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MARITIME ENTERPRISE
1485–1558

WARSHIP, Period 1514–45.
From Cott. MS. Aug. 1. i. 18.
Frontispiece

MARITIME ENTERPRISE

1485–1558

BY

JAMES A. WILLIAMSON

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1913

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK

TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY

HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A.

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE

The subject of English maritime enterprise during the period 1485–1558 falls naturally into two divisions—discovery and trade. The former has engaged the attention of numerous historians in the last thirty years, their works centring mainly on the voyages of the Cabots with subsequent exploring adventures more or less summarily treated. Commerce, on the other hand, has been somewhat neglected as a factor in that great development of the powers of the English nation which made itself evident in the sixteenth century. The only exhaustive book on the maritime trade of our country in the period in question is that of G. Schanz,[^[1]] published in German in 1881, and never translated into English. This work stops at the year 1547.

The object of the present work is to present a comprehensive picture of English maritime affairs from the accession of Henry VII to that of Elizabeth; to trace out such lines of policy as are visible in the existing records; and to elucidate certain incidents concerning which disputable ideas, or no ideas at all, are current.

With regard to the Cabot voyages, no new evidence is adduced, but a scientific criticism and analysis of that already known has been attempted; leading, in the author’s opinion, to the partial rehabilitation of the character of Sebastian Cabot. The evidence in favour of his independent exploration in the North-West seems, when properly discriminated from other matters with which it has been unjustly confused, too strong to be neglected.

The later voyages of discovery under Henry VII, and those under Henry VIII, have been as deeply entered into as the scanty surviving evidence permits. The debt which our maritime expansion owes to the last-named monarch is emphasized by the fact that most of the projects of his reign owed their origin to his initiative, acting in despite of popular apathy.

With the trading voyages to Brazil, the African coast, and the North-East the new era of national expansion was entered upon. On these matters the Record Office possesses numerous documents which supplement the printed sources of information. The negotiations concerning the Guinea voyages furnish an illustrative sidelight on the actual influence exercised by King Philip over the conduct of English affairs.

In the chapters on commerce under Henry VIII and his two successors the development of the various branches of trade, and their relation to diplomacy, have been outlined, but many details have been necessarily omitted. The circumstances attending the fall of the Hansa in England are here fully stated for the first time.

For purposes of reference a chapter on the naval history of the period has been added. The connexion between the naval service and the mercantile marine was perhaps closer in Tudor times than at any subsequent period. Officers, men, and ships served alternately in the one and the other; and the navy itself was more of the nature of a marine militia than of a regular force.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

SUMMARY OF ENGLISH MARITIME AND
COMMERCIAL HISTORY, 1485–1558

CHAPTER I
HENRY VII AND HIS COMMERCIAL POLICY

The reign of Henry VII marks the opening of the modern era in the history of the English nation, the period in which, from being an agricultural and military people, we have become transformed into a maritime and commercial community, with interests stretching far beyond the shores of our immediate neighbours on the continent of Europe. Throughout the Middle Ages all the strivings and ambitions of England were concentrated on the conquest, by force of arms, of the surrounding countries—of the remaining parts of the British Isles at first, and afterwards of France. With a hardy and independent peasantry and a fierce and warlike baronage, it could scarcely have been otherwise. English kings found themselves obliged, for their own preservation, to put themselves at the head of such movements, and those of them who were unable or unwilling to do so were continually menaced by the turbulent elements to which they refused an outlet.

This system of violent expansion, successful in the cases of Ireland and Wales, and not seriously pursued in that of Scotland, proved to be its own destruction when applied to France. Although a military conquest might endure for a time, it was impossible that England could permanently absorb a nation larger than itself, of different blood, language, and manners of thought, in the same way that Wales had been absorbed. When Henry V commenced his wonderful career of conquest the sentiment of nationality was already too well established; and the long struggle, which ended forty years later in the expulsion of the English from France, consolidated that sentiment, and rendered the renewal of such an attempt for ever impossible of success. But just as France had developed from a mere geographical area into a nation in the modern sense of the word, so also had England, although much remained to be done before her development could proceed on truly national lines. The Wars of the Roses, protracted, with intervals of peace, for thirty years, cleared away much of the remaining débris of feudalism; and at their close Henry VII came forward as the first king of modern England. The old ideals, the old national instincts, and the old social order had gone, or were in process of dissolution; and the work of his reign consisted in forming new ones and giving direction to that universal awakening of the human mind which now first began to make its influence felt in the practical affairs of the English nation.

As with all changes of deep-rooted and far-reaching importance, its results were slow to manifest themselves, and were scarcely apparent to many of the greatest minds of the time, bred up to the old order, yet nevertheless working unconsciously in the furtherance of the new. The king himself, who did more than any other man to usher in the new era, and whose policy has been followed, with intervals of retrogression, almost to our own time, may well have been unaware how greatly he differed from his forerunners, and there is nothing in his recorded utterances to show that he realized the significance of the change that was taking place. In fact, as compared with many of the more flamboyant statesmen who followed him, he must have appeared slow and conservative, a survival of mediaevalism rather than a man of the Renaissance. Like the evolution of the natural world, that of imperial Britain has been largely unconscious, and measures which owed their origin to expediency and the needs of the moment have frequently hardened into enduring elements of the national system. Let us then examine, from this point of view, one aspect of the reign of the first Tudor—his commercial policy; bearing in mind that, although he himself was concerned only with the immediate welfare of his family and country, his work was of such a character as to serve as the foundation for an edifice upon which the passage of four Centuries has not yet placed the topmost stone.

European commerce, down to the age of the great geographical discoveries, hinged upon two great trade routes and two great producing areas, the one of manufactured, and the other of raw, material. To these four dominant factors all subsidiary avenues and crafts owed their origin and continued existence. The two primary trade routes were: first, that connecting, by way of the Levant and the nearer East, the Italian cities with the vaguely known and fabulously portrayed wealth of southern Asia; and second, that by which the hardy merchants of the Hanseatic League conveyed the produce of the Baltic shores, of Scandinavia, of the wide plains of Muscovy, and through them the far-fetched wares of Persia and Cathay, to western Europe, which region, stimulated by amenities whence the indolent mind of Asia drew no profit, inevitably became the centre of the world’s progress. Nothing for nothing being a universal law, Europe had to find something of her own to exchange for the furs of the North and the spices of the East. The cities of the Rhine delta supplied, in great part, the indispensable quid pro quo, by devoting themselves to a variety of manufactures amongst which that of cloth assumed a position of paramount importance. Here, then, arose the first producing area necessary to the balance of the mediaeval trading system; England constituted the second and equally indispensable one, for she alone, secured by the sea from the worst scourges of war, could supply the raw material for the cloth industry. The generous wool-sacks of England became her title of entry into the ranks of the progressing nations of the world.

Already, before the dawn of the new era, England had begun to manufacture a portion of her wool into rough, inferior qualities of cloth, but, until the awakening under the Tudor dynasty, she cannot be said to have realized the possibilities of her position. The Hanse merchants and the Italians were in possession of the bulk of her foreign commerce, and only a few subsidiary trades were in the hands of Englishmen, whose education and ability in such matters were inferior to those of the foreigners.

TRADE ROUTES
from and to
ENGLAND
at the commencement
of the
Tudor Period.

A more detailed consideration of the lines of communication with which England was immediately concerned reveals four main commercial avenues, all forming part of the great general system already described: the trade with Germany and the Baltic, chiefly controlled by the great Hansa, whose tentacles spread from Riga to the Rhine; the export of half-made cloth to Flanders, shared between the Hansa, the Flemings, and the English Merchant Adventurers; the wool export, to Calais by the English Staple Merchants, and overland to Italy by the Venetians and Florentines, who maintained business houses for that purpose in London; and the long sea route for wools, wines, and spices, to and from the Mediterranean, again monopolized almost exclusively by the Italians. In addition there were minor, but nevertheless much frequented, trades to Spain for wines and oils, to Gascony for wines, and to Iceland for stock-fish. The two last mentioned were more exclusively in the hands of Englishmen than any of the others.

These mediaeval trade routes, although destined to be profoundly modified by the great extension of the limits of the world as known to Europeans, remained of paramount importance for more than a century to come, and Henry VII set himself to the policy of ousting foreigners from their control, and of fostering, by every means known to his statesmanship, the mercantile enterprise of his own people.

One of the shrewdest business men who ever sat upon a throne, he had no doubt studied and admired the commercial system of Venice. That state, which existed solely by means of and for the purpose of trade, maintained her ascendancy by a fiscal policy which combined rigorous protection with a species of socialism undefiled by any morbidly altruistic ideas. All the familiar weapons of modern protection—preferential duties on goods from Venetian dependencies, navigation laws to encourage Venetian shipping, retaliatory tariffs against rivals, and reciprocal arrangements with such as were disposed to be reasonable—were to be found in the armoury of Venice, and were applied with an unquestioning assurance as to their efficacy, only possible in an age when the doctrines of free trade were yet unborn.

In addition there was in Venice an absolutely complete subordination of the individual to the interests of the State. If the export or import of a certain article was considered prejudicial to the welfare of the city, that trade was stopped forthwith; if the clothworkers of Venice were short of raw material, shipmasters coming from England were ordered to load with wool and nothing else; if the State galleys for the Flanders voyage had difficulty in completing their cargoes, those who preferred to ship their goods in private vessels were forced to pay half or quarter freights to the official ships as well; since it was desirable that Venice should possess a large commercial navy, the overland conveyance of certain wares was forbidden or subjected to paralysing duties. Such are a few examples of the working of an undemocratic republic, of a type which may never be seen again, but which was eminently suited to the needs of its time. And the secrets of the success of this unparalleled interference by the State with individual rights? They were two: first, magnificent discipline, ready obedience enforced by severe penalties; and second, an elasticity of method, an instant variation of policy to meet varying conditions, which could only have been carried out by an assembly of level-headed, patriotic merchant-statesmen, such as filled the benches of the Venetian senate.

Henry VII, then, had before him a pattern of successful mercantile policy, but he was under no illusions as to his powers of enforcing such a discipline on England. Although he far exceeded him in subtlety of mind, he lacked the ferocious mastery of men which his son was afterwards to display. He had to make up his mind to work slowly and cautiously, to be content to sow that others might reap, to lay sure foundations for the greatness of his family and of the country with which its interests were bound up.

Generally speaking, the policy of the Middle Ages had been, in the interests of cheapness, to encourage foreign merchants of all kinds to bring their goods to England, and to establish factories in her ports; in many cases, even, aliens had been granted privileges exceeding those of native traders, and consequently the trade of England was largely in foreign hands. Henry soon gave signs that this policy of cheapness was to be abandoned. His first Parliament passed an Act[^[2]] prohibiting the import of Bordeaux wines in other than English vessels, manned by English crews. To avoid friction, the too sudden application of this law was mitigated by the frequent granting to foreign merchants of licences to break it. But these were exceptions; the rule remained, and the grants of licences gradually diminished.

While determined to advance the general interests of his subjects, he was always ready to conclude commercial treaties conferring a mutual exchange of benefits; and he sought, wherever possible, to draw mercantile advantages from his handling of purely political matters. The commercial relations of England and the Netherlands form an illustration in point. In 1493 there was a serious quarrel on account of the support given to Perkin Warbeck by Margaret, the widowed Duchess of Burgundy and sister of Richard III. Henry’s retaliation to her vindictive encouragement of his enemies consisted in ordering the cessation of all intercourse, and the removal of the Continental head-quarters of the Merchant Adventurers from Antwerp to Calais. Uninterrupted trade with England was essential to the prosperity of the Netherlands, where a large proportion of the craftsmen were employed in dyeing and finishing the rough English cloth. There was on both sides great distress in commercial circles, and unemployment due to the loss of trade; but the inconvenience thus caused, while considerable in England, was intolerable in the Netherlands, and the result was the negotiation of the famous Magnus Intercursus of 1496, followed by supplementary treaties in 1497 and 1499.[^[3]] By these treaties tariffs were reduced, fishing rights regulated, and many vexatious restrictions abolished; in addition, Henry secured the political object for which he had undertaken the struggle. When the English cloth merchants returned to Antwerp they were received with public demonstrations of joy.

The English king, although willing to make concessions when such were inevitable, showed himself remorseless in seizing an accidental advantage. In January 1506 the Archduke Philip, who had succeeded to the throne of Castile on the death of Queen Isabella in 1504, set out from Flanders to Spain by sea. In the Channel he encountered a furious storm, and, after all on board had given themselves up for lost, his fleet reached the shelter of Weymouth. Contrary to the advice of his captains, he went on shore. The country people, seeing the arrival of strange ships and armed men, gathered to resist an enemy, but, finding him to be a friend, they made him welcome. Sir Thomas Trenchard, a most astute gentleman of the neighbourhood, offered him entertainment, and sent off post haste to acquaint King Henry of the prize which fortune had cast on his shore. Philip now realized his rashness and would have been glad to depart, but was earnestly entreated by Trenchard and his friends to stay and speak with the king. Fearing that if he insisted their courtesy would give place to force, he put a good face on the matter and professed himself delighted to remain. Henry sent the Earl of Arundel, with many lords and knights, to bring him to Windsor with his wife Juana.

He was paraded through London and, as the price of his liberty, had to agree to a commercial treaty which settled outstanding questions in such a one-sided way, and admitted English cloth at such a cheap rate to the Netherlands, that the defrauded Flemings named it the Malus Intercursus.[^[4]] In those times shipwrecked voyagers received scant compassion, and Henry was only taking the same advantage on a large scale as his unscrupulous subjects took on a smaller one when they stole the cargoes from stranded ships. Philip died without ratifying the treaty of 1506, the details of which were not completed until after he left the country, and relations became unsatisfactory in consequence. Margaret proposed to resume trade on the terms of the Magnus Intercursus, but Henry was unwilling to forgo his hard bargain. Finally, a compromise between the treaties of 1496 and 1506 was agreed upon, the customs payable by Englishmen in the Netherlands remaining on the basis of the latter. The question of the legal validity of the Malus Intercursus remained unsettled, the matter being postponed from time to time by the issue of provisional ordinances for its maintenance. As late as 1538 the Netherlanders were still demanding its abrogation.[^[5]]

An important trade existed between England and Spain and, at the beginning of Henry’s reign, it was largely in the hands of Spanish merchants, a number of whom resided in London. The customs duties had long been in an unsettled state, and were the subject of an arrangement included in the Treaty of Medina del Campo, 1489.[^[6]] It was provided that the subjects of either country might travel, reside, and carry on business in the other without a passport, and should be treated in every way as native citizens. Customs duties were to be reduced and all letters of marque (i. e. private reprisal for injuries) revoked. There were also other clauses intended for the suppression of piracy, a subject which will be referred to later.

That such treaties were often broken is proved by their frequent renewal; and indeed, the signing of a treaty was more often the signal for a commencement of wranglings as to its interpretation, than a token of settlement. In the case in point it had been agreed that customs were to be reduced to what they had been thirty years before. The intention was plain, but Henry discovered that the English duties had been higher at the date mentioned than at the time of the treaty, and he promptly increased them, although the Spaniards protested that they had lowered theirs. The dispute on this point dragged on for many years, and references to it occur at intervals in diplomatic correspondence until the marriage of the Prince of Wales and Katherine of Aragon. A curious fiscal argument occurs in a letter from Henry to the Spanish sovereigns in 1497.[^[7]] He says that the effect of the high duties is that Spaniards sell their goods at a high price in England, and so are enabled to obtain more English cloth with the proceeds than they could otherwise do. Thus the duties are paid by the English, not the Spaniards. An excellent sermon—for other people—on the disadvantages of protection!

Although anxious to foster English trade and enterprise to the utmost, Henry could not afford to neglect his dynastic interests, and the latter were of paramount importance in his dealings with Spain. His title was weak and his enemies strong, and, during the first part of his reign, it seemed quite likely that he would perish in a feudal revolution as four of his predecessors had done in the space of a century. To remedy the instability of his throne he was sometimes obliged to make use of commerce as a weapon or a bribe, as opportunity offered. An instance of the first was seen in his dealings with the Netherlands; the negotiations for the Spanish marriage were an example of the second. The proposals and hagglings with reference to this marriage dragged on for years. Henry was eager for it. He was, in a sense, a parvenu among the kings of Europe, and he felt that it was a vital matter for him to establish his family among them. Ferdinand and Isabella, on the other hand, had great hesitation in allowing their young daughter to be exiled among the English, whom the Spaniards regarded as being socially and morally inferior to themselves. In addition to this personal objection they had another. They wished to procrastinate until Henry should have disposed of his pretenders and given proofs of the firmness of his throne. Hence his extreme eagerness to lay Perkin Warbeck by the heels, which embroiled him with the Netherlands in 1493. The marriage being the keystone of his policy, he left no means unused to bring it about, and so we find commercial relations employed by him as a screw with which to extort the reluctant acquiescence of Spain. In 1496 he declared that he would come to an understanding on the question of the duties after the alliance and marriage should have been concluded. In 1497, in the letter already quoted, he promised that Spanish traders should have preferential treatment as against the Italians in celebration of the happy arrival of the princess in England, an event which was still to be delayed, as it proved, for more than four years to come. One more instance of the intimate connexion of politics and trade may be given. In 1504 the Spanish Government prohibited the export of goods from Spain in foreign vessels so long as there were any Spanish ships unemployed, but in consideration of the position of the now widowed Katherine in England and of their desire to recover her or her dowry, the English were exempted from the application of this law.[^[8]]

With Venice Henry VII was never on bad terms, although for several years a brisk tariff war was waged between the two powers. It arose from the action of Venice in imposing an additional export duty of four ducats per butt on malmsey wines loaded by aliens at Candia. This was done under pretext of discouraging the pirates of that region, but in reality for the purpose of favouring Venetian shipping. Henry retaliated by making Venetians pay 18s. per butt extra duty on importing these wines into England, and by fixing a maximum selling price of £4 per butt. A butt of malmsey contained 126 gallons, and a gallon of the wine thus cost about 7½d. in England. The differential duty and the maximum selling price threatened to squeeze the Venetians out of the market, but the king went further. He entered into negotiations with the Florentine Government with a view to the establishment of an English wool-staple at Pisa.[^[9]] This would have constituted the latter city the distributing centre for English wool in the Mediterranean, and Venice would have been deprived at a blow of an important branch of her trade. The proposal seriously alarmed the Venetians, and they threatened to discontinue the dispatch of the annual trading fleet to England. It would have been manifestly impossible for them to bring cargoes of spice to England if they were debarred from loading wool in return, especially as the export of specie from England was prohibited. The Pisa project was probably not seriously intended and was not persisted in, although the appointment in 1494 of two English consuls in that city, with full authority over English merchants, indicates that considerable business was done there.[^[10]] In the end, after lengthy but quite dispassionate negotiations, such as befitted business-like powers, Henry carried his point and the wine duties were reduced.[^[11]]

The prohibition of the export of money, and also of gold and silver plate, from the realm was typical of the economic ideas of the time. Gold was looked upon as wealth in itself rather than as a means of exchange, and this notion was strengthened as time went on by the enormous apparent advantages which Spain derived from her American conquests. It was an error which led Spain to ruin, and would have been equally fatal to England if she had had the same opportunity to go astray. Fortunately, Englishmen found themselves excluded from the gold-bearing regions, and were driven to trade and eventually to colonization instead.

To be successful as a merchant under the conditions which obtained in the days when individual effort was beginning to displace the rigid guild-system of the Middle Ages, a man had need of alert wits, a stout heart, and capital sufficient to enable him to withstand the violent fluctuations of fortune. Even in times of peace the risks were great, although undoubtedly the profits of the successful were proportionate. Shipwrecks were necessarily frequent on unlighted and practically uncharted coasts; the trade routes were infested with pirates and privateers; and commercial treaties were broken almost as soon as made. The cautious trader, before venturing his goods into a foreign country, was careful to procure a licence or safe-conduct from the Government, and even this did not always protect him. If he could obtain the patronage of a powerful person, he might contrive to avoid the payment of customs dues. In 1492, when Henry VII imposed the prohibitive duties on Candia wines, the Venetian merchants in London were advised to distribute forty or fifty butts of the wine, or their cash equivalent, as bribes in getting the matter set right. Even State-owned vessels were not secure from molestation, when sufficiently far from home. In the same year, 1492, we read that Henry, being at war with France, detained the Flanders galleys of Venice to act as transports for his troops.[^[12]] A powerful Government might secure compensation for such an infringement of its neutrality, but private merchants would have stood little chance of doing so. Conditions such as these caused success to depend entirely on individual qualities; and when once they took to the sea Englishmen were not slow to develop that character for resource and audacity which stood them in such good stead in the long war with Spain at the end of the sixteenth century.

An incident which occurred in 1505 shows how little reliance could be placed upon treaties by the persons whom they were designed to benefit. On the strength of an undertaking by the Spaniards, already mentioned, that notwithstanding the navigation law the English might freely export goods from Spain, a fleet of English merchantmen went to Seville, with cargoes of cloth, intending to come back with wine and oil. On arriving there, they were forbidden by the local authorities to export anything, and returned professing themselves ruined. Their spokesmen petitioned the king, ‘with much clamour’, for redress. Henry sent for de Puebla, the Spanish ambassador, whom he suspected of duplicity in the matter, and subjected him to a storm of furious abuse. De Puebla must have passed a bad quarter of an hour, but, as he remarked, he did not so much mind as there was no witness to the interview. He explained that the treaty, by a mistake, had not been proclaimed in Andalusia. He wrote at once to King Ferdinand and asked him that right might be done. A few days later he reported that some members of the Privy Council had visited him on the same matter and that he had had a most unpleasant interview with them. He again begged Ferdinand to give satisfaction, as the English sailors were such savages that he went in fear of being stoned by them if reparation were not made.[^[13]]

Piracy, as has already been noticed, was of common occurrence, and was a great hindrance to sea-borne trade. Surprising as it may seem, it was cheaper to send goods from London to Venice by the overland route, up the Rhine and across the Alps, than it was to send them by sea. This was partly owing to the huge expenses incurred for defence against pirates. One Venetian captain, reporting his safe arrival in London, mentioned that, fearing to be attacked, he had shipped a hundred extra hands and twenty-two gunners, and that by their aid he had beaten off the attack of a Norman pirate. Perhaps the greatest piratical coup of the time was the capture on August 21, 1485, of the entire fleet of Flanders galleys. They were assailed off Lisbon by a force of French ships, commanded by an officer in the service of the French king. After a desperate fight, lasting twenty hours, in which over four hundred Venetians were killed and wounded, four large galleys surrendered.[^[14]] An enormous booty was taken from them, and no one seems to have been punished for the affair. In fact, the deed was justified on the ground that Venice was under a papal interdict and therefore outside the law. Pirates were particularly active in the Channel and, besides roving the high seas, were sometimes bold enough to enter English harbours in search of prey. In 1495 some Frenchmen sailed up Southampton Water and raided the Venetian galleys which were at anchor off the town. They seized, among others, the commander of the fleet and the Venetian consul in England, and held them to ransom, exacting 550 ducats for each.

Piracy was the more difficult to suppress because there was often a very slight distinction between merchant and pirate. Unscrupulous persons frequently combined the two callings as opportunity offered. To check the abuse, a clause was inserted in some of the commercial treaties, to the effect that the owners of vessels, before leaving a foreign port, were to deposit a sum of money as a guarantee of good behaviour, sometimes twice the value of the ship and cargo. Another remedy for the victims of piracy was but an aggravation of the disease. It consisted in the granting of letters of marque or reprisal to the injured parties, thus allowing them to take the law into their own hands. Naturally, the scope allowed them by these letters was very liberally interpreted by the holders, who seem even to have regarded them as negotiable property. An extreme instance was the seizure on the Rhine of certain Milanese merchants, bound for England with their goods, at the instigation of the Emperor Frederick III. This was done on the ground that letters of reprisal against Milan had been granted by a former king of England to a certain merchant, then deceased. His heirs had apparently transferred their rights to the German sovereign.

The extent to which navigation was dependent on the weather is difficult to realize in these days. Communication between England and Spain was almost at a stand-still in the winter. A letter of 1496 mentions that during the first three months of that year the seas had been so rough that few vessels had been able to leave Spanish ports. One courier had been detained two months and another three without any chance of leaving. The diplomatic correspondence between England and Spain, which was dispatched almost exclusively by the sea route, was always much diminished in volume during the winter months, and letters sometimes took many weeks to reach their destination. When Queen Isabella of Castile died and the Archduke Philip, her successor, proposed to travel by sea from Flanders to Spain, he was advised that the voyage could only be made in safety between May and the middle of August. He chose to undertake it in the winter, with the consequence already described. In two months of the year 1498 fifty ships are said to have been wrecked on the coasts of Portugal and Spain.[^[15]]

When the perils of the sea were so great, the trades of pilot and chart-maker, often combined by the same individual, were of great importance. In the absence of official charts of coasts and harbours, the man with local knowledge, who could safely guide a ship to port, was much sought after by merchants, and a pilot of good repute could naturally command good prices for his ‘sea cards’. In regulating these matters Spain was in advance of England. When voyages became longer and more frequent, owing to the extension of American discoveries, a proper system of examining and licensing pilots was established. An office for the purpose was instituted at Seville, and in 1519 Sebastian Cabot, who had by that time left the service of England, was put in charge of it with the title of Pilot-Major. All charts and reports of new discoveries were sent in to this office, and the information contained in them was embodied in a standard map, which was thus kept up to date. The Guild of the Holy Trinity, originating early in the reign of Henry VIII, represented an attempt to organize the craft of pilotage on similar lines in England, but it was long before English pilots attained to the standard of the Spaniards in theoretical knowledge.

CHAPTER II
MERCANTILE ORGANIZATION

It was the universal tendency of the Middle Ages for trades and industries to organize themselves, more or less rigidly, for the purpose of mutual defence and assistance. Such organizations accomplished their object by successfully defending the interests of the calling when isolated individuals would have fallen easy victims to tyranny; but the success was concomitant with a stifling of individuality and a stereotyping of personal relations, which were the bane of mediaeval times, and against which the Renaissance was in large measure a revolt.

In England the great London Companies, with their counterparts in other towns, became the arbiters of internal industry; while the greater part of such over-sea traffic as was not in foreign hands became grouped into two combinations of which the members were known as the Merchants of the Staple and the Merchant Adventurers.

Of these, the Merchants of the Staple were the first established, dating back to the thirteenth century, a time when raw wool and tin were practically the only exports of England. At the beginning of the Tudor period they formed a close corporation, under royal patronage, and had in their hands the entire business of exporting unmanufactured wool, wool-fells, and hides to Calais, at which place their dépôt or ‘staple’ had long been fixed. Thither the cloth manufacturers of the Low Countries resorted for the purchase of their raw material.

A very heavy export duty was imposed on wool, yielding from one-third to a half of the total receipts from all customs, and serving the additional purpose of fostering home manufacture by making the raw material more expensive to the foreigner than to the Englishman. The entire expense of maintaining the garrison and fortifications of Calais was defrayed from the wool duty. This political tie between the Crown and the Staplers caused the interests of the latter to be well looked after by the king, although their relative importance inevitably declined as the export of manufactured goods increased. Their monopoly gave them the entire handling of the wool export for Flanders and the Rhine, all other persons being forbidden to engage in it. Italian merchants, however, were allowed to export wool to their own states, provided that none was sold north of the Alps; and other traders, both Englishmen and foreigners, were granted licences from time to time to ship wools to the Mediterranean. The export duties were so adjusted that, generally speaking, non-Staplers paid double as much as Staplers. Henry VII's contemplated extension of the Staple system to Pisa, and the alarm occasioned in Venice thereby, have been referred to in the previous chapter.

The Wool Staple was a typically mediaeval device, harsh and inelastic, and its privileges were doomed to be submerged in the rising tide of manufacturing enterprise. The growth of the latter continued to absorb the surplus of wool until none was left for export. Political events assisted the change: the loss of Calais in 1558 was a crushing blow; and although, by transference to a Flemish town, it was sought to maintain a foreign dépôt, the conflict between England and Spain at the end of the century deprived it of a permanent resting-place. The manufactures of the Netherlands, and consequently their demand for raw material, also languished on the outbreak of their struggle for independence under Philip II. The decline of the Staple was quite appreciable even before the death of Henry VII. The average annual customs paid on wool during the first five years of his reign amounted to £16,800; for the last five years the figure fell just short of £10,000.[^[16]] The corresponding averages on all other wares were £17,500 and £29,000 respectively, a very convincing testimony to the efficacy of the king’s policy. There is no evidence that the decreased export of wool was in any way due to a smaller output. To judge from social writers on the period the tendency was all the other way; the conversion of arable land into sheep farms being one of the gravest domestic problems of the time, owing to the consequent falling off in the demand for agricultural labour. The unexported wool must, therefore, have been taken up by the native cloth-makers, and the striking increase in non-Staple trade was the result.

The Merchant Adventurers were a society organized on similar lines to the Staple, but perhaps not so strictly disciplined, and including all traders engaged in the export of cloth to the Netherlands. According to tradition they dated from the reign of King John,[^[17]] but they received their first undoubted charter of incorporation from Henry IV in 1407.[^[18]] This charter, renewed by successive kings, remained in force until 1505, when the society was reconstituted by a grant from Henry VII. The preamble stated that, owing to injuries sustained abroad by lack of proper governance, new regulations were necessary. The merchants were therefore empowered to meet and choose a governor and twenty-four assistant governors from among ‘the most sadde, discreete and honest persones’ of their number. The Governor and Assistants were to have full power of control over the English merchants resorting to the Low Countries. Thirteen was fixed as the number forming a quorum for the transaction of business, and any one refusing to take office when elected was liable to a fine of £20.[^[19]] An additional grant in the next year gave power to the Governor and Council to fine and commit to prison those who disobeyed their commands. This constitution worked fairly well for the next fifty years, although complaints were sometimes made of the indiscipline of the merchants. Unlike the Staplers at Calais, the Merchant Adventurers were resident, when abroad, under the jurisdiction of a foreign prince, which rendered them more difficult of control. During the restraint of the Flanders trade, prior to the Magnus Intercursus, they were ordered to shift their head-quarters to Calais; ‘notwithstanding, the said Low Countries were by disordered persons so furnished with the said woollen commodities that very few merchants repaired to Calais, either to buy the same or to bring foreign commodities thither to be sold’.[^[20]]

Shortly afterwards an attempt was made by the richer members of the Company dwelling in London to squeeze out the minor traders by making them pay heavy sums for admission to membership. But it proved a failure, being contrary to the general spirit of the age. The prosperity of the smaller seaports was threatened, and the aggrieved parties complained to the king. An Act was therefore passed in the Parliament of 1497 by which the fee for a licence was limited to ten marks, on payment of which sum any Englishman might trade. Thus the Merchant Adventurers were saved from petrifying into an exclusive band of privileged monopolists such as the Staple had become. With their freer and more elastic organization, they moved with the times, and remained in the forefront of commercial enterprise throughout the Tudor period. The expansion of their business brought them into conflict with the Hanseatic League, whose decline, as far as its hold upon England was concerned, was thenceforward inevitable. The Merchant Adventurers proved unsparing enemies, never letting slip any chance of discrediting their rivals, and instigating the Government to annoy them whenever opportunity offered. The course of the struggle and the final success which crowned the efforts of the English merchants will be described in a subsequent chapter.[^[21]]

It is important to emphasize at this point the difference between the cloth manufacture in England and in the Netherlands. The greater part of the cloth at this time exported by the Merchant Adventurers was of a coarse, heavy variety, which had not been subjected to the various finishing processes of rowing, shearing, dyeing, &c. in which the Flemish craftsmen were more expert. The Flemish industry was twofold: it consisted in completing the manufacture of English cloth, and also in making the lighter and more expensive fabrics such as chamlets, crapes, and serges, from raw wool purchased at Calais. This ‘light drapery’ manufacture was not introduced into England until late in the sixteenth century, being greatly assisted by Elizabeth’s wise policy of encouraging Philip’s revolted subjects to settle in this country, bringing the secrets of their craft with them.

The export and import duties of this period form an interesting subject. Broadly speaking, they fall into two main divisions: the ‘subsidies’, otherwise known as tonnage and poundage; and the ‘customs’. The subsidies were a set of variable duties, granted to the king for life at the beginning of his reign, and consisting of tonnage, or import duty per tun of wine; poundage, a duty per pound sterling value on most other goods exported or imported; and wool duties, levied on exported wool. The customs, as distinct from the subsidies, were fixed duties of ancient origin, primarily levied on the strength of the royal prerogative, and were continued without much alteration[^[22]] by the tactful Tudors, who had no wish to raise a discussion on their legality. It remained for James I to strain the prerogative by arbitrarily increasing the old customs rates, and thus to precipitate a struggle which ended in the abolition of the levying of imposts by royal authority, and established the dependence of all duties on parliamentary grant.

The principal and original object of the duties was undoubtedly the raising of revenue during the wars of the Plantagenet kings; but, as time went on, they came to be used as instruments of protection for those classes of merchants who were particularly favoured by the Crown. As will be shown, the royal favour, previous to Tudor times, was not reserved exclusively for Englishmen. The protective function of the duties was that which Henry VII sought to develop, in the interests of English trade; and modifications were introduced in the subsidies whenever it seemed expedient.

The following table gives the duties levied on some of the principal classes of merchandise and payable by Englishmen and foreigners respectively at the beginning of the reign. The subject is a somewhat obscure one, and authorities are contradictory on certain points. The customs are taken from Arnold’s Chronicle,[^[26]] where they are included in a list of which the exact date is not given.[^[27]] Since, however, the customs were practically invariable, the point is not one of great importance. The subsidies are those granted by the Parliament of 1485.[^[28]] They remained in force during the king’s life, with certain modifications due to political exigencies.

The wool duties were on exports only and the wine duties on imports only. The poundage was levied on exports as well as imports. The following goods were exempted from paying poundage: woollen cloth exported by Englishmen; wool, woolfells and hides exported (taxed by the special wool duties); corn, flour, fish, flesh, bestall,[^[29]] and wine imported; and victuals exported for the garrison of Calais. Goods were valued for poundage on their original cost, on the oath of the merchant or his servant, and fraudulent declaration was punished by forfeiture.

The wool duties were by far the heaviest in amount, and, to lighten the excessive strain on the capital resources of the merchant, it was provided that half the duty should be paid within six months after shipment, and the other half within twelve months. If the wool were lost at sea, by wreck, piracy, or war, a similar quantity might be shipped duty free.

By the Act of 1485 which granted the subsidies for the reign, the Hanse merchants, who had hitherto been exempt from paying the wine subsidy, were specially included as being liable to that duty; but their other existing privileges, which were considerable, were continued unaffected. By another Act it was provided that if a foreigner had become a naturalized Englishman he should nevertheless continue to pay duties as a foreigner. On the other hand, to foster English shipping it was laid down that if an Englishman shipped his goods in a ‘carryke or galley’, that is, in a foreign ship, he must pay duties on the foreign scale. A study of these duties shows how great a measure of protection was afforded to English trade.

One of the most important of the colonies of foreign merchants settled in England was the London branch of the Hanseatic League. This, the greatest mercantile corporation in history, originated, like its smaller counterparts in England, in the association of merchants from various German towns for the purpose of mutual protection and co-operation while trading to foreign countries. After many vicissitudes, it attained in the fourteenth century to the status of a sovereign power, maintaining a formidable fleet and waging wars with the northern nations in defence of its interests. The London ‘factory’ was one of its largest oversea branches, and, during the fifteenth century, saw its pre-eminence threatened by the gradual growth of native mercantile enterprise, as evidenced by the rise of the Merchant Adventurers. The rivalry thus engendered was intense, but the Hanse merchants were able to take advantage of the internal dissensions in England, and a long period of privateering and reprisal was ended by an agreement which they extorted from Edward IV. In 1473 and 1474 treaties were signed by which the rights of the Hansa to trade in England under more advantageous terms than other foreigners, and even, in certain cases, than Englishmen, were recognized. Their group of warehouses and dwelling-places in the Steelyard, ‘commonly called Guildhall Theutonicorum’, was also secured to them in perpetuity, under the jurisdiction of officers appointed by themselves.[^[30]]

As manufactured woollen goods formed a principal item of their business, it is illustrative to give in detail a list of the duties on those and other articles, in which their privileged position is apparent:[^[31]]

It will be seen that, although the Spaniards received very nearly equal treatment with Englishmen, the Hansa had in nearly every case more advantageous terms, and was thus enabled to sell its goods at a lower price or at a better profit than native merchants. It must be borne in mind also that the trade in cloth with Spain was comparatively small.

With their position thus strengthened, the members of the Hanseatic League began to oust English traders from the Baltic, the German ports, Scandinavia, and even Iceland. The English traffic with the last mentioned country was further threatened with utter extinction by a quarrel with the King of Denmark, who forbade Englishmen to resort thither, although the prohibition was not made entirely effective.

On the accession of Henry VII public opinion demanded that he should diminish the privileges of the Hansa, wrung, as they had been, from Edward IV at a time when England was weak from a protracted civil war, and certain, if unchecked, seriously to hinder the expansion of native trade. He was unable, however, to denounce the treaty of 1473–4, as he dared not risk open war with a maritime power which could retaliate by assisting his numerous enemies to invade his realm. He therefore adopted a policy which, while ostensibly upholding its legal rights, sought every opportunity to nullify them in practice in favour of his own subjects. Accordingly, in the first year of his reign, in spite of protests, he granted a charter to the Hansa, renewing its privileges as secured by the treaty.[^[32]] The settlement of the Iceland dispute was next effected. In 1489 Henry dispatched ambassadors to Denmark who, in the following year, concluded a treaty with that country, by which peace was restored, trade was resumed on its former basis, and the prohibition of English voyages to Iceland was removed.[^[33]]

This was a blow at the Hansa of which it could not legitimately complain, although it abolished at a stroke its threatened supremacy in the fish trade, which, in pre-Reformation days, was relatively much more important than it has since become. It was followed up by a series of annoyances in the matter of the interpretation of treaties and customs laws. The Easterlings[^[34]] retaliated with restrictions on English trade with Prussia. A diet was held to adjust differences at Antwerp in 1491. A long list of grievances against the English administration was presented, which may be taken as illustrative of the policy pursued towards the Hansa at all times when there was no special reason to desire its goodwill. Ships and goods, it was alleged, were robbed in an English port; Hanse vessels were arrested for shipping cloth to Antwerp and for exporting unwrought cloths; the Act of Parliament granting subsidies was interpreted as overriding the treaty privileges of the League; the Lord Mayor arbitrarily fixed prices in London, and was guilty of other unjust practices; the Hansa suffered under the Navigation Acts prohibiting the import of Bordeaux wine and Toulouse woad in other than English ships; unlawful customs were exacted on certain articles, and the import of others was forbidden; the privileged duty rates were only allowed on goods coming from the Hanse towns, full duties being exacted on goods from other countries; the customs officers overestimated the value of Easterlings' goods and, when the duties were paid, delayed clearance so that English merchants might be first in the market on the other side; arbitrary charges were made for convoy, the Easterlings being forced to pay although they had not asked for protection; and Hanse vessels unlading at Hull were forced to take in cargoes at the same place, although frequently such cloths as they wanted were not obtainable there.[^[35]]

The above practices were plainly unjust, but were of such a nature, proceeding as they did from the universal ill will of all grades of officials and underlings, that only the strongest and most determined of governments could have put them down. That of Henry VII had no desire to exert itself in this direction, and undoubtedly connived at the oppression. The only outcome of the diet was a formal reaffirmation of the treaty of 1474, with a mutual promise of better conduct and a provision for settling damages and stopping piracy.

During the quarrel with Margaret of Burgundy, in 1493, when all trade with the Low Countries was prohibited, the Steelyard merchants were forced to deposit £20,000 as security for their observance of the order.[^[36]] At this time they were so intensely unpopular in London that it was unsafe for a German to walk in the streets alone. A rumour was spread that they were continuing to trade with Flemish ports in spite of the prohibition, and popular hatred rose to boiling-over point. A mob of the unemployed and discontented gathered with the intention of sacking the rich warehouses in the Steelyard. The Easterlings defended themselves bravely, and were partially successful in beating off the assault, although they afterwards claimed that much damage had been done. While the issue was still in doubt the Lord Mayor assembled the magistrates and officers of the city; and, at the approach of the forces of order, the rioters fled. About eighty apprentices and workmen were captured and locked up in the Tower. They were all subsequently released.

Commercial hostilities continued on both sides, and were the subject of renewed diets at Bruges in 1497 and 1499.[^[37]] The Hansa brought forward similar grievances to those already enumerated. They complained, in addition, of being subjected to the oppressive jurisdiction of the Admiral’s Court, which at that time took cognizance of all marine cases. They also claimed damages for the riot of 1493 and for various piracies. The English retaliated by putting in a much larger bill of damages, and asserted that they had been expelled from the Hanse towns, and that their house at Danzig had been confiscated. The English had more to gain than to lose by the continuance of bad relations, for their interests in the Baltic were not nearly so extensive as those of the Hansa in England. Henry held firm in his contention that legislation, such as that affecting the import of Bordeaux wine and Cologne silk and the export of cloth, was binding on all merchants resorting to England, special privileges notwithstanding. Further than this he did not care to go. The English merchants would have been glad to see him expel once and for all the tenants of the Steelyard, but he never liked to commit himself to a position from which there was no retreat; and he could not forget that the Hansa, driven to desperation, would be a formidable enemy. He had done enough to set English North Sea traffic on its legs; and the continued prosperity of the Merchant Adventurers is no bad testimonial to the soundness of his cautious policy.

The Spanish and Italian merchants in London were less unpopular than the Easterlings, and received considerably better treatment. Their competition was not so vital to English interests, and there were political reasons for dealing with them in a more civil manner. Harshness and insolence could not be displayed towards Spain, since the matrimonial alliance with that country was the keynote of Henry’s policy, to which mercantile considerations had necessarily to be subordinate. However, by careful and persistent pressure, he was able to place English trade to the south on as satisfactory a basis as that to the east. He was certainly fortunate in the choice which the Spanish sovereigns made of a representative in England.

Dr. de Puebla, who filled that office during the greater part of his reign, was a mean and venal figure, amenable alike to flattery, bullying, and bribes; and the king was able to read him like a book and play upon all his weaknesses in turn. His infidelity to his employers made it easier for Henry to enforce the Navigation Laws, already referred to, by which the Gascony trade was placed exclusively in English hands; and to strengthen the position of English merchants in Spain by getting the better of the bargain in most of the tariff negotiations. De Puebla was so miserly that he lived in a disorderly house for the sake of cheapness, and was well known as seizing every opportunity of getting himself and his servants fed at other people’s expense. But in spite of his conduct he enjoyed the confidence of Ferdinand and Isabella, who were certainly not ignorant of his shortcomings. Their motive in continuing him in his post seems to have been that, although Henry VII despised the man, he had also a certain regard for him, and occasionally confided intentions to him to which no one else was made privy. The Spanish sovereigns even went to the length of investing him with absolute judicial powers over all the Spanish merchants in London. The subjects of his jurisdiction hated him, and complained bitterly that he used his authority to extort bribes. They asserted further that he could have had the objectionable tariff dues lowered if he had chosen, but that he had sold their interests to the English Government.[^[38]] Of the truth of the latter accusation there is no doubt. In Henry’s Privy Purse accounts there are entries of payments to de Puebla of £66 15s. on two occasions, and of £20 on another, it being stated that they were ‘in reward’. Henry VII was not the man to disburse such large sums unless in consideration of value received. Judging by other entries, however, the bribing of ambassadors seems to have been a common practice.

To the merchants of the various Italian cities Henry was generally gracious in his manner. The fierce competition which embittered relations in the north was absent, for England was not yet ready to take a preponderating share in Mediterranean trade. On the other hand, the Italians, and more particularly the Venetians, were in a position to cut off the supply of certain articles such as malmsey wines, spices, and other eastern goods, which had almost become necessaries to England, and which could not be obtained elsewhere. Friendly relations were established with Milan, and the Milanese merchants were taken under the king’s especial safe-conduct. In 1488 the Venetians, Genoese, Florentines, and Luccans petitioned that the export duties on wool and tin might be diminished. Since there was then little or no shipment of those articles to Italy in English bottoms, the king granted their request, and made alterations in the customs and subsidies amounting to a net reduction of 10s. per sack on wool and 12d. per £ value on tin.[^[39]]

The Venetian factory in London was never subjected to the treatment which the merchants of the Steelyard received. The organization of this Venetian colony has many points of interest. It consisted of numerous merchants who were permanently resident in England, and were under the governance of a consul whose judicial powers were far more extensive than those of a similar official at the present time. The English law then took no cognizance of the disputes and crimes of foreigners in cases in which no Englishman was implicated. Hence the Italians were left to maintain order among themselves in the same way as the Spaniards and the Germans; and the Venetian consul represented among his compatriots the full majesty of their country’s law. He was also responsible for exacting the numerous fines and dues which, in addition to the English customs, were constantly imposed and varied by the strict regulations of the Venetian Senate.

A very firm control was exercised by the home government, and the consul himself, although he had disciplinary powers over the merchants, was carefully supervised in his turn. A regular service of couriers, travelling overland through Europe, maintained touch with the authorities in Venice, and the captains of the annual fleets of Flanders galleys were also charged with the duty of reporting on the affairs of the colony. In 1491, when it was suspected that certain of the merchants in London were covertly opposed to the policy of the Senate in maintaining a tariff war with Henry VII, the captain of the Flanders fleet was instructed to find out who the culprits were, and to report them in order that the Government might make a notable example of their presumption.[^[40]] The factory had its corporate responsibilities as well as its rights: when some prominent Venetians were captured by French pirates at Southampton, the London factory was commanded to pay their ransoms, a duty which a state less careful of the welfare of its citizens would have allowed to fall on their own families. The consuls were sometimes slack in exacting the payment of dues, such as the additional 5d. in the £ which merchants had to pay when they preferred to send their goods to Venice overland rather than by sea. To remedy this, supervisors were appointed to audit the consul’s accounts and generally to keep him up to the mark.

In all these matters the strict discipline was apparent which permeated the whole state of Venice. It even extended to the control of the movements of privately owned merchant ships. A decree of 1497 gives detailed instructions to the captains of two such ships. They were to load wool, cloth, and tin in London; the numbers of their crews and the freights they were to charge were specified; they were to take no aliens' goods until all the goods of Venetians were shipped; and they were to sail in close company on the voyage. The masters were enjoined to obey these instructions under a penalty of 500 ducats and ten years' suspension of their licences.[^[41]]

The management of the Flanders galleys, which have been so frequently referred to, vividly illustrates the centralized system of Venice. This fleet, which sailed annually with fair regularity for more than two centuries, consisted of large, oared ships which were the property of the State. When the time came for preparing for the voyage a public auction was held, at which the cargo space was disposed of to the highest bidders. The cargoes were thus the property of private merchants, although the conduct of the voyage was in the hands of the Government. The latter appointed the captains and gave instructions as to ports of call, the time to be spent at each, and similar matters. Each galley was manned by about 180 rowers, 30 archers, and numerous officers, merchants, servants, musicians, &c. After making calls at various Mediterranean ports the fleet proceeded to the Channel, where it divided, part going on to Flanders, and the remainder making for London, Sandwich, or, latterly, Southampton. Here the cargoes of Levant wines, silks, spices, and other eastern goods were disposed of, while the crews dispersed over the country to hawk the petty merchandises of their own which they were allowed to carry on board. Return freights of wool, cloth, hides, and tin were shipped; the English portion of the fleet then awaited the Flanders section, and the voyage home was made in company. The usual time taken was twelve months or a little longer. The Flanders galleys first sailed in 1517, and their last voyage was in 1552; towards the end of this period the sailings became very irregular, owing to wars in Italy and the gradual decline of the old trade routes.[^[42]]

Before the close of the epoch now under discussion the great geographical discoveries which ushered in the oceanic era of commerce began to make their effects evident. In the last decade of the fifteenth century Columbus discovered the West Indies, Cabot voyaged to North America, and Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut after the first passage round the Cape of Good Hope recorded in modern history. The Spanish discoveries poured into Europe a stream of the precious metals which upset the economic arrangements of every country, and, by creating a period of industrial unrest, broke up the old, stagnant organizations of the Middle Ages, and released a flood of energy which altered the face of the world. The Portuguese voyages to India soon proved that the sea route was far superior to the overland system of trading with the East, by which the Italian cities had risen to greatness. The western and northern nations, with free access to the Atlantic, were now the nations of the future; and the Mediterranean, which had for ages been the centre of civilization, began to decline. It is one of the ironies of history that Genoa and Venice owe their decay in large part to the achievements of their own offspring, Columbus and Cabot.

CHAPTER III
THE CABOT VOYAGES—JOHN CABOT, 1497 AND 1498

The subject of the Cabot voyages is one of the most puzzling in history, ranking indeed with the identity of Shakespeare as a battle-ground for the exponents of conflicting theories. The trouble arises from the fact that, while John and Sebastian Cabot actually lived and performed important discoveries in the dim days of England’s awakening from the sleep of mediaeval ignorance, few of their contemporaries felt sufficient interest in their exploits to write down a clear account of them for the benefit of posterity. Consequently the contemporary records are vague, ambiguous, and wofully incomplete, leaving (when purged of all uncertainties) little more of absolute truth than that John Cabot made two voyages across the Atlantic in 1497 and 1498, discovering some part of what is now British North America in the course of the first of them.

The progress of discovery in the sixteenth century produced numerous historians to narrate its annals. These men, living for the most part in Spain and Italy, had to turn for their information, in default of access to State archives, to such survivors of the exploits themselves as they were able to get into touch with. John Cabot had died soon after his great discovery, and, since his men were for the most part English, not one of them came in contact with any of the historians of southern Europe. The latter had therefore to seek information from Sebastian Cabot, his second son, who entered the service of Spain in 1512, lived in that country for five and thirty years, and returned to pass the last decade of his life in England, dying at a great age in 1557. Sebastian Cabot, then, not only moulded the foreign version of his story, but also in England was the sole link between the late fifteenth century, when men of letters took no interest in ocean voyages, and the mid-sixteenth, when the country was beginning to realize that her future lay upon the water. Thus the first ‘expansionist’ writer in England, Richard Eden, sat at Sebastian’s feet and drank in his stories of ancient discovery, which in this way secured acceptance as the whole truth and nothing but the truth until the sceptical nineteenth century began to institute a more searching inquiry.

Sebastian Cabot was a vain egoist, fond of giving vent to mysterious, bombastic utterances containing a maximum of self-praise and a minimum of hard fact. So, when appealed to by the historians for information on North American explorations, he said nothing of his father’s two voyages of 1497 and 1498, in which he may have taken part, and the details of which he must have been familiar with, but described instead a subsequent expedition, which he had himself commanded, in search of a north-west passage round America to Asia. The sixteenth-century histories therefore contain no mention of John Cabot, and the accounts found therein have no bearing whatever on his two voyages.[^[43]] A recognition of this fact is essential because it has been very generally believed that there were only two Cabot voyages, whereas there were actually three; and that Sebastian, in describing himself as commander of a north-western expedition, was talking of the original discovery in 1497 or of the following voyage in 1498, and taking the credit of them to himself. In reality, Sebastian Cabot was telling the truth in describing his own voyage, and merely suppressing the truth in saying nothing of his father’s. In other words, he was not so great a liar as he has been painted.

Turning first to John Cabot’s discovery of North America, by him thought to be eastern Asia, in 1497, and his second voyage to the same region in 1498, it will be convenient first to state the sources of information, and afterwards to examine the conclusions to which they lead.

On March 5, 1496, Letters Patent were granted to the Cabot family by Henry VII, to the following effect:

Permission to John Cabottus and to Ludovicus, Sebastianus, and Sanctus his sons to take five ships at their own charges, to navigate in any seas to the east, north, or west, and to occupy and possess any new found lands hitherto unvisited by Christians. They were to voyage only from and to the port of Bristol, and were to be exempt from the payment of customs on goods brought from the new lands. No other subjects of the king were to trade to the new lands without licence from the Cabots. In return for these privileges one-fifth of all profits were to be paid to the king.

News of the project reached the ears of de Puebla, the Spanish ambassador in England, who transmitted it to his sovereigns. His letter to them is lost, but their reply, dated March 28, 1496, was as follows:

‘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 we believe that the undertaking was thrown in the way of the King of England by the King of France with the premeditated intention of distracting him from his other business. Take care that the King of England be not deceived on this or in any other matter. The French will try as hard as they can to lead him into such undertakings, but they are very uncertain enterprises, and must not be gone into at present. Besides, they cannot be executed without prejudice to us and to the King of Portugal.’[^[44]]

The remainder of 1496 was consumed in preparations or, less probably, an unsuccessful voyage was made in that year. In any case, John Cabot set out in 1497, found land on the other side of the ocean, and was back by the beginning of August. The following letters describe the voyage:

Lorenzo Pasqualigo to his brothers in Venice, August 23, 1497.

'The Venetian, our countryman, who went with a ship from Bristol in quest of new islands, is returned, and says that 700 leagues hence he discovered land, the territory of the Grand Cham. He coasted for 300 leagues and landed; saw no human beings, but he has brought hither to the king certain snares which had been set to catch game, and a needle for making nets; he also found some felled trees, wherefore he supposed that there were inhabitants, and returned to his ship in alarm.

'He was three months on the voyage, and on his return he saw two islands to starboard, but would not land, time being precious as he was short of provisions. He says that the tides are slack and do not flow as they do here. The King of England is much pleased with this intelligence.

'The King has promised that in the spring our countryman shall have ten ships, armed to his order, and at his request has conceded him all the prisoners, except such as are confined for high treason, to man his fleet. The King has also given him money wherewith to amuse himself till then, and he is now at Bristol with his wife, who is also Venetian, and with his sons; his name is Zuan Cabot, and he is styled the Great Admiral. Vast honour is paid him; he dresses in silk, and these English run after him like mad people, so that he can enlist as many of them as he pleases, and a number of our own rogues besides.

'The discoverer of these places planted on his new found land a large cross, with one flag of England and another of S. Mark, by reason of his being a Venetian, so that our banner has floated very far afield.

‘London, 23rd August, 1497.’[^[45]]

Raimondo de Soncino to the Duke of Milan, August 24, 1497.

‘... Also some months ago His Majesty sent out a Venetian, who is a very good mariner, and has good skill in discovering new islands, and he has returned safe, and has found two very large and fertile new islands; having likewise discovered the seven cities, four hundred leagues from England, on a western passage. This next spring, his majesty means to send him with 15 to 20 ships.’[^[46]]

Raimondo de Soncino to the Duke of Milan, December 18, 1497. From the State Archives of Milan. Printed for the first time in English in Narrative and Critical History of America, edited by Justin Winsor, Cambridge, Mass., 1886, vol. iii. The Cabot section is by Charles Deane, F.S.A.

‘Most illustrious and excellent my lord:

‘Perhaps among your Excellency’s many occupations, it may not displease you to learn how his Majesty here has won a part of Asia without a stroke of the sword. There is in this Kingdom a Venetian fellow, master John Caboto by name, of a fine mind, greatly skilled in navigation, who seeing that those most serene kings, first he of Portugal, then the one of Spain, have occupied unknown islands, determined to make a like acquisition for his Majesty aforesaid. And having obtained royal grants that he should have the usufruct of all that he should discover, provided that the ownership of the same is reserved to the crown, with a small ship and 18 persons he committed himself to fortune; and having set out from Bristol, a western port of this kingdom, and passed the western limits of Hibernia, and then standing to the northward he began to steer eastward (sic), having (after a few days) the north star on his right hand; and having wandered about considerably, at last he fell in with terra firma, where, having planted the royal banner, and taken possession on behalf of this king, and taken certain tokens, he has returned thence. The said Master John, as being foreign-born and poor, would not be believed, if his comrades, who are almost all Englishmen and from Bristol, did not testify that what he says is true. This Master John has the description of the world in a chart, and also in a solid globe which he has made, and he (or the chart and the globe) shows where he landed, and that going towards the east (sic) he passed considerably beyond the country of the Tanais. And they say that it is a very good and temperate country, and they think that Brasil wood and silks grow there; and they affirm that the sea is covered with fishes, which are caught not only with the net, but with baskets, a stone being tied in them in order that the baskets may sink in the water. And this I heard the said master John relate, and the aforesaid Englishmen his comrades say they will bring so many fishes that the kingdom will no longer have need of Iceland, from which country there comes a great store of fish called stockfish. But Master John has set his mind on something greater; for he expects to go further on towards the East (Levant), from that place already occupied, constantly hugging the shore, until he shall be over against an island, by him called Cipango, situated in the equinoctial region, where he thinks all the spices of the world, and also the precious stones, originate; and he says that in former times he was at Mecca, whither spices are brought by caravans from distant countries, and that those who brought them, on being asked where the said spices grow, answered that they do not know, but that other caravans came to their homes with this merchandise from distant countries, and these again say that they are brought to them from other remote regions. And he argues thus—that if the Orientals affirmed to the southerners that these things came from a distance from them, and so from hand to hand, presupposing the rotundity of the earth, it must be that the last ones get them at the north towards the west, and he said it in such a way that, having nothing to gain or lose by it, I too believe it, and what is more, the King here, who is wise and not lavish, likewise puts some faith in him; for since his return he has made good provision for him, as the same Master John tells me. And it is said that, in the spring, his Majesty aforenamed will fit out some ships, and will besides give him all the convicts, that they will go to that country to make a colony, by means of which they hope to establish in London a greater storehouse of spices than there is in Alexandria; and the chief men of the enterprise are of Bristol, great sailors, who, now that they know where to go, say that it is not a voyage of more than fifteen days, nor do they ever have storms after they get away from Hibernia. I have also talked with a Burgundian, a comrade of Master John’s, who confirms everything, and wishes to return thither because the Admiral (for so Master John already entitles himself) has given him an island; and he has given another one to a barber of his from Castiglione of Genoa, and both of them regard themselves as counts, nor does my Lord the Admiral esteem himself anything less than a Prince. I think that with this expedition there will go several poor Italian monks, who have all been promised bishoprics. And, as I have become a friend of the Admiral’s, if I wished to go thither I should get an archbishopric. I humbly commend myself,

‘Your Excellency’s

‘Very humble servant,

Raimundus.’

The next two letters mainly concern the second voyage, that of 1498:

Pedro de Ayala to Ferdinand and Isabella, July 25, 1498.

‘I think your Majesties have already heard that the King of England has equipped a fleet in order to discover certain islands and continents which he was informed some people from Bristol, who manned a few ships for the same purpose last year, had found. I have seen the map which the discoverer has made, who is another Genoese like Columbus, and who has been in Seville and Lisbon asking assistance for his discoveries. The people of Bristol have, for the last seven years, sent out every year two, three or four light ships (caravelas) in search of the island of Brasil and the seven cities, according to the fancy of this Genoese. The King determined to send out ships because, the year before, they brought certain news that they found land. His fleet consisted of five vessels, which carried provisions for one year. It is said that one of them, in which one Friar Buil went, has returned to Ireland in great distress, the ship being much damaged. The Genoese has continued his voyage. I have seen, on a chart, the direction they took and the distance they sailed; and I think that what they have found, or what they are in search of, is what your Highnesses already possess. It is expected that they will be back in the month of September. I write this because the King of England has often spoken to me on this subject, and he thinks that your Highnesses will take great interest in it. I think it is not further distant than 400 leagues. I told him that, in my opinion, the land was already in the possession of your Majesties, but though I gave him my reasons, he did not like them. I believe that your Highnesses are already informed of this matter, and I do not now send the chart or mapa mundi which that man has made, and which, according to my opinion, is false, since it makes it appear that the land in question was not the said islands.’[^[47]]

De Puebla to Ferdinand and Isabella, July 25 (?), 1498. Printed in the Hakluyt Society’s Journal of Columbus, 1893.

‘The King of England sent five armed ships with another Genoese like Columbus to search for the island of Brasil and others near it. They were victualled for a year. They say that they will be back in September. By the direction they take, the land they seek must be the possession of your Highnesses. The King has sometimes spoken to me about it, and seems to take a very great interest in it. I believe that the distance from here is not 400 leagues.’

A second charter, granted on February 2, 1498, also bears upon the second voyage:

Petition of ‘John Kabotto, Venetian,’ for a charter in the following terms, which was accordingly granted: Authority and power to John Cabot ‘that he by him, his deputie, or deputies sufficient’ may take six ships, up to 200 tons burden, and voyage to ‘the lande and isles of late founde by the seid John’. All subjects of the King to give every assistance in their power to Cabot for the furtherance of the enterprise.

The successful return of John Cabot in 1497 has some traces in the records of official business:

Grant from the Privy Purse of Henry VII, August 10, 1497, ‘To him who found the New Isle, £10’.[^[48]]

Pension grant of £20 per annum to John Cabot, December 13, 1497.

‘Henry by the grace of God, etc. to John, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury etc., 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 £20 sterling, to be had and yearly perceived 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 Bristol, by the hands of our customers 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 thereupon our letters patent in good and effectual form. Given under our Privy Seal, at our palace of Westminster, the 15th day of December, the 13th year of our Reign.’[^[49]]

Together with this may be taken the authorization for the immediate payment of the pension, which would seem to have been delayed, dated February 22, 1498.[^[50]] Both these documents are printed by Mr. C. R. Beazley in his John and Sebastian Cabot (1898).

Memoranda of loans of £20 to Launcelot Thirkill of London, ‘going towards the new island’, March 22, 1498; £30 to Thomas Bradley and Launcelot Thirkill, ‘going to the New Isle’, April 1, 1498; and 40 shillings and five pence to John Carter, ‘going to the new isle’.[^[51]]

Launcelot Thirkill’s name appears again in a document of 1501, which shows that he returned safely from this voyage (the second), if indeed he actually performed it.

In this category also falls the important discovery made in 1897 among the Westminster Chapter Archives,[^[52]] consisting of the accounts of the Customers of Bristol for the years 1497–8 and 1498–9. These accounts show that John Cabot’s pension of £20 was paid during the years named. He is mentioned by name, and the customers deduct the amount of the pension from the total receipts which they hand over to the Exchequer officers.

A manuscript chronicle, of unknown authorship, in the British Museum,[^[53]] contains a reference to the second voyage, ostensibly written before its return:

'This yere (1498) the Kyng at the besy request and supplicacion of a straunger Venisian, which by a chart made hymself expert in knowyng of the world, caused the Kyng to manne a ship w^t. vytaill and other necessaries for to seche an Iland wheryn the said straunger surmysed to be grete comodities. W^t which ship by the Kyng’s grace so rygged went iij or iiij moo owte of Bristowe, the said straunger beyng conditor of the said fleete, wheryn divers m’chants as well of London as Bristow aventured goods and sleight m’chandises, which dep’ted from the west cuntrey in the begynnyng of somer but to this p’sent moneth came nevir knowledge of their exployt.'

Stow and Hakluyt both quote from a manuscript chronicle, then in the possession of the former, but now lost. Hakluyt says it was written by Robert Fabyan. Stow’s version (1615 edition, p. 481), almost identical with Hakluyt’s except as regards the name of the explorer, runs thus:

'1498, an. reg. 14. This yeere one Sebastian Gabato, a Genoa’s sonne, borne in Bristow, professing himself to be expert in knowledge of the circuit of the world and islands of the same, as by his charts and other reasonable demonstrations he showed, caused the King to man and victual a ship at Bristow to search for an Iland, which he knew to be replenished with commodities. In the ship divers merchants of London adventured small stocks, and in the company of this ship, sayled also out of Bristow three or foure smal shippes fraught with sleight and grosse wares, as course cloth, caps, laces, points and such other....

'1502, ann. reg. 18. This yeere were brought unto the King three men taken in the new found Ilands, by Sebastian Gabato, before named, in anno 1498. These men were clothed in beasts’ skins, and eate raw flesh, but spake such a language as no man could understand them, of the which three men, two of them were seen in ye King’s court at Westminster two yeares after, clothed like Englishmen, and could not be discerned from Englishmen.'

Hakluyt’s version adds at the end of the 1498 extract: 'And so departed from Bristow in the beginning of May, of whom in this Maior’s time returned no tidings'; and at the end of the 1502 extract: ‘but as for speach, I heard none of them utter one word’. (The Mayor referred to was William Purchas, whose term of office expired at the end of October 1498.) Hakluyt printed this extract from the now lost Fabyan chronicle in his Divers Voyages (1582), and again in his Principal Navigations (1599). The two versions differ in two respects: in Divers Voyages the name of John Cabot is omitted, he being simply designated ‘a Venetian’; while the bringing of the savages to England is placed in the eighteenth year of Henry VII's reign instead of the fourteenth as in Principal Navigations. Stow’s own extract, as has been seen, calls the explorer Sebastian Gabato. The variations were intentional rather than accidental, as it was the habit of both editors to amend their material where they considered it to be in error, without drawing attention to the fact. The truth probably is that Hakluyt had no warrant for his alteration of the date of the arrival of the savages, other than his ignorance of later voyages and consequent assumption that Cabot must have brought them. It is now known that other expeditions were made in the early years of the sixteenth century, and that these savages were most probably kidnapped by one of them, thus having nothing to do with the Cabots.

The final piece of evidence bearing on John Cabot is that contained in an inscription on a map of the world published in 1544, and attributed, with fair certainty, to Sebastian Cabot himself. An example of this map came to light during the nineteenth century, and is now at Paris. The inscription relating to the Cabots was translated by Hakluyt from a copy of the map which was in the possession of Queen Elizabeth at Westminster. Copies of it were numerous in England in Elizabeth’s time.

‘In the yere of our Lord 1497 [1494 in Paris copy], John Cabot a Venetian, and his sonne Sebastian (with an English fleet set out from Bristoll) discovered that land which no man before that time had attempted, on the 24th of June, about five of the clocke early in the morning. This land he called Prima Vista, that is to say, First seene, because as I suppose it was that part whereof they had the first sight from the sea. That Island which lieth out before the land, he called the Island of S. John on that occasion, as I thinke, because it was discovered on the day of John the Baptist. The inhabitants of this Island use to weare beastes skinnes and have them in as great estimation as we have our finest garments. In their warres they use bowes, arrowes, pikes, darts, woodden clubs, and slings. The soile is barren in some places, and yeeldeth little fruit, but it is full of white beares, and stagges farre greater then ours. It yeeldeth plenty of fish, and those very great, as seales, and those which commonly we call salmons: there are soles also above a yard in length: but especially there is great abundance of that kinde of fish which the savages call baccalaos. In the same Island also there breed hauks, but they are so blacke that they are very like to ravens, as also their partridges, and egles, which are in like sorte blacke.’

The two Letters Patent granted by Henry VII afford some information as to the Cabot family and the intentions of the king. Owing to their length and verbosity they have been merely summarized here, but they have been frequently printed in extenso. In the first of them occurs the only mention of the name of Sebastian Cabot in strictly contemporary documents (contemporary, that is, with the voyages). It has been deduced that, since Sebastian was evidently the second son and at least a year older than Sanctus, and since the name of a minor would not appear in such a charter, Sebastian must have been twenty-two years old at least in 1496. Another point to be noticed is that permission was given to sail to the east, the west, or the north, but not to the south. Henry VII was on friendly terms with both Spain and Portugal, and wished to remain so; he was therefore careful not to allow Cabot to trespass on their routes, although he was quite aware that the end in view—i.e. the discovery of a sea-passage to Asia—was identical with theirs. He was not prepared to risk a quarrel for an unachieved advantage, but was evidently ready to do so if a lucrative trade were proved to be possible; otherwise he would not have engaged in the adventure at all.

The second charter is evidently intended to supplement, but not to supersede, the first. It omits the provisions as to customs, monopoly, and payments to the king, and confines itself to the details of the second expedition. It is valuable as proving beyond doubt that John Cabot commanded on the first voyage, and was successful in finding land. There is no mention in it of any of his sons, and no other document for nearly fifty years associates Sebastian with John’s discoveries, the next joint reference to the pair occurring in the map of 1544. This, however, is no proof that Sebastian did not sail on these expeditions, and the point must be regarded as doubtful.

It should be noted that the terms of the first charter are such that it holds good for an indefinite time, and that no new grant was really needed for making further voyages. Therefore the fact that no third charter exists does not preclude the possibility of voyages having taken place other than those of 1497 and 1498.

The six contemporary letters, all of them unknown until the latter half of the nineteenth century, are the most valuable authorities remaining for the deeds of John Cabot. The evidence they afford is of the highest class, since they are written by observant third parties, and not by the explorer or his sovereign for the purpose of glorifying their own achievements. In particular, the letters of Pasqualigo and Soncino, which give the greatest amount of information on the first voyage, represent the conclusions formed by intelligent bystanders with no personal interest in the affair, and writing with the sole object of giving useful news to the recipients. They are therefore free from the taint of possible bias and self-interest, which is inherent in the later statements of Sebastian Cabot, and any misstatements they contain are the result of ignorance rather than intention.

The Venetian colony in London was rich and numerous, and its members must naturally have taken a deep interest in the exploit of their countryman. Pasqualigo was an important member of it, and probably became personally acquainted with Cabot or some of his followers. His letter has an air of accuracy, and the details given, although meagre, are not fanciful, with the exception of the distances, which are probably loose statements of members of the crew. Considering that Cabot was only three months on the voyage, it is hardly possible that he could have coasted for 300 leagues.

There is a great contrast between the two letters of Soncino. The first, written soon after the arrival of Cabot in London, is evidently based on hearsay and rumour, and contains no fact of importance. The second dispatch of Soncino is a news-letter written several months after the return of the 1497 expedition, and shows that in the interim the writer has taken great pains to obtain full information on the subject. The letter is a model of clearness and businesslike arrangement. The writer gives authorities for his statements; he has talked with Cabot and with members of his crew; he has listened to the explorer’s demonstrations, probably in the presence of the king and the court; he gives some idea of Cabot’s character and personality, and the amount of credence which should be paid to him; and when he falls back on rumour he is careful to insert ‘it is said’. He has evidently displayed such an intelligent interest that Cabot has offered him a place in the next expedition. Full value may therefore be assigned to the facts in his letter. When Soncino speaks of sailing to the east, he means of course the west. He had in mind that the new land was thought to be the Far East although reached by a western route.

The letter from Ferdinand and Isabella is useful as showing the jealousy of Spain at the projected enterprise even before it had started. The same sentiment is again strongly expressed in Pedro de Ayala’s letter two years later, and, although it does not appear from the available documents that any official remonstrance was addressed to Henry VII, Spanish disapproval must, nevertheless, have had its share in causing the gradual abandonment of American enterprises in the early years of the sixteenth century.

Ayala’s letter, written after the sailing of the second expedition, is the only one of the series which contains any positive facts as to that expedition. It has an unsatisfying air of vagueness and, as regards the first voyage, is not nearly so precise as Soncino’s long account. This is partly due to the fact that the details of the matter were already known to the Spanish sovereigns, and there was thus no need to enter deeply into them. One point in the letter has been made the basis of a rather revolutionary theory as to the second expedition, namely, that John Cabot was in Seville and Lisbon during the winter of 1497–8, recruiting men for his second voyage. This theory is built upon the general statement that Cabot had sought assistance in those places. An interpretation which makes him do so in 1497–8 is hardly allowable. In the first place we know that he could get plenty of men in England, where also investors came forward readily and the greatest enthusiasm prevailed; secondly, it is not likely that he would have trusted himself in Seville at that time, having regard to the feelings of the Spanish Government on the subject; and thirdly, a winter voyage to the Peninsula was a risky undertaking if the traveller were pressed for time. In the then state of navigation he might easily be detained for weeks and months by bad weather;[^[54]] and John Cabot could not afford to risk the postponement of his expedition for a year, with its possible abandonment, or the appointment of another to command it in his stead. On the contrary, the natural and probable interpretation of the statement is that Cabot had sought a hearing for his plans in Spain and Portugal before coming to England; and even at that, it is quite a ‘by the way’ remark and lacks corroboration. The same may be said as to the caravels annually sent out from Bristol; Ayala was not in England during the period referred to, and was probably repeating a piece of current gossip.

The few facts he relates of the 1498 voyage rest on surer ground, as having occurred under the writer’s more immediate attention. The five ships are mentioned elsewhere, and that number is thus probably correct. The ‘Friar Buil’ referred to was possibly a Spanish spy: it is singular that his name alone of all the adventurers is thought worthy of mention to the Spanish sovereigns. Unless such an obscure man was an agent of theirs, it is difficult to see what interest they could have had in hearing of him. The assertion that Cabot’s charts were falsified entirely lacks confirmation, and there is no ground for believing it. Ayala was suspicious and prejudiced, and ready to impute dishonest intentions to England. It is noticeable that in affairs quite separate from this one he took up a more hostile attitude towards Henry VII than did his superior, de Puebla. He had a great admiration for Scotland, in which country he had been ambassador, and this may have engendered a corresponding hatred of England.

The information, such as it is, afforded by the rewards to John Cabot and the loans to his associates in the second expedition is, of necessity, absolutely trustworthy. The documents in question were written for immediate business purposes, with no idea of their ever being used to elucidate the story of the discoveries.

The unfinished account of the 1498 voyage, given in the anonymous British Museum chronicle, has evidently some near relationship to that contained in the lost Fabyan manuscript copied by Hakluyt and Stowe. It is probable that Fabyan based his account on the former chronicle, adding the note on the savages from his own knowledge, but not troubling to relate the fate of the 1498 voyage. This in itself gives ground for presuming that the expedition in question returned in safety without achieving any striking results. If none of the vessels ever came back, a possibility that has been suggested, Fabyan would hardly have refrained from commenting on such a sensational occurrence. As it is, he merely records the fact that they had not returned by the end of October 1498, and there leaves the matter. Existing editions of Fabyan contain no reference to the Cabots.

The famous map of 1544, of which the only copy now known to exist is in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, is generally agreed to be the work of Sebastian Cabot, or at least, based on information supplied by him. The inscriptions upon it, descriptive of various countries, are in Latin or Spanish, the majority in both. Typographical considerations indicate that it was not printed in Spain—the printer does not use the Spanish tilde over the n—and Antwerp has been suggested as the most likely place of origin. The inscription given above, relating to the Cabot discovery, was translated by Hakluyt from a similar map which he saw at Westminster, and Hakluyt’s translation agrees very closely with a modern translation from the Paris map, showing that they are from one and the same source. The voyage described is obviously the first one, but the local colour as to the natives and their habits must have been supplied from later experiences, as the contemporary letters expressly assert that John Cabot saw no inhabitants on the first expedition. The date of the discovery is given on the Paris map as MCCCCXCIIII (1494), but this may be explained as a careless error for MCCCCXCVII, due to bad writing. It should be noted that this inscription is the earliest authority for the statement that land was sighted on June 24 at 5 a.m., and that the island of St. John was discovered and named on the same day. There seems to be no good reason why the statements on the map should not be believed, other than that they proceed from a tainted source. Sebastian Cabot’s reputation for veracity is certainly under a cloud, even when he is acquitted of giving false information about his explorations. In other matters he undoubtedly lied freely and frequently.[^[55]]

The ground being now cleared by a necessary, if tedious, appraisement of values, it is possible to relate what is known of John Cabot’s voyages.

It had been owing to a mere accident that Christopher Columbus had not sailed under the English flag on his first epoch-making voyage to the west. In 1485, after vainly attempting to interest the sovereigns of Portugal and Spain in his ideas, he had dispatched his brother Bartholomew to England, to lay his plans before Henry VII. But Bartholomew Columbus had suffered disaster on his journey. After being robbed by pirates in the narrow seas, he was further delayed by sickness and poverty before being able to lay his brother’s case before the king. When he was at length successful in doing so, Henry listened with sympathy and promised assistance, but, being preoccupied with other matters, he postponed the adventure until too late. When he did finally make up his mind to take the affair in hand, it was only to hear that Christopher Columbus had already sailed from Palos in the service of Ferdinand and Isabella.

Henry had missed a great chance, partly through his own fault, and must have realized his mistake when news began to spread through Europe of the discovery of rich islands on the western route to Cathay, as all men supposed the new land to be. It was considered at the English court a thing ‘more divine than human’ to have reached the Far East by way of the west, and the anticipations of the advantages of the new discovery must have exceeded even the reality. Throughout the Middle Ages the imagination of all who were capable of thought had been stimulated by glowing accounts of the riches and wonders of the East. The experiences of Marco Polo and many another wanderer of lesser fame had been spread broadcast through Europe; such adventures lose nothing in the telling, and indeed the material civilization of Asia compared not unfavourably with that of mediaeval Christendom; hence to reach Cathay became the ambition of many a restless mind. The Venetians and the Genoese were content to trade with the Asiatic merchants who brought their goods overland to the ports of the Levant. The Portuguese navigators, excluded from the Mediterranean, pushed successively further and further down the coast of Africa in the hope of finding a way round it into the Indian Ocean. They had not yet succeeded when, in 1495, Columbus returned with his report of rich islands to the west, and it was universally believed that he had solved the problem in the simplest possible way.

To the western nations of Europe this news was more especially important, and so, when John Cabot petitioned Henry VII, three years later, for permission to make similar discoveries, he obtained a patent from that king without difficulty. Cabot was of Genoese birth, although a naturalized citizen of Venice, and he had been for some years settled at Bristol. He had taken part in the Venetian trade to the Levant, and had on one occasion travelled as far as Mecca. At that place, a busy centre of exchange for eastern goods, he questioned the merchants as to the source of the supply of spices, drugs, perfumes, rare silks, and precious stones, in which they dealt. They replied that these goods were transported by successive caravans from a vast distance, and that they themselves had never visited the countries that produced them. This suggested to Cabot a similar train of reasoning to that of Columbus: it was evident that the long land journey and the laborious transport and exchange from hand to hand must immensely add to the original cost of the produce which Europe valued so highly; great wealth was therefore in store for the man and the country which should first find a practicable sea route to the orient. Cabot, like Columbus, based his plans on the sphericity of the earth, and came to the conclusion that the shortest way to the east was by the west. It is unknown whether it was in consequence of these ideas that he came to England. It may well have been so, for it was evidently of little use to urge such plans in Venice. The Italian merchants stood to lose instead of gaining by any alteration of the trade routes, and, moreover, could be cut off from access to the Atlantic at the pleasure of the power which could block the straits of Gibraltar. Whatever his reasons, John Cabot came to Bristol, bringing his wife and family with him. In after years his son Sebastian, when it suited him to make himself out an Englishman, claimed to have been born in Bristol; but as Sebastian cannot have been born later than 1474, and John was not naturalized as a Venetian till 1476, it is hardly possible that Sebastian’s statement was true. The year 1476, therefore, is the earliest possible date for John Cabot’s arrival in Bristol, and the probability is strong that he did not settle there for several years after that.

Bristol was the largest seaport of the west of England, and, in the fifteenth century, a most important branch of its trade was with Iceland, whence the Bristol ships fetched quantities of stockfish. It is possible that traditions of early Norse voyages to ‘Vineland’ still lingered in northern regions and were picked up by the Bristol sailors. There were other legends current of lands to the west: the island of Brasil, marked on many mediaeval maps; the blissful isle of St. Brandan, actually supposed to have been visited by a shadowy Irish saint of antiquity; and the Seven Cities, said to have been founded by Spanish bishops fleeing from the fury of invading Moors when the Cross fell before the Crescent on the banks of the Guadalete. Moved either by these traditions or by the new scientific reasonings of men like Cabot, the Bristol merchants undoubtedly felt an interest in the possibilities of the unexplored Atlantic. There are rumours of their having sent out ships towards the west before 1497, but unfortunately they rest on no solid basis of proof.

Things were at this stage when, in the winter of 1495–6, Henry VII visited Bristol, and we may suppose that John Cabot took the opportunity of petitioning the king for a charter which should place the enterprise on a more regular footing. On March 5, 1496, the patent was drawn out, in the terms already described. For reasons unknown, more than a year elapsed before John Cabot started on his first recorded voyage. He set out in the early summer of 1497 in a small ship with a crew of eighteen men, mostly Englishmen of the port of Bristol. In addition to Cabot, and possibly his sons, there were among the crew two other foreigners, one a Burgundian, probably a Netherlander, and the other a Genoese. A document, generally known as the Fust MS., and now destroyed, gave the name of Cabot’s ship as the Matthew, and the dates of the voyage as May 2 (departure) and August 6 (return). Authorities are at variance as to the authenticity of the Fust MS. The use of the word ‘America’ in a record ostensibly written several years before that name was first invented seems to brand it as an imposture, but it may have been written up in the form of a year-to-year chronicle several years after the date contained in it, and still have embodied true information. The dates given tally approximately with what is known from other evidence.

After leaving Bristol the explorers passed the south of Ireland, and then steered northwards for an indeterminable time—‘a few days’—Cabot’s intention apparently being to reach a certain parallel of latitude, and then to follow it westwards. He knew that the further north he went, the less would be the distance to be traversed, owing to the decreasing circumference of the earth and the general lie of the land of eastern Asia, which was roughly known. When he had made sufficient way to the north, he turned westwards, and, after considerable wandering, sighted land. The ‘wandering’ may simply mean that he sailed westwards for a long time, or that he was diverted to the north or south. In any case the wording is so vague that the actual course cannot be even approximately laid down.

In the map of 1544 it is stated that the landfall was in the neighbourhood of Cape Breton, and that it was made on June 24 at 5 a.m.; also, that an island near the land was visited on the same day and named the Island of St. John. The doubts cast on the authenticity of this inscription have already been considered. On the whole, Cape Breton seems the likeliest place for the landfall, although the most learned authorities are hopelessly at variance on the point, some favouring Cape Breton, others Newfoundland, and others Labrador. With the knowledge at present available the problem must be pronounced insoluble. The date, June 24, is a little late, as it allows less than half the total duration of the voyage for the coasting and return journey; but this is not impossible if the coasting was restricted and the return was made with more favourable winds than the outward passage. We know, from an absolutely trustworthy source, that Cabot was back in London by August 10, and thus probably at Bristol some days earlier.

The land discovered had a temperate climate. In view of Sebastian Cabot’s accounts, which have sometimes been read as applying to this voyage, it is important to notice that no mention is made of ice or any extraordinary length of day, points which would certainly have been remarked by Pasqualigo or Soncino, if they had been narrated by the returning crew. An immense quantity of fish was encountered off the coast.

After planting the flags of England and Venice at the place where he first landed, John Cabot coasted for some distance. Probably the 300 leagues of Pasqualigo’s letter is a mistake, being incompatible with the total duration of the voyage. It has been suggested that ‘leagues’ should read ‘miles’. The direction of the coasting, whether northwards or southwards, is likewise not stated. Cabot saw signs of habitation, but no actual inhabitants; and doubtless he was not anxious to see any, for a crew of eighteen all told would not furnish a landing party with which he could confidently face all comers. This first voyage was merely for the purpose of reconnoitring and preparing the way for a greater enterprise. It was a pity that the reconnaissance was not more thorough, for it might have saved much disappointment afterwards. As it was, Cabot was firmly convinced that he had reached the north-eastern coast of Asia, ‘the territory of the Grand Cham’, which the Spaniards were thought to be on the track of, although they had not yet arrived there. However, provisions began to run short, and he turned his ship homewards, passing on the way two islands which he had not time to explore. He arrived at Bristol in the early days of August.

John Cabot travelled at once to London to lay his report before the king. He carried with him his charts and a globe with which to demonstrate his discoveries; and he was so far successful in convincing the prudent and parsimonious monarch of the value of the new land that the latter made him an immediate grant of £10 from the Privy Purse (ten to twelve times as much in modern money), and later allotted him a pension of £20 a year. The royal sanction, if not a more substantial aid, was promised for a much larger expedition to sail in the following year for the purpose, not only of exploring, but also of founding colonies and trading posts. Cabot and his contemporaries were still under the impression that he had found the east of Asia. He admitted that he had only touched the fringe of the golden land, but he asserted that he had only to sail with a larger and better-found expedition, with provisions to last for a year’s voyage, and to follow the coast westwards and southwards to the tropic region, to arrive at the wonderful island of Cipango,[^[56]] the source of the world’s supply of spices and precious stones. He had a persuasive tongue, and his arguments were absolutely convincing to the minds of all who heard them, from the cool and calculating king to the hard-headed merchants of London, and still more to hot-blooded adventurers, whose ears already tingled with wondrous tales of the Spanish Indies. He was everywhere sought after and fêted. He dressed in silk and assumed the title of Admiral. In their own imagination he and all his men were princes and nobles; to the surgeon of the Matthew he gave an island; to a Burgundian among his crew he gave another.

From London, Cabot went back to Bristol, there to be lionized and to make preparations for the adventure of the following year. On February 3, 1498, the king issued a second patent, made out this time to John Cabot alone, without mention of his sons, empowering him to take six ships and pursue his discoveries on much the same terms as those of the first patent. It is not evident that the State contributed anything to this fleet beyond a cheap and convenient permission to take convicts from the gaols to do the hard work of the proposed colony. Most probably Henry VII was a shareholder in his private capacity, as he seems to have been as much convinced as any of his subjects of the profits that were to accrue.

But soon the king was to receive a significant hint of trouble from a quarter whence he doubtless expected it. Even before Cabot had obtained his first patent, in 1496, Spanish jealousy had been aroused at the prospect of a voyage to the west. De Puebla had evidently reported what was going forward to his sovereigns, and in their reply to him occurs the statement that such enterprises ‘cannot be executed without prejudice to us and to the King of Portugal’. Evidently they were prepared to take their stand on the Bull of Alexander VI, which divided between Spain and Portugal all the undiscovered parts of the world, and which had been confirmed by the Treaty of Tordesillas between those two nations in 1494. Whether de Puebla communicated this protest to Henry or not we do not know. Probably he did not, as he always showed himself extremely anxious to curry favour with that monarch. But in 1498 Pedro de Ayala, another Spanish agent, was also in London, and to him the king frequently spoke of the new voyages in order to sound him as to the opinion of the Spanish court. De Ayala claimed stoutly that the lands which the English were trying to discover were already in the possession of Spain, and he gave his reasons, which, he says, the king did not like. Henry, however, could not afford to quarrel with Spain, and from this time forward he seemed to become half-hearted in his approval of western projects.

With regard to John Cabot’s second voyage, only the intentions of the explorer and the circumstances of his start from Bristol are known. The former were as follows: Sailing with several ships laden with English manufactured goods—‘coarse cloth, caps, laces, points, and such other’—he proposed to return to the land which he had discovered on the first voyage, and thence to follow the coast which, as he had observed, trended towards the south-west, until he arrived in the tropical latitudes. There he expected to find, over against the land, the rich island of Cipango—the island replenished with great commodities of the chronicles—and in it to establish, if not a colony in the true sense of the word, at least a permanent trading post. This is evidenced by the proposal to take several priests, and also the convicts, who would be useless on the voyage, but would do the hard work of planting a new settlement. The programme was naturally very distasteful to the Spaniards, since the position of Cipango, in John Cabot’s ideas, must have been in the same latitude as their own discoveries, although lying further to the west.

Everything in the contemporary letters, and also in the chronicles, points to the fact that Cabot, in common with every other thinking man in 1497–8, had no suspicion of the existence of the separate continent now called America, and that he intended to make for the tropical region of the coast of eastern Asia. Indeed, it is inconceivable that he, a much-travelled man, who had experience of tropical climates and their products, should have sailed northwards to look for spices, unless we are to assume that he knew that America was not Asia and was consequently looking for a north-west passage. That assumption a careful reading of the evidence renders untenable. This matter of the intended destination of the second voyage is the point at which the commonly received versions of the Cabot problem go astray, the accepted theory being that the second expedition was an attempt to force a passage round the north of the new continent and so into the Pacific. But it cannot be too strongly emphasized that John Cabot had not the remotest intention of sailing round the north of what he took to be Asia, since such a course, if persisted in, would have brought him, according to his charts, back to the North Sea and the British Isles!

All preparations being complete, he sailed from Bristol in the beginning of May 1498. He had with him his own ship, manned and victualled, if the chroniclers are to be believed, at the king’s private expense, and three or four smaller vessels fitted out by the merchants of London and Bristol, some of whom had also been financed from the Privy Purse. Pedro de Ayala states that the fleet numbered five in all, and also reports, but only as a rumour, that one of them put back to an Irish port in consequence of damage, sustained presumably in a storm. The ships were provisioned for a year, and Cabot expected to be home again by September. In the outcome, however, nothing had been heard of him as late as the end of October.

Here unfortunately our knowledge of John Cabot leaves the realm of sober fact, and degenerates into mere theory and speculation. History is totally silent as to the progress of this voyage, launched with such a great acclaim; as to its vicissitudes, as to the date, place, and circumstances of its ending, nothing whatever is known. It is only through the cumulative effect of side-winds, none of them absolutely conclusive, that it can be deduced that Cabot’s squadron reached the American coast, and that he himself, with part at least of his men, returned in safety.

First, as to his personal survival. This was always considered extremely doubtful until the discovery of the Bristol Customers' accounts for 1497–9, which prove beyond doubt that, until Michaelmas 1499, annual pension of £20 was still being paid. It is conceivable of course, that the pension was being drawn by an accredited agent, his wife for example, so that there is no positive proof that he was in Bristol during that year. But it may, as a minimum, be confidently asserted that he was not known to be dead, since in that case no agent could have drawn the pension without obtaining fresh official papers. Hence, either Cabot returned in safety from the 1498 voyage, or else no word had been heard of his fleet for nearly eighteen months. The balance of probability is certainly in favour of the former alternative.

One of the persons to whom loans were granted from the Privy Purse was Launcelot Thirkill, of London, ‘going towards the new island’. A later document shows this man to have been in England in 1501. Consequently, if he accompanied the fleet, as he evidently intended, some part of it must have returned in safety.

THE NORTH ATLANTIC.
From the map of Juan de la Cosa, 1500. The earliest map showing English discoveries.

A still more probable testimony to the return of Cabot’s expedition, and to its having coasted extensively on the other side of the Atlantic, is furnished by the map of the Spanish pilot, Juan de la Cosa, drawn up in the year 1500. It is a map of the world as known at the time, and includes a part of the east coast of North America, with flags marking the places visited by the English. The flags are intended to represent the English standard, and some of the names, although translated into Spanish, are such as English explorers might have given; others are unintelligible. They are as follows, reading from south-west to north-east:

Mar descubierto por Yngleses, cavo descubierto, C. de S. Jorge, lagofor, anfor, C. de S. Luzia, requilia, jusquei, S. Luzia, C. de lisarto, menistre, argair, fonte, rio longo, ilia de la trenidat, S. Nicolas, Cavo de S. Johan, agron, C. fastanatra, Cavo de Ynglaterra, S. Grigor, y verde.

The map is so unlike the real coastline that it is impossible to identify definitely any of the places mentioned. In addition, there are no lines of latitude or longitude. The most plausible interpretation is that ‘Cavo de Ynglaterra’, the most northerly point marked on the mainland, is Cape Race, and that the southernmost flag represents a point on the coast of Virginia or Carolina, possibly Cape Hatteras. However, this is mere guesswork, as is shown by the divergent views taken by equally competent authorities. The only indisputable information obtainable from the map is the fact that the English did actually coast along a large part of the North American littoral before the year 1500. It is practically certain that the map embodies the geographical knowledge gained in John Cabot’s second voyage, since the amount of coasting shown is too extensive for the first voyage, the southernmost English flag being placed more than three-quarters of the entire distance down from the Cabo de Ynglaterra to the point of Florida. The only fact which weakens the value of the map’s evidence for the 1498 voyage is the possibility that it embodies information from Sebastian Cabot’s expedition, which, as will be shown, probably took place in 1499. It is possible that la Cosa had seen the charts of the latter when he drew his map in 1500.

But the most illuminating light is thrown on the voyage of 1498 by a careful reading of the descriptions of Sebastian Cabot’s adventure given in the next chapter. These accounts indicate that Sebastian had grasped the great fact that the transatlantic land was a separate continent, altogether distinct from Asia. From whence did he derive his information? Without reasonable doubt, from his father’s voyage of 1498. It is practically certain, although definite proof is lacking, that John Cabot acted in accordance with his expressed intentions, and sailed westwards to his former landfall. Thence he turned to the south-west and followed the land towards the tropics, exploring the coast, and seeking eagerly for signs of the wealthy and civilized Asiatics whom he expected to find there. The islands of Columbus were considered as merely a half-way house on the route to Asia, and Cabot was confident that his newly-discovered coast would lead him far to the west of their position, which the king’s instructions had doubtless enjoined him to avoid. It may be imagined, then, how his heart sank when day followed day and brought no sight of oriental shipping on the sea or cities on the land; and when no inhabitants could be encountered save wandering bands of savages, who lived by the chase, and had nothing of value to exchange for the goods in his ships’ holds. The coast, too, trended more and more to the southwards, taking him in the direction of the Spanish possessions and rendering illusory the hope of finding Cipango, for which there was evidently no room between them and it. Gradually Cabot must have realized that the new land was not a part of Asia, since it corresponded with none of the known facts about that continent; and, with the realization, the purpose of his voyage was gone. To find a way to Asia by the west would necessitate the finding of a passage through this strange and desolate land, and, until that was effected, all hope of profitable trade had to be abandoned. Whether an attempt was made to discover such a passage, or whether the expedition sailed straight back to England, is unknown. In either case the result, as judged by the shareholders in the venture, was complete failure.

It is easy to understand how, after this great disappointment, involving the shattering of a lifetime’s convictions, John Cabot had no heart for further voyages, but lived quietly at Bristol on the king’s pension until death overtook him at the close of the fifteenth century.

Such is the theory of the 1498 voyage to which all the ascertained evidence points. It explains the silence of contemporary chroniclers, who did not think such a financial failure worthy of mention; it explains the cessation of the interest of the London commercial world in transatlantic ventures; and it explains also the motives of Sebastian Cabot in the voyage which has now to be considered, and the meaning of his narrations, which have long been considered to be little more than a collection of impudent falsehoods.

CHAPTER IV
THE CABOT VOYAGES—SEBASTIAN CABOT, ? 1499

The voyage of Sebastian Cabot is described in narratives of which the details were presumably furnished by himself, in the works of various historians of the sixteenth century. As in the previous chapter, the necessary extracts will be given first, followed by a consideration of the conclusions to which they lead. Many other authors, besides those quoted, mention Sebastian Cabot; but, since they merely reproduce earlier accounts without providing any new evidence of their own, it is unnecessary to refer to them here.

Peter Martyr, in his Decades of the New World, of which the first part, containing the notice of Cabot,[^[57]] was published at Alcala in 1516, says:

‘These North Seas have been searched by one Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian borne.... Hee therefore furnished two ships in England at his owne charges, and first with 300 men directed his course so farre towards the North pole, that even in the moneth of July he found monstrous heapes of ice swimming in the sea, and in maner continuall daylight, yet saw he the land in that tract free from ice, which had been molten by the heat of the Sunne. Thus seeing such heapes of yce before him, hee was enforced to turne his sailes and follow the West, so coasting still by the shore, that he was thereby brought so farre into the South by reason of the land bending so much southwards, that it was there almost equall in latitude with the sea Fretum Herculeum, having the North pole elevate in maner in the same degree. He sailed likewise in this tract so farre towards the West, that hee had the Island of Cuba on his left hand, in maner in the same degree of longitude. As hee travailed by the coasts of this great land, (which he named Baccalaos), he saith that he found the like course of waters toward the West, but the same to runne more softly and gently then the swift waters which the Spaniards found in their navigations Southward.... Sebastian Cabot himselfe named these lands Baccalaos, because that in the seas thereabout hee found so great multitudes of certaine bigge fishes much like unto Tunies (which the inhabitants call Baccalaos) that they sometime stayed his shippes. He found also the people of those regions covered with beastes’ skinnes, yet not without the use of reason. He also saith that there is great plentie of Beares in those regions, which use to eate fish.... Hee declareth further, that in many places of these regions he saw greate plentie of Copper among the inhabitants. Cabot is my very friend, whom I use familiarly, and delight to have him sometimes keepe mee company in mine owne house. For being called out of England by commandment of the Catholique King of Castile, after the death of King Henry the seventh of that name in England, he was made one of our councill and Assistants, as touching the affaires of the new Indies, looking for ships dayly to be furnished for him to discover the hid secret of Nature. Some of the Spaniards deny that Cabot was the first finder of the land of Baccalaos, and affirm that he went not so far westwards.’

Lopes de Gomara, Historia General de las Indias, 1554.[^[58]]

‘Sebastian Cabot was the first that brought any knowledge of this land for, being in England in the days of King Henry VII, he furnished two ships at his own charges or, as some say, at the King’s, whom he persuaded that a passage might be found to Cathay by the North Sea.... He went also to know what manner of land those Indies were to inhabit. He had with him three hundred men, and directed his course by the track of Iceland, upon the cape of Labrador, at 58 degrees—though he himself says much more—affirming that in the month of July there was such cold and heaps of ice that he durst pass no further; that the days were very long, and in manner without night, and the nights very clear. Certain it is that at 60 degrees the longest day is of 18 hours. But considering the cold and the strangeness of the unknown land, he turned his course from thence to the west, refreshing themselves at Baccalaos; and following the coast of the land unto the 38th degree, he returned to England.’

Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Navigations. Three volumes published at Venice in 1550, 1559, and 1556 respectively.

(α) In vol. i occurs the following relation by a ‘Mantuan gentleman’,[^[59]] whose name has never been discovered (Eden falsely identified him with Galeacius Butrigarius, Papal Legate in Spain), speaking to a company of Venetians in the house of Hieronimus Fracastor:

‘Finding himself in the city of Seville a few years ago, and desiring to know about those navigations from the Castillians, he was told that a distinguished Venetian was there who had knowledge of them, named Sebastian Caboto, who knew how to make marine charts with his own hands, and understood the art of navigation better than any one else.... Caboto said: ... “My father died at the time when the news came that the Genoese, Christopher Columbus, had discovered the coast of the Indies, and it was much discussed at the court of King Henry VII, who then reigned, saying that it was a thing more divine than human to have found that way never before known to go to the east where the spices grow. In this way, a great and heartfelt desire arose in me to achieve some signal enterprise. Knowing by a study of the sphere that if I should navigate to the west, I should find a shorter route to the Indies, I quickly made known my thought to his Majesty the King, who was well content, and fitted out two caravels for me with everything needful. This was in 1496, in the commencement of the summer. I began to navigate towards the west, expecting not to find land until I came to Cathay, whence I could go on to the Indies. But at the end of some days I discovered that the land trended northwards, to my great disappointment; so I sailed along the coast to see if I could find some point where the land turned, until I reached the height of 56 degrees under our pole, but finding that the land turned eastward, I despaired of finding an opening. I turned to the right to examine again to the southward, always with the object of finding a passage to the Indies, and I came to that part which is now called Florida. Being in want of victuals, I was obliged to return thence to England, where I found great popular tumults among the rebels, and a war with Scotland. So that there was no chance of further navigation to those parts being considered, and I therefore went to Spain to the Catholic King and Queen Isabella, who, having heard what I had done, took me into their service, and provided for me well, sending me on a voyage of discovery to the coast of Brazil. I found a very wide river, now called La Plata....”

(β) In the preface to the third volume, Ramusio gives the following note on Sebastian Cabot. From Hakluyt’s translation.[^[60]]

‘It is not yet thoroughly known whether the lands set in fiftie degrees of latitude to the north be separated and divided by the sea as islands, and whether by that way one may goe by sea unto the country of Cathaia: as many yeeres past it was written unto me by Sebastian Gabotto, our countrey man a Venetian, a man of great experience, and very rare in the art of navigation and the knowledge of cosmographie, who sayled along and beyond the land of New France at the charges of King Henry the seventh, King of England: and hee advertised mee that, having sailed a long time West and by North, beyond those Ilands unto the latitude of 67 degrees and an halfe, under the North pole, and at the 11 day of June, finding still the open sea without any manner of impediment, he thought verily by that way to have passed on still the way to Cathaia, which is in the East, and would have done it if the mutinie of the ship master and the mariners had not hindered him and made him returne homewards from that place.’

André Thevet, Les Singularités de la France Antarctique, Antwerp, 1558. Thevet reproduces the outline of previous accounts, and adds that Cabot landed three hundred men at some undefined place in the north, to found a colony. They nearly all perished of cold:

‘Vray est qu’il mist bien trois cens hommes en terre, du coste d’Irelande au Nort, ou le froid fist mourir presque toute sa compagnie, encores que ce fust au moys de Juillet.’

Jean Ribault,[^[61]] writing in 1562, mentions 1498 as the date of Sebastian Cabot’s voyage.

Richard Eden, Decades of the New World, 1555, preface, leaf C 1.

‘But Cabot touched only in the north corner and most barbarous part thereof, from whence he was repulsed with ice in the month of July.’

Antonio Galvano, Discoveries of the World to 1550, Lisbon, 1563. Latest edition, Hakluyt Society, 1862. Hakluyt published this translation in 1601.

‘In the yeere 1496 there was a Venetian in England called John Cabota [the name is probably an interpolation of Hakluyt’s], who having knowledge of such a new discoverie as this was, and perceiving by the globe that the islands before spoken of stood about in the same latitude with his countrey, and much neerer to England than to Portugall or to the Castile, he acquainted King Henrie the seventh, then King of England, with the same, wherewith the saide King was greatly pleased, and furnished him out with two ships and three hundred men: which departed and set saile in the spring of the yeare, and they sailed westward til they came in sight of land, in 45 degrees of latitude towards the north, and then went straight northwards till they came into sixty degrees of latitude, where the day is 18 howers long, and the night is very cleere and bright. There they found the aire cold, and great islands of ice, but no ground in seventy, eighty or hundred fathoms sounding, but found much ice, which alarmed them: and so from thence, putting about, finding the land to turne eastward, they trended along by it, discovering all the bay and river named Deseado, to see if it passed on the other side; then they sailed back again till they came to 38 degrees towards the equinoctial line, and from thence returned into England. There be others which say that he went as far as the Cape of Florida, which standeth in 25 degrees.’

Alonzo de Santa Cruz, Islario General de todas las Islas del Mundo, a manuscript first printed by F. R. von Wieser, Innsbruck, 1908. Writing to Charles V, Santa Cruz says:

‘This land was called Labrador because a labrador (ploughman or landowner) from the Azores gave information and intelligence of it to the King of England at the time he sent to explore it by Antonio Gaboto the English pilot and the father of Sebastian Gaboto, your Majesty’s present Pilot Major.’

Further on he speaks of the Baccalaos ‘first explored by the English pilot Antonio Gaboto, by command of the King of England’.[^[62]]

It will be seen that the principal detailed accounts are those of Peter Martyr, Gomara, Ramusio, and Galvano.

Peter Martyr’s account was the earliest published (1516) and has the best right to be considered as correctly reproducing Sebastian’s own claims, since it was written by a man who was personally known to him and who was in frequent friendly communication with him. Circumstances of both time and place thus point to Martyr as the most trustworthy witness of Sebastian Cabot’s statements during the first years of his residence in Spain. As will be seen from the analysis given below, practically all the important details common to more than one account are found in his work, and it may be safely assumed that every serious historian subsequent to him was acquainted with it, more especially as it was written in Latin and thus accessible to all men of education.

Gomara, writing a few years after Sebastian Cabot had left Spain, repeats the main features of Martyr’s account. He may have known Sebastian personally, but does not expressly say so. His attitude is critical and somewhat suspicious, and he shows that he is not a mere blind reproducer of all he is told by his reduction of the northern limit of the voyage claimed by Sebastian. It should be remarked that the latitude of 58° N. is Gomara’s own figure and not Cabot’s, because this has been advanced as proof that Cape Farewell in Greenland was the point reached. There is no real evidence that Sebastian’s northward wanderings took him far away from the Labrador coast; and the fact that in early maps, including that of 1544, Greenland and Labrador are confused with one another, or rather, represented as continuous, points the other way, since, if Sebastian had crossed Davis Strait, he would have known that they were distinct.

Ramusio’s two relations, (α) by the Mantuan gentleman, and (β) in the preface to volume iii, are not of nearly such high value. In particular, the Mantuan gentleman’s story is quite untrustworthy. It is a report by Ramusio of a discourse delivered some years before he wrote it down, and in which the narrator in his turn was speaking from memory after the lapse of several years. Ramusio himself admits that his recollection is confused on the matter, and the consequence is that he makes the Mantuan gentleman put statements into the mouth of Sebastian Cabot with which that individual would never have insulted the intelligence of his hearers. The assertion that Queen Isabella, who died in 1504, helped Sebastian to fit out the expedition with which he explored the River Plate in 1526, does not encourage much trust in the remainder of the account. Two of its implications also contradict one another. Cabot is first made to say that he believed the new land to be Cathay, and immediately afterwards he speaks of trying to find a passage through it, because it trended northwards. But if it trended northwards it must also have trended southwards if followed in the opposite direction, and, assuming it to be Cathay, he had only to go that way to arrive at the coast of India, his goal. Other obvious misstatements, as to the date of John Cabot’s death, and the reasons for the abandonment of the enterprise in England, which have caused so much damage to Sebastian’s reputation for truthfulness, occur in this story. Considering the third-hand and ‘hearsay’ character of the same, it is hardly fair to put its inaccuracies down to his account. It evidently suffered by the carelessness of one or both of the avenues by which it has been preserved.

Ramusio’s statement in the preface to volume iii has a slightly better life history, but here again he is quoting from memory, avowedly faulty, of a letter written several years before, and apparently not preserved by him. However, the details given are scanty, the only remarkable one being that Sebastian Cabot could have made the north-west passage, but was prevented by a mutiny. Such a plausible explanation of failure is quite consistent with Sebastian’s character. On the whole, Ramusio exhibits very little critical faculty, and has done Sebastian a great disservice by reproducing such nonsense as the Mantuan gentleman’s story.

The brief references in the manuscript of Alonzo de Santa Cruz effectually clear up one point, namely, the suggestion that Sebastian tried to deceive his contemporaries in Spain by claiming his father’s exploits as his own. There could never have been much probability in such a charge, in view of the number of persons who must have been living during the period 1512–47 with personal recollections of all the circumstances; and it is definitely and finally swept away by Santa Cruz’s allusion, as a matter of common knowledge, to the explorations of John Cabot.[^[63]]

The remaining account of any length is that of Antonio Galvano, published in 1563, but written before 1557, the date of his death. It is not, on any serious point, at variance with Peter Martyr, but includes some details peculiar to itself. Galvano was a man of grave and sober character, and moreover, an experienced voyager. His judgement, in any conflict of evidence, is more likely to be reliable than that of Ramusio.

A correct view of the statements in all these accounts is best obtained by summarizing them and placing the results side by side in the following manner:

Points of Agreement:—

Two ships were employed (Martyr, Gomara, Ramusio α, Galvano).

Three hundred men were carried (Martyr, Gomara, Galvano).

The general direction of the voyage was to the north-west (Martyr, Gomara, Ramusio α and β, Eden). Galvano says they went westwards to land in 45°, and then northwards to 60°.

Ice was encountered in July (Martyr, Gomara, Eden). Ice without mention of date (Galvano).

After making land, the expedition coasted northwards (Martyr, Gomara, Ramusio α and β, Galvano).

It then turned back and sailed along the coast southwards and westwards (Martyr, Gomara, Ramusio α, Galvano). Eden appears to deny this, but probably unintentionally.

Extraordinary length of day was observed (Martyr, Gomara, Galvano).

A passage was being sought through the new land to Cathay (Ramusio α and β. The other accounts are not explicit on this point.

Points of difference:—

Highest north latitude attained: 58°, ‘he himself says much more’ (Gomara); 56° (Ramusio α); 67½° (Ramusio β); 60° (Galvano).

Lowest south latitude attained: ‘latitude of Gibraltar’, 36° (Martyr); 38° (Gomara); latitude of ‘Florida’—say 25–35° (Ramusio α); 38°, ‘others say 25°’ (Galvano).

The ships were fitted out at Cabot’s own charges (Martyr); ships fitted out at the king’s charges (Ramusio α and β, Galvano). Gomara uncertain.

A north-west passage was discovered (Ramusio β); further progress north was impossible (Gomara, Ramusio α, Galvano).

Date of voyage: 1498 (Ribault); 1496 (Galvano); 1496 (Ramusio α).

Facts inconsistent with what is known with certainty of John Cabot’s voyages:—

Sebastian Cabot was in command; two ships were employed; the voyage was into Arctic seas primarily, and only turned southwards when further progress north was impossible.

Statements obviously incorrect:—

Ferdinand and Isabella jointly dispatched Sebastian on the River Plate voyage (Ramusio α);[^[64]] date of John Cabot’s death (Ramusio α); date of Sebastian Cabot’s voyage (Ramusio α and Galvano); the American coast trends eastwards at 56° N. (Ramusio α).

In considering the accounts thus summarized, we are struck first by the importance and the inter-corroborative nature of the points on which unanimity is displayed, and secondly by the relative unimportance (so far as concerns the general outline of the story) of the points of difference. It is precisely on such points as latitude and date that men, writing in good faith, would be liable to err from defect of memory. The single serious discrepancy is the statement by Ramusio that a northwest passage was found, while the other writers assert that it was impossible to find such a passage. But Ramusio, as has been shown, was not very careful as to his facts, and Sebastian Cabot may well have been in a boasting mood when he wrote his letter to him. Sebastian was undoubtedly prone to misstatements on minor points, such as the place of his birth and his discoveries in the art of navigation, and in this respect he was neither above nor below the general standard of morality displayed by the adventurers of his time. With this exception, the above analysis shows that Ramusio’s ‘Mantuan gentleman’ is responsible for practically all the demonstrably impossible elements in the story. The reasons for disregarding him have already been fully entered into.

The conclusion is thus inevitable that the extracts under consideration present a report of a voyage that did actually take place, and that the following were the principal details of it: Sebastian Cabot was the commander; two ships were employed, with large crews; the general direction was westwards and northwards from England; so much progress was made into Arctic seas, by coasting northwards along the American shore, that quantities of ice were encountered in the height of summer; the object of the expedition was to find a passage through the American continent to the land of Cathay beyond, and thence to the Indies in the tropic latitudes; owing to ice, or mutiny, or both, further northern progress had to be abandoned; and finally, Sebastian Cabot skirted the whole coast of North America, from the neighbourhood of the Arctic circle down to Delaware Bay, or even to the southern point of Florida, and thence returned to England.

It is evident at a glance that this cannot possibly be a description of John Cabot’s first voyage. Facts are known with absolute certainty relating to that voyage which are quite incompatible with Sebastian’s story.

On reference to the very meagre, but yet undoubted, details in existence with regard to the 1498 voyage, it becomes equally evident that Sebastian Cabot was not speaking of that either, when he furnished material to the sixteenth-century historians. From first-class sources it has been seen that John Cabot sailed in command in 1498; that he conducted five ships; that he imagined the opposite shore to be that of Cathay; that he intended to make his former landfall, and then sail to the south-west, instead of to the north; and that his goal was the Isle of Cipango in the tropic seas, and not a by-him-undreamed-of passage in the Arctic.

Undoubtedly, then, Sebastian Cabot’s voyage was not identical with that of 1497, or with that of 1498. It must have been subsequent to those expeditions, since its commander was in possession of geographical knowledge which can only have been gleaned by John Cabot in 1498. Two considerations point to its having taken place in 1499 or 1500, with the balance of probability in favour of the former year. On March 19, 1501, Henry VII granted to a Bristol syndicate a new charter for western exploration, in which it was distinctly laid down that no foreigner, under colour of any former grant, should resort to the new-found lands without the permission of the present patentees. This seems to preclude with certainty the possibility of any Cabot voyage for several years to come, for the new company continued its operations until 1505, and possibly longer.

Another indication, from a Spanish source, points to 1499 as the probable date. A Spanish adventurer, Alonzo de Hojeda, put to sea on a voyage of discovery in May 1499. He explored the coast of Venezuela, steering thence to Hispaniola, and returning to Spain in the spring of 1500. On June 8, 1501, he obtained from the Spanish sovereigns a patent for a second voyage, empowering him to take ten ships and prosecute further discoveries on certain conditions, among which appear the following:[^[65]]

‘That you go and follow that coast which you have discovered, which extends east and west, as it appears, because it goes towards that part where it has been reported that the English were making discoveries; and that you set up marks with the arms of their Majesties or with other signs that may be understood, such as may seem good to you, so that it may be known that you have discovered that land, in order that you may stop the discoveries of the English in that direction....

‘Likewise their Majesties make gift to you, in the island of Hispaniola, of six leagues of land ... for what you have accomplished in discovery, and for the exclusion of the English from the coast of the mainland, and the said six leagues of land shall be yours for ever....’

Navarette, writing of Hojeda’s first voyage, says it is certain that the explorer encountered some Englishmen near Coquibacoa on the coast of Venezuela;[^[66]] but he gives no authority for the statement, and such authority has been searched for in vain. Possibly the patent quoted above was the origin of his assertion. In any case the patent deserves serious consideration, showing, as it does, that the Spanish Government was genuinely alarmed at the progress of English exploration on the mainland of America. If it is to be credited that Hojeda did encounter an English expedition on his first voyage, that expedition must have been Sebastian Cabot’s, as the dates do not allow of the possibility that Hojeda ran across John Cabot in 1497 or 1498. If Hojeda met Sebastian Cabot, it is most unlikely, in view of the latter’s accounts of his voyage, that it was on the coast of Venezuela. The most probable time and place of the intersection of the routes of the two explorers was in the autumn of 1499 and in the vicinity of the island of Hispaniola. Hojeda seems to have arrived at that place on September 5, staying there for a considerable time before resuming his voyage; and it is quite possible that Sebastian Cabot touched there on his homeward passage from Florida, although he would naturally not mention the circumstance in after days when in Spanish service.

But, however interesting these possibilities may be, there is not sufficient proof for them to be regarded as facts, and their truth or falsity does not affect the credit due to Sebastian Cabot for his determination to turn his father’s disillusionment to account. A man of good education, and of a subtle, reflective mind, he realized, as did other cosmographers much earlier than is commonly supposed,[^[67]] that the new-found land was veritably a separate continent, and lay as an obstacle between Europe and the coveted spices of the East. Hence his voyage into the Arctic—the first voyage in search of the North-West Passage, a quest which has formed an integral part of English history almost to our own time, and of which the first act has been buried under such an accumulation of misunderstanding and controversy as to pass almost unrecognized. Whether the voyage took place in 1499 or later; exactly how far north Sebastian reached; whether he actually entered Hudson’s Strait; and whether he encountered Hojeda in the West Indies after giving up the northern quest, are points which cannot be decided with the evidence at present at disposal. Certain it is, however, that his was the first attempt to pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific, an achievement which Magellan was to accomplish by a different route twenty years later.

Much has been made of Sebastian Cabot’s suppression of his father’s discoveries. It cannot be denied that he showed a strange want of generosity on the point, his first recorded reference to them being found in the map of 1544. But the neglect to mention a fact which is common knowledge is not so serious a fault as the withholding a secret generally unknown. From the references to John Cabot made by Alonzo de Santa Cruz, it would seem that Charles V was perfectly aware that John, and not Sebastian, was the original discoverer, as indeed any one who troubled to inquire into the matter could hardly fail to be when so many contemporaries of the fact were still living. The wretchedly slipshod and perfunctory methods of the sixteenth-century historians are certainly as much to blame as Sebastian, who had a financial motive for taking advantage of the confusion when he claimed, in his old age, the gratitude of England for the services of his family.

That Sebastian Cabot was nothing but a charlatan and a ‘glib reciter of other men’s tales’ is highly improbable. If he had been such, he would surely have appropriated the 1497 and 1498 voyages to his own credit, and would have made his story agree closely with all the undoubted details of those exploits, with which he was necessarily familiar. If he had really intended to represent himself as the sole discoverer of America, what possible motive could he have had in arousing suspicion by altering the number of ships from one or five, as the case might be, to two; in maintaining the deception well knowing that his master, Charles V, and many others were cognisant of it; and finally in giving his whole case away and acknowledging himself a liar by publishing the inscription on the map of 1544? His real fault was his egotistic silence on achievements which were not his own, a fault which served his turn at the time, but afterwards brought its own punishment by damaging his reputation to an even greater extent than he deserved.

Most modern writers[^[68]] have assumed that he claimed to have commanded one or both of the first two voyages, and they have put forward, as an explanation of the discrepancies, the suggestion that he named the Arctic as the scene of his chief efforts in order to please his Spanish masters. The latter were (on this hypothesis) bound to admit that England had made some discoveries, but preferred to have them located in a frigid and comparatively useless region rather than in more temperate zones. The obvious and fatal objection to this reasoning is that Sebastian, while asserting that he had been in the Arctic, also claimed to have coasted down to Virginia or Florida during the very same voyage, thus giving England just as good a title to those regions by right of discovery as if his first landfall had been made there.

The conclusion is, therefore, that there were three distinct Cabot voyages of which evidence has survived; the first two, under John Cabot, made upon a false conception, and the third, under his son, upon a true conception, of the nature of the newly discovered continent; and that the search for the North-West Passage was begun by Sebastian Cabot.

CHAPTER V
AN EARLY COLONIAL PROJECT

After the Cabot voyages, which were, financially, a failure, nothing more is heard of American enterprises originating in England until March 19, 1501. On that date Henry VII granted a patent ‘to our beloved subjects Richard Ward, Thomas Ashehurst, and John Thomas, merchants of our town of Bristol, and to our beloved João Fernandes, Francisco Fernandes and João Gonsalves,[^[69]] squires born in the islands of Surrys (Azores) under the obedience of the King of Portugal’, giving them authority to explore any regions of the earth for the purpose of discovering any countries hitherto unknown to Christians. The patentees were further empowered to set up the king’s standard on all places by them newly discovered, and to occupy such places as his vassals and governors, making laws and enforcing the obedience of all who should resort to those regions. During ten years following the grant of the patent they were to have a monopoly of trade with their discoveries, other persons being forbidden to engage in it without obtaining their licence and that of the king, and then only on condition of paying to the patentees one-twentieth part of the value of the goods shipped. Certain exemptions from customs duties on small quantities of goods were granted to the masters and mariners employed by the patentees, who were themselves entitled to import one shipload of merchandise duty free at some time within the first four years after the grant of the patent. If foreigners persisted in intruding into the dominions of the patentees the latter were given leave to expel and punish them at their discretion, even if they were subjects of a friendly power. They were also granted, jointly and singly, the rank and privileges of Admiral, with power to exercise the same in the new lands. A significant clause provided that no foreigner, under colour of any concession formerly granted under the Great Seal, should resort to the new lands without the licence of the patentees. Finally, the three Portuguese mentioned in the patent were to be naturalized and have all the rights and privileges of Englishmen, except that they were to continue to pay customs duties on the same scale as foreigners.[^[70]]

A study of the terms of the charter, the original of which is in Latin and of great length, shows that the foundation of a permanent colony, and not merely the dispatch of a trading expedition, was contemplated. The clauses, much elaborated in the original, relative to the rights of legislation, power to exclude foreigners, and administrative authority of the patentees, all point to this conclusion, although there is very little evidence that they were ever carried into effect. The locality is not mentioned, but it must have been somewhere on the coast of Greenland or North America between the Arctic Circle and the extremity of the peninsula of Florida, limits which are sufficiently wide, but which are necessitated by the extreme vagueness and the contradictory nature of the indications of the site of the projected settlement. The permission to expel foreigners by force of arms is interesting as showing that Henry VII, on paper at least, was in a less conciliatory mood than usual towards the Spaniards, at whom and the Portuguese the clause was levelled. The express revocation of any previous grants under the great seal could only apply to the patents obtained by the Cabots in 1496 and 1498, which were now annulled, most probably on account of the failure of those navigators to achieve any commercial success by their voyages.

The somewhat incongruous combination of Bristol merchants and Portuguese adventurers may be accounted for by the assumption that the former provided the capital and the business management of the affair, while the latter supplied the navigating skill and experience of similar enterprises. João Fernandes, at least, possessed such experience. On October 28, 1499, he had been granted a patent by King Manuel of Portugal, authorizing him to make voyages to the North-West and giving him the captaincy of any islands he might discover; and certain expressions used in another patent obtained by him in 1508 imply that he had previously made voyages in the same direction.[^[71]] The Portuguese, in general, thanks to their persistent attempts to find an eastern route to Cathay, were much more advanced in the art of conducting exploring expeditions than were the English of that period, and they had very quickly followed in the track of the Cabots to the coast of North America itself. The two brothers, Gaspar and Miguel Corte Real, as important in Portuguese history as the Cabots in our own, perished in the North-West in 1501 and 1502 respectively; while Portuguese fishermen flocked to the Baccalaos, or Newfoundland banks, in such numbers that in 1506 an import tax was levied in Portugal on fish from that region.[^[72]] On the other hand, England was in its infancy as a maritime nation, and its sailors, using inferior ships, charts, and navigating methods, had been hitherto accustomed only to coasting voyages and very short open-sea passages, such as were necessitated by the trade to Iceland and Spain.

It would appear that a commencement of the American enterprise was made in 1501, soon after the granting of the patent. It was usual to set out on such expeditions in the early summer so as to enjoy the maximum of good weather, and also to take advantage of the longest days when examining a new coastline. The only positive evidence of a voyage having been made in 1501 is an entry in Henry VII’s Privy Purse accounts[^[73]] on January 7, 1502: ‘To men of Bristol that found the Isle, £5.’ Scanty as it is, this entry may be taken as proving conclusively that a voyage was made in 1501. It was customary to make such donations on the arrival in England of the persons concerned: John Cabot had received a similar gift within a few days of his return from his first voyage in 1497; and the obvious inference here is that the Anglo-Portuguese syndicate dispatched an expedition in 1501, news of the safe arrival of which came to England at the end of that year. It is uncertain whether a colony was planted and messengers sent back with news to England, or whether the first voyage was made simply for the purpose of exploring and choosing a suitable site. It should be noted that the phrase employed does not necessarily imply that the new land was an island in the usual acceptation of the word; most newly discovered regions were commonly referred to as islands until exploration proved their continental nature.

A series of three documents, all referring to the last week of September 1502, imply the arrival of another ship or fleet from the new land at that time. A Privy Purse entry of September 23: ‘To a mariner that brought an eagle, 6s. 8d.’, may or may not relate to the enterprise; but another of September 30 is more explicit: ‘To the merchants of Bristol that have been in the Newfound land, £20.’ The third piece of evidence is the grant, on September 26, 1502, of pensions of £10 each per annum to Francisco Fernandes and João Gonsalves, ‘in consideration of the true service which they have done unto us to our singler pleasure as capitaignes unto the newe found lande’.[^[74]] Here again the phraseology is tantalizingly vague, and leaves us completely in the dark as to the real nature of the undertaking. It would apply equally well to a colony, a trading voyage, or a voyage of exploration. Two facts may, however, be deduced: first, that something of real importance had been accomplished, as is shown by the unwonted liberality of the king, whose habitual parsimony became accentuated in his later years; and, secondly, that João Fernandes severed his connexion with the enterprise at this time or earlier, since he is not recorded as obtaining either gratuity or pension.

Indeed, the next step of which we have evidence is a reconstruction of the whole syndicate and the grant of a new patent by the king on December 9, 1502.[^[75]] The number of the patentees was now reduced to four, namely, Hugh Elyot, Thomas Ashehurst, João Gonsalves, and Francisco Fernandes. Nothing is known of the causes of this change, by which three of the original adventurers dropped out and one new one was introduced; but it may safely be assumed that it was not due to an entire lack of commercial success, since that would probably have resulted in the winding-up of the whole concern.

The new patent was very similar in its terms to the old one, with the following exceptions: In the general licence to conquer and colonize, a special exception was made of the lands of the King of Portugal and any other ‘principum, amicorum & confoederatorum nostrorum’; the period during which the patentees might have a monopoly of trade was extended to forty years; two shiploads, instead of one, might be imported duty free; and Gonsalves and Francisco Fernandes were now placed on a complete equality with Englishmen as regards the payment of customs. Richard Ward, John Thomas, and João Fernandes were expressly debarred from exercising privileges granted in the patent of 1501, which was thus, for practical purposes, cancelled. The clause aiming at the rights of the Cabots was not repeated.

On the whole, the new patent was more favourable than the old, and the contrast seems to be intentionally emphasized between the status of the four new patentees and that of Ward, Thomas and João Fernandes, who were now excluded. The conduct of the latter had evidently been as displeasing to the king as that of the former had been satisfactory.

An entry in Stow’s Chronicle with reference to these expeditions has already been discussed in connexion with the Cabot voyages. It states that in the year 1502 three men were brought to the king, who had been taken in the new-found islands. They were clothed in skins, ate raw flesh, and spoke an unintelligible language. Two of them were to be seen at Westminster two years later, when they resembled Englishmen in clothing and appearance. These men must have arrived in the ships which returned in September 1502.

The new patent granted by Henry VII was followed by a renewal of the energies of the adventurers, and a Privy Purse entry of November 17, 1503, indicates the arrival in England of ships at that time. Like the others, it affords very little information, merely recording the payment: ‘To one that brought hawkes from the Newfoundland Island, £1’. Another entry, ‘April 8, 1504, to a prest that goeth to the new island, £2,’ points to a fresh sailing soon after that date, although there is no information as to the corresponding homeward voyage in the autumn. The Privy Purse accounts afford only one more piece of evidence, and that is of doubtful bearing on the subject. On August 25, 1505, we find entered: ‘To Clays going to Richemount with wylde catts and popyngays of the Newfound Island, for his costs, 13s. 4d.’, and on the same date, ‘To Portyngales that brought popyngais and catts of the mountaigne with other stuf to the Kinges Grace, £5.’ The word ‘popinjays’ was generally used to mean parrots, and no clear instance exists of the word being applied to any other bird.[^[76]] Parrots are not now to be found in the northern part of North America, but one species at least existed on the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario at the beginning of the nineteenth century,[^[77]] and it is quite possible that Indians in Newfoundland and Labrador bartered them to Europeans in the time of Henry VII. Hence the extract in question need not be absolutely rejected as applying to the present subject.

The interesting and valuable transcripts of Privy Purse accounts in Add. MS. 7099 cease at the year 1505. They are continued to the end of the reign by a manuscript[^[78]] in the Record Office (first entry, October 1, 1505), but there is no further mention of donations to American adventurers. At this point, therefore, all contemporary information ceases. The enterprise may have been continued during the succeeding years, but it was certainly not very long before it was abandoned, as certain statements of a later date tend to prove.

About the period 1517–19 a play in rhymed verse was printed, entitled The New Interlude of the Four Elements, of which the only known copy is at present in the British Museum.[^[79]] The page which should bear information as to its origin is missing, and the date given above is arrived at on internal evidence. The following lines vaguely refer to the early transatlantic voyages (spelling modernized):

This sea is called the great Ocean,

So great it is that never man

Could tell it sith the world began,

Till now, within this twenty year,

Westward be found new lands

That we never heard tell of before this

By writing nor other means,

Yet many now have been there;

And that country is so large of room,

Much lenger than all Christendom,

Without fable or guile;

For divers mariners have it tried,

And sailed straight by the coast side

Above five thousand mile!

But what commodities be within

No man can tell nor well imagine,

But yet not long ago

Some men of this country went,

By the King’s noble consent,

It for to search to that intent,

And could not be brought thereto;

But they that were the venturers

Have cause to curse their mariners,

False of promise and dissemblers,

That falsely them betrayed;

Which would take no pain to sail further

Than their own lust and pleasure,

Wherefore that voyage and divers other

Such caitiffs have destroyed.

O what a thing had been then,

If that they that be Englishmen

Might have been the first of all;

That there should have taken possession,

And made first building and habitation,

A memory perpetual;

And also what an honourable thing

Both to the realm and to the King,

To have had his dominion extending

There into so far a ground,

Which the noble King of late memory,

The most wise Prince, the VIIth Harry,