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emphatically, that in every account of this voyage distinct reference is made to the antecedent discoveries of Cabot-to the "Baccalaos" which had been rendered universally known by the work of Peter Martyr, published eight years before.

It must be evident that if the Historian just named confided in Cabot's veracity he could not have anticipated a successful result to the enterprise of Gomez, for he had described our navigator as ranging along the coast of America with the same object in view, as far south as the latitude of Gibraltar. True, he tells us at the same time, that the Spaniards were inclined to speak slightingly of Cabot (Dec. iii. c. 6), but his own language of respect, and even affection, shows that he himself cherished no disparaging suspicions, and we are, therefore, curious to know what part he took in the Council of the Indies when Gomez submitted his offer to find a passage in the very quarter which Cabot had carefully explored in vain. To the surprise of all those who have not looked closely into the subject, there will be found in the 8th Dec., c. 10, the following expressions:

"Nunc ad Stephanum Gomez quem in calce porrecti libelli (incipientis 'Priusquam') cum una missum caravela dixi ad fretum aliud inter Floridam tellurem et Baccalaos satis tritos quærendum. Is nec freto neque a se promisso Cataio repertis regressus est intra mensem decimum a discessu. Inanes hujus boni hominis fore cogitatus existimavi ego semper et præposui; non defuere in ejus favorem suf fragia."

The good old man tells, with great glee, the jest about "esclavos," and chuckles at the momentary triumph of Cabot's enemies:

"Ubi accessit in portum Clunium unde vela fecerat unus quidam audito navis ejus adventu et quod esclavos (id est servos) adveheret nil ultra vestigans citatissimo equorum cursu ad nos venit anhelo spiritu inquiens clavis et preciosis gemmis onus

• "Now I come to Stephanus Gomez, who, as I have said in the ende of that Booke presented to your Holiness beginning ("Before that"), was sent with one Caravell to seeke another Straight between the land of Florida and the Bacalaos sufficiently known and frequented. He neither findinge the Straight nor Cataia which he promised, returned backe within tenn Monethes after his departure. I always thought and presupposed this good man's imaginations were vayne and frivolous. Yet wanted he no suffrages and voyces in his favour and defence" (Lok's translation, fo. 317).

tam affert navim Stephanus Gomez, opimam se habiturum strenam arbitratus est. Ad hanc hujus hominis ineptiam erecti qui rei faverent, universam obtunderunt cum ingenti applausu curiam per aphæresim dictione detruncata pro esclavis clavos esse advectos præconando (esclavos enim Hispanum idioma servos appellat et gariophyllos nuncupat clavos), postea vero quam a clavis in esclavos fabulam esse transformatam Curia cognovit cum fautorum jubilantium erubescentia risum excitavit.”*

Of Gomara's account, it might be superfluous to say any thing; but he was Cabot's contemporary, and the passage illustrates what has been said, in another place, as to his narrow feeling of jealousy towards that Navigator who had a few years before abandoned the service of Spain to rejoin that of his native country, and whom the King of England had refused, as we have seen, to send back on the requisition of Charles V. After stating the departure of Gomez in pursuit of the strait ("en demanda de un estrecho que se ofrecio de haller en tierra de Baccalaos"), his return without success, and the jest about the "esclavos," he says (c. xl.) that Gomez visited a region "que aun no estaba par otro vista; bien que dicen como Sebastian Gabato la tenia primero tanteada" ("which had never before been seen by any one, though they say that it was first discovered by Sebastian Cabot"). These are his churlish expressions at a moment when he has no other epithet by which to designate the country visited, but that conferred on it by the very man whose merits he strives, in this despicable temper, to depreciate!

In the "Narrative of Discovery and Adventure in the Polar Seas, &c. by Professor Leslie, Professor Jameson, and

• "And when he came into the haven of Clunia from whence he set sayle, a certayne man hearing of the arrivall of his Shippe and that hee had brought Esclavos, that is to say slaves, seekinge no further, came postinge unto us with pantinge and breathless spirit sayinge that Stephanus Gomez bringeth his Shippe laden with cloves and precious Stones: and thought thereby to have received some rich present or reward: They who favoured the matter, attentive to this mann's foolish and idle report, wearied the whole Court with exceedinge great applause, cutting the word by apheresis proclaimynge that for esclavos hee hadd brought clavos (for the Spanish tongue calleth slaves esclavos and cloves clavos),but after the Court under. stoode that the tale was transformed from clavos to slaves they brake foorth into a great laughter to the shame and blushinge of the favourers who had shouted for joy" (Lok's translation, fol. 317).

Hugh Murray, Esq. F.R.S.E." published on the 1st October last, there is found (p. 161) the following passage :

"Only one very early voyage (from Spain to the North) is mentioned, that namely, which was undertaken in 1524 by Gomez, with a view of discovering a shorter passage to the Moluccas. He is said to have brought home a few of the natives; but no record is preserved either of the events which attended his enterprise or even of the coast on which he arrived. There remains of it, as has been observed, only a jest, and one sò indifferent as not to be worth repeating."

The writer might be excused, perhaps, for not knowing that Oviedo, in 1526, and Richard Eden, in 1555, name 40 and 41 degrees of latitude as points visited by Gomez, but what shall we say of his overlooking the following passage in a popular work, published in 1817?

"Une ancienne carte manuscrite dressee en 1529 par Diego Ribeiro, cosmographe Espagnol, a conservé le souvenir du voyage de Gomez: on y lit au dessous de l'emplacement occupé par les états de New York, de Connecticut et de RhodeIsland Terre D'Etienne Gomez qu'il decouvrit en 1525 par l'ordre de S. M. Пly a beaucoup d'arbres, beaucoup de rodoballas, de saumons, et de soles; on n'y trouve pas d'or." (Biographie Universelle, tit. Gomes.)

The Diego Ribeiro here named had been, on 10th June, 1523, appointed Royal Cosmographer, with a large salary, and the duty committed to him of preparing charts, astrolabes, and other nautical instruments (Navarette, Introd. tom. i. p. cxxiv. note 2). The Map with a valuable memoir, published at Weimar in 1795, is in the Library of the British Museum.

CHAP. IX.

EXPEDITION from ENGLÄND IN 1527.

ERRONEOUS STATEMENT THAT ONE OF THE VESSELS WAS NAMED 66 DOMINUS VOBISCUM"-THEIR NAMES THE 66 SAMPSON" AND "THE MARY OF GUILFORD"-LETTERS FROM THE EXPEDITION DATED AT NewfoundLAND, ADDRESSED TO HENRY VIII. AND CARDINAL WOLSEY-THE ITALLAN NAVIGATOR, JUAN VERRAZANI, ACCOMPANIES THE EXPEDITION AND IS KILLED BY THE NATIVES-LOSS OF THE SAMPSON-THE MARY OF GUILFORD VISITS BRAZIL, PORTO RICO, &c.-ARRIVES IN ENGLAND, OCTOBER 1527-ROBERT THORNE OF BRISTOL-HIS LETTER COULD NOT HAVE LED TO THIS EXPEDITION.

THE Second Expedition under the auspices of Henry VIII. in 1527, to discover a North-West Passage, has not been more fortunate than the First, in 1517, in escaping perversion. The statement of Hakluyt (vol. iii. p. 129) is this:

"Master Robert Thorne of Bristoll, a notable member and ornament of his Country, as wel for his learning as great charity to the poore, in a letter of his to King Henry the 8th and a large discourse to Doctor Leigh, his Ambassador to Charles the Emperor (which both are to be seene almost at the beginning of the first volume of this my Work) exhorted the aforesaid King, with very weighty and substantial reasons, to set forth a discovery even to the North Pole. And that it may be known that this his motion took present effect, I thought it good herewithall to put down the testimonies of two of our Chroniclers, M. Hall and M. Grafton, who both write in this sort. This same moneth' (say they) 'King Henry the 8th sent two faire Ships wel manned and victualled, having in them divers cunning men to seek strange regions, and so they set forth out of the Thames the 20th day of May in the 19th yeere of his raigne, which was the yeere our Lord 1527.'

"And whereas Master Hall, and Master Grafton say, that in those Ships there were divers cunning men, I have made great inquiry of such as, by their yeeres and delight in Navigation, might give me any light to know who those cunning men should be, which were the directors in the aforesaid Voyage. And it hath been tolde me by Sir Martine Frobisher, and M. Richard Allen, a Knight of the Sepulchre, that a Canon of Saint Paul in London, which was a great Mathematician, and a Man indued with wealth, did much advance the action, and went therein himselfe in person, but what his name was I cannot learne of any. And furthur they tolde that one of the ships was called the Dominus Vobiscum, which is a name likely to be given by a religious man of those dayes: and that sayling very farre Northwestward, one of the Ships was cast away as it entered into a dangerous Gulph,

about the great opening, betweene the North parts of Newfoundland, and the Country lately called by her Majestie, Meta Incognita. Whereupon the other ship shaping her course towards Cape Briton, and the Coastes of Arambec, and oftentimes putting their men on land to search the state of those unknown regions, returned home about the beginning of October, of the yere aforesayd. And thus much (by reason of the great negligence of the writers of those times, who should have used more care in preserving of the memories of the worthy actes of our Nation) is all that hitherto I can learne or find out of this voyage."

This is copied into every History of Discovery since that period down to Mr Barrow, Dr Lardner, and the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, with the same expression of regret and indignation that no record should have been preserved of the persons and vessels employed in the enterprise.

Incredible as it may appear, after what has been said, there is found in Purchas (vol. iii. p. 809), the very Letter written by John Rut, the commander of one of the vessels engaged in this expedition, to Henry VIII. from Newfoundland, and an account of another Letter written from the same place by Albert de Prato, an Ecclesiastic, to Cardinal Wolsey. The Letter to the King thus appears in Purchas, with some obvious imperfections:

"Pleasing your Honorable Grace to heare of your Servant John Rut, with all his company here, in good health, thanks be to God and your Graces ship, The Mary of Guilford, with all her [a blank in Purchas] thanks be to God; and

if it please your honorable Grace, we ranne in our course to the Northward, till we came into 53 degrees, and there we found many great Ilands of Ice and deepe water, we found no sounding, and then we durst not goe no further to the North. ward for feare of more Ice, and then we cast about to the Southward, and within foure dayes after we had one hundred and sixtie fathom, and then we came into 52 degrees and fell with the mayne Land, and within ten leagues of the mayne Land we met with a great Iland of Ice, and came hard by her, for it was standing in deepe water, and so went in with Cape de Bas, a good Harbor, and many small Ilands, and a great fresh River going up farre into the mayne Land, and the Mayne Land all wildernesse and mountaines and Woods, and no naturall ground, but all mosse, and no inhabitation nor no people in these parts: and in the woods we found footing of divers great beasts, but we saw none not in ten leagues. And please your Grace, The Samson and wee kept company all the way till within two dayes before we met with all the Ilands of Ice, that was the first day of July at night, and there rose a great and a marvailous great storme, and much foule weather; I trust in Almightie Jesu to heare good newes of her. And please your Grace, we were considering and a writing of all our order, how we would wash us and what course we would draw and when God do and foule weather that with the Cape de Sper shee should goe, and he that came first should tarry the space of sixe weeks one for another, and watered at Cape de Bas ten dayes, oruering of your Graces ship

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