
[132] Of course, neither John Cabot nor Sebastian could furnish ships at his own charge, any more than Columbus could. Raimondo says that John was “poor,” and the acceptance by him of small gifts from the King proves it. He was probably aided by the wealthy men of Bristol, with whom he may have taken up a credit.
Among the Privy Purse expenses under date of 22d March and 1st April, 1498, are sums of money, £20, £20, £30, £2, paid to several persons in the way of loan, or of reward, for their “going towards the new isle.” Three of these payments were to Lanslot Thirkill, of London, who appears to have been an owner or master of a ship. (Biddle, p. 86.)
[133] Calendar of Spanish State Papers, i. 176-77. [This letter was discovered by Bergenroth in 1860, the document being preserved at Simancas. See also Bergenroth’s Memoirs, p. 77, and Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc. Oct. 21, 1865, p. 25.—Ed.]
[134] Biddle, pp. 227-234, 312.
In a work entitled Armorial de la Noblesse de Languedock, by M. Louis de la Roque, Paris, 1860, vol. ii. p. 163, there is an account of the family of Cabot in that Province. The writer says that this family derived its name and origin from Jean Cabot, a Venetian nobleman who settled in Bristol in the reign of Henry VII.; was a distinguished navigator, the discoverer of Terre Neuve, thence passing into the service of Spain; that he had three sons,—Jean (who died in Venice), Louis, and Sebastian (who continued in the service of England and died in France without posterity); that Louis, here called the second son, settled at Saint-Paul-le-Coste, in the Cévennes, had a son Pierre, who died Dec. 27, 1552, leaving a will, by which is shown his descent from Jean the navigator, through his father Louis. Through Pierre the family is traced down to the present time. The arms of the family are given: Device, “D’azur à trois chabots d’or;” motto, “Semper cor cabot Cabot,”—the same as those of the ancient family of Cabot in the island of Jersey, whence the New England family of Cabot sprung. Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, in the introduction to his Life of George Cabot, has given reasons for believing that the French family was derived from that of Jersey. The three sons of John Cabot named in the letters patent of March 5, 1496, are Louis, Sebastian, and Sancius, the last of whom is not named in the list here cited.
It may well be doubted if Jean Cabot is properly styled above “a Venetian nobleman.” See the grant of denization to him in Venice, the several letters patent to him of Henry VII., and the letter of Raimondo on page 54. In the statement that he entered into the service of Spain, he is evidently confounded with his son Sebastian, who, it may be added, did not die in France, but in England. Whether Sebastian left posterity is not known, but he had a wife and children while he was living in Spain. Referring to the motto of the family here given, I may add that the motto on Sebastian’s picture is “Spes mea in Deo est.”