It will probably be considered, also, rather remarkable that when Columbus, twenty years after this discovery, submitted to the Court of Portugal his project for seeking land in the West, it was referred to a learned Junto, who pronounced it extravagant and visionary, and that on appeal to the Council this decision was affirmed. To remove all doubt a Caravel was secretly sent to sea, provided with the instructions of Columbus, and her return, not long after, without success, was considered to establish, conclusively, the impracticable character of the scheme. But it happens that Mr. Barrow, in putting forth the statement, has not looked even into the work which he professes to cite as his authority. The volume of Cordeyro was published in 1717, and is entitled "Historia Insulana das Ilhas a Portugal sugeytas no Oceano Occidental." Of it, and of its author so little is known that his name does not find a place even in the Biographie Universelle. A greater part is occupied with adulation of some of the principal families of the different islands; yet there is supplied the very Document, at full length, to whose possible language Mr. Barrow hypothetically attaches so much importance. A copy of the work is found in the Library of the British Museum. The Commission of Cortereal, as Governor of Terceira, bears date (p. 246,) Evora, 12 April, 1464, and in the consideration recited for the grant not the slightest reference is made to any such discovery.* Thus does the evidence in support of this preposterous claim disappear. The whole story had probably its origin in some confused tradition which reached Cordeyro as to the voyage of 1574. Yet mark how Error, "like to an entered tide, rushes by and leaves" even Mr. Barrow "hindmost.” "There seems little reason to doubt that a Portuguese navigator had dis E considerando en de outra parte os serviços que Joao Vas Cortereal, fidalgo da casa do dito Senhor meu filho, tem feyto ao Infante meu Senhor seu padre que Deos haja, & depois a mim & a elle, confiando em a sua bondade, & lealdade, & vendo a sua disposição, a qual he para poder servir o dito Şenhor & manter seu direyto, & justiça, em galardao dos ditos serviços lhe fiz mercè da Capitaniâ da Ilha Terceyra." covered Newfoundland long before the time of Cabot. John Vaz Casta Corte- As authority for these assertions, Mr. Barrow is cited! "This house was that of Cortereal: for a member of which, John Vaz Cortereal, claims are advanced as having discovered Newfoundland nearly a century (!) before the celebrated voyages of Columbus or Cabot."+ * Dr. Lardner's Cyclopædia, History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. ii. p. 138. † Edinburgh Cabinet Library, by Professors Leslie and Jameson, and Hugh Murray, Esq. vol. i. p. 158. U CHAP. XII. SIR MARTIN FROBISHER. To exhibit a just estimate of the merits of this navigator, is one of the gravest portions of the duty that remains to be performed. There will here be found, probably, the most striking proof yet presented of injustice to the fame of Sebastian Cabot. Had Frobisher seen the tract of Sir Humphrey Gilbert? The question may not, perhaps, be deemed one of essential importance, when we know that Ramusio, twenty-two years before, had furnished a statement, which it is impossible to misunderstand, of the course pursued, and of the point attained, by Cabot, and that there was suspended in the Queen's Gallery the Map, exhibiting his discoveries, referred to in that tract. Yet the evidence happens to be so singularly conclusive as to invite the enquiry. A doubt, indeed, on the subject has arisen only from the conduct of Hakluyt, who in giving a place to the work of Sir Humphrey Gilbert has suppressed the very curious and interesting explanation of its history; and, owing to the blind confidence in that compiler, no one has since thought of going beyond his volumes. There is, fortunately, a copy of the original publication in the Library of the British Museum, (title in catalogue Gilbert.) The tract was published on the 12 April, 1576, and is preceded by an Address to the reader, from George Gascoigne, who thus explains the manner in which it came into his possession :— "Now it happened that myself being one (amongst many) beholden to the said Sir Humphry Gilbert for sundry courtesies, did come to visit him in the winter last past, at his house in Limehouse, and being very bold to demand of him, how he spent his time in this loitering vacation from martial stratagems, he courteously took me into his study, and there shewed me sundry profitable and very commendable exercises which he had perfected painfully with his own pen, and amongst the rest this present discovery. The which, as well because it was not long, as also, because I understood that M. Forboiser, a kinsman of mine, did pretend to travel in the same discovery, I craved it at the said Sir Humphrey's hand for two or three days." Gascoigne retained possession of the tract, and subsequently published it. Frobisher (or Forboiser as he is more commonly called in the old accounts) sailed from Gravesend, on his first voyage, 12 June, 1576. We thus find that the tract was obtained by a kinsman, for his use, the preceding winter, and that it even appeared in print two months before Frobisher left the Thames. The following is an extract from it, (Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 16,) "Sebastian Cabota by his personal experience and travel hath set forth and described this passage in his Charts, which are yet to be seen in the Queen's Majesty's Privy Gallery at Whitehall, who was sent to make this discovery by King Henry VII. and entered the same fret: affirming that he sailed very far westward with a quarter of the North on the North side of Terra de Labrador the eleventh of June, until he came to the Septentrional latitude of 67° anda-half, and finding the sea still open said, that he might and would have gone to Cataia if the mutiny of the master and mariners had not been." There is another tract in Hakluyt (vol. iii. p. 24,) already referred to, entitled "Certain other reasons or arguments to prove a passage by the North-West, learnedly written by Mr. Richard Willes, Gentleman." Here, also, a perilous discretion has been exercised in the way of curtailment. The Essay appeared originally in a new edition of Richard Eden's Decades, published by Willes, in 1577.* The tract is addressed to the Countess of Warwick whose husband was the patron of Frobisher, and is headed "For M. Captayne Frobisher, passage by the North-West." (fol. 230.) That Willes had been solicited to prepare it is apparent from the conclusion, (fol. 236.) "Thus much, Right Honorable, my very good Lady, of your question concerning your servant's voyage. If not so skilfully as I would, and was desirous fully to do, at the least as I could and leisure suffered me, for the little know "The History of Travayle in the West and East Indies, &c. by Richard Eden. Newly set in order, augmented, and finished by Richarde Willes. London, 1577." ledge God hath lent me, if it be any at all, in cosmography and philosophy, and the small experience I have in travaile. Chosing rather in the clear judgment of your honourable mind to appear rude and ignorant, and so to be seene unto the multitude, than to be found unthankful and careless in anything your Honour should commande me. God preserve your Honor. At the Court the 20 of March, your Honor's most humbly at commandment Richard Willes.” This Tract was prepared after the first voyage of Frobisher, and reference is made in it to a document now lost, viz., the Chart drawn by Frobisher to exhibit the course he had pursued. The account given by Willes of Cabot's description of the Strait corresponds with that supplied by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, but it is, as has been shewn on a former occasion, more explicit. "Cabota was not only a Skilful Seaman but a long travailer, and such a one as entered personally that Strait sent by King Henry VII. to make the aforesaid discovery, as in his own Discourse of Navigation you may read in his Card drawn with his own hand; the mouth of the North-Western Strait lieth near the 318 meridian [60o W. Long. from Greenwich] betwixt 61 and 64o in elevation continuing the same breadth about ten degrees West where it openeth Southerly more and more." (fol. 233.) That Frobisher was considered as having done nothing more, on his first voyage, than to act on the suggestions of Cabot, and as far he went to confirm them, may be inferred from another passage. It was plain that he had not penetrated to the extent mentioned by Cabot, yet he had followed the instructions as to the quarter where the Strait was to be found, and his partial success inspired a hope that he might, in a second attempt, urge his way through. That this was the extent of the merit claimed for the recent voyage is plain from the language which Willes addresses to a lady whose influence had been mainly instrumental in setting it forth. After representing the Strait to be "betwixt the 61st and 64th degrees North," he adds, "So left by our countryman Sebastian Cabote in his Table, the which my good Lord your father [The Earl of Bedford] hath at Cheynies and so tried this last year by your Honor's Servant as he reported and his Card and Compass do witness." (fol. 232.) The very history of the voyages themselves is stripped by Hakluyt of the evidence they furnish as to a knowledge of Cabot's |