CHAP. XV.

VOYAGE OF 1517 THE ONE REFERRED TO BY CABOT IN HIS LETTER TO

RAMUSIO.

IT being, then, certain that the expedition of 1517 had for its object the North-West Passage, was it on the 11th June 1517, that Cabot attained the point mentioned in his letter to Ramusio? The day of the month is given, not only in that letter but again by Sir Humphrey Gilbert (iii. Hakluyt, p. 16), from Cabot's map. Many circumstances of corroboration press on us. When Eden speaks, in magnificent phrase, of the opportunity lost to England of taking the lead of Spain, his language is naturally referable, as has been said, to the frustration of that great effort to find a way to Cataya which Cabot had already essayed, and which Peter Martyr, in 1515, expressly tells us he was on the eve of again undertaking. In the letter to Ramusio, Cabot declares that when arrested at 67° and-a-half by the timidity of his associates, he was sanguine of success, and that if not overruled he both could and would have gone to Cataya. Does not Eden, then, merely supply the name of the principal object of this reproach? Let us refer again to the language of Thorne, which applies, we know, to the expedition of 1517 (i. Hakluyt, p. 219), "Of the which there is no doubt, as now plainly appeareth, if the mariners would then have been ruled and followed their pilot's mind, the lands of the West-Indies, from whence all the gold cometh, had been ours." Can it be doubted that these several passages all point to the same incident?

In the work of Peter Martyr, written before this last voyage, no allusion is found to a mutiny in the North, but he mentions expressly that in the South the expedition was stop

ped by a failure of provisions. While conveying such minute information he would hardly have failed to advert to a fact so remarkable in itself, and bearing moreover so directly on the question of the supposed practicability of the enterprise.

On the occasion alluded to, the lat. of 67° and-a-half had been attained on the 11th June. This could not have been in 1497, because land was first seen on the 24th of June of that year. With regard to the expedition of 1498, which Peter Martyr and Gomara are supposed more particularly to refer to, the month of July is named as that in which the great struggle with the ice occurred. Did not Cabot, then, instructed by experience, sail from England earlier in the year than on the former occasions? In order to be within the eighth year of Henry VIII. mentioned by Eden, he must have got off before the 22nd of April, if he sailed in 1517.

The advance on this occasion was so far beyond what had been made on former voyages, that Thorne does not hesitate to give to the region newly visited the designation of Newfoundland; and it was then probably that Cabot "sailed into Hudson's Bay and gave English names to sundry places therein."*

No date is mentioned by Ramusio for the voyage alluded to in Cabot's letter, though from his speaking of that Navigator as having made discoveries in the time of Henry VII., the reader might be led to refer it to that early period. One expression is remarkable. After stating Cabot's long-continued course West with a quarter of the North, and his reaching 67° and-a-half, Ramusio says that he would have gone further but for the "malignita del padrone et de marinari sollevati❞ (the refusal of the master and the mutinous mariners). We can hardly err in referring this allusion to Sir Thomas Pert, "whose faint heart," according to Eden, "was the cause that the voyage took none effect."

* Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. i. p. 549. M'Pherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 12.

It only remains to express a hope that as the errors with regard to this voyage had become so firmly fixed, and their rectification was so important to the fame of Cabot, the preceding tedious detail will be excused. Dr Robertson, who it appears by the list of authorities prefixed to his History of America knew of Oviedo only through the Italian translation, thus speaks of the memorable expedition:

"Some merchants of Bristol having fitted out two ships for the southern regions of America, committed the conduct of them to Sebastian Cabot, who had quitted the service of Spain. He visited the coasts of Brazil, and touched at the islands of Hispaniola and Porto Rico," &c. (Book ix.) And in a work of the present year (Lardner's Cyclopædia, Maritime and Inland Discovery, vol. ii. p. 138), it is said, "Sebastian Cabot sailed in 1516 with Sir John Pert to Porto Rico, and afterwards returned to Spain."

CHAP. XVI.

CABOT APPOINTED, IN 1518, PILOT-MAJOR OF SPAIN-SUMMONED TO ATTEND THE CONGRESS AT BADAJOS IN 1524-PROJECTED EXPEDITION UNDER HIS COMMAND TO THE MOLUCCAS.

THE result of the expedition of 1517, however it may have added in England to the fame of Cabot for ardent enterprise and dauntless intrepidity, was not such as to lead immediately to a renewed effort. There had been a failure; and a second expedition might be frustrated by similar causes. The merchants who were engaged in it had probably sustained a heavy loss, and the king was at that time full of anxious speculations about the affairs of the Continent. The horrible SweatingSickness, too, which, from July to December 1517, spread death and dismay not only through the court and the city, but over the whole kingdom, suspending even the ordinary operations of commerce, left no time to think of the prosecution of a distant and precarious enterprise. It is probable, therefore, that Cabot might have languished in inactivity but for the new and more auspicious aspect of affairs in Spain.

If the youthful successor of Ferdinand had looked into the volume dedicated to him by Peter Martyr, containing a faithful and copious account of that splendid empire in the west to which he had succeeded, he could not fail to be struck with the memorable enterprise of Cabot, and the estimate of his character by that honest chronicler. The records, too, would show the pains which had been taken to secure his services, and the posts of honour and confidence to which he had been rapidly advanced. It would doubtless be asked, what had been the issue of that expedition under his command, which it appeared was to sail in March 1516. Coup

ling its abandonment with what he found stated of the jealous denial of that Navigator's merits by the Spaniards, the sagacity of Charles could hardly fail to detect the secret causes of Cabot's disappearance.

Immediate measures in the way of atonement would seem to have been taken. In 1518 Cabot was named Pilot-Major of Spain.*

The appointment is noted in the general arrangement and scheme of reformation of that year, but we find it announced again in 1520, (Dec. ii. lib. ix. cap. vii.) with the instructions of the emperor that no pilot should proceed to the Indies without previous examination and approval by him.† Possibly, therefore, the final arrangement was not concluded until the visit of Charles V. to England in the latter year. It would seem that there was no intermediate Pilot Major between Juan de Solis and Cabot, for in a Royal order of 16th November 1523, relative to a charge in the time of De Solis, on the salary of the office (Navarette, tom. iii. p. 308), Cabot is spoken of as his successor.

The functions of this office, though of great importance and responsibility, supply, of course, but few incidents for record. We might expect to find the project of the North-West passage revived, but many considerations were opposed to it. The same reasons which suggested the passage in the North as so desirable to England, on account of her local position, would disincline Spain from the search; and we accordingly find, that the only feeble efforts in reference to it were those of Cortez and Gomez on the southern coast of North America. All eyes were directed to the South. Peter Martyr is even impatient that attention should be turned towards Florida where Ayllon had landed in 1523, and made a tedious report as to its productions. "What need have we of these things

'Herrera, Dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. vii. Ensaio Chronologico para la Florida, Introduccion.

†Diose titulo Piloto Major à Sebastian Gaboto con orden que ningun Pilotpasase à las Indias sin ser primero por el examinado i aprobado.