Prince, the great Sophie, Emperor of the Persians, Medes, Parthians, Hircans, Carmanians, Margians, of the people on this side and beyond the river of Tigris, and of all men and nations between the Caspian Sea and the Gulfe of Persia." She asks his good offices toward the Agent of the Company:

"For that his enterprise is onely grounded upon an honest intent, to establish trade of merchandise with your subjects, and with other strangers trafficking in your Realms." "We do hope that the Almightie God will bring it to pass, that of these small beginnings greater moments of things shall hereafter spring both to our furniture and honors, and also to the great commodities and use of our peoples, so that it will be knowen that neither the Earth, the Seas, nor the Heavens have so much force to separate us, as the godly disposition of natural humanity and mutual benevolence have to joyne us strongly together."*

* Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 341.

CHAP. XXXV

THE SEARCH-THRIFT DESPATCHED TO THE NORTH IN 1556 UNDER STEPHEN BURROUGH-CABOT'S ENTERTAINMENT AT GRAVESEND-INFLUENCE OF THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. ON HIS PERSONAL FORTUNESREVIVING HOPES OF THE STILYARD MERCHANTS-THEIR INSOLENT REFERENCE TO THE QUEEN IN A MEMORIAL ADDRESSED TO PHILIP-THE LATTER REACHES LONDON, 20TH MAY, 1557-NEW ARRANGEMENT AS TO CABOT'S PENSION ON 29TH MAY 1567-WILLIAM WORTHINGTON IN POSSESSION OF HIS PAPERS-ACCOUNT OF THAT PERSON-MANNER IN WHICH THE MAPS AND DISCOURSES HAVE PROBABLY DISAPPEARED

CABOT'S ILLNESS-AEFECTING ACCOUNT OF HIS LAST MOMENTS BY RICHARD EDEN.

AMIDST the stir and bustle of these commercial enterprises concerted by Cabot, or due to the impulse he had communicated, there occurs a remarkable anecdote of himself. Stephen Burrough, afterwards Chief Pilot of England and one of the four Masters having charge of The Royal Navy at Chatham, &c.,* had been with Richard Chancellor, on the first voyage, and was again despatched to the North in 1556, in a pinnace called the Search-thrift. His copious journal of the incidents of the voyage is preserved,† and an entry at the outset strikingly exhibits the anxious supervision of Cabot, and the apparent unwillingness to quit, up to the latest moment, the object of so much solicitude. At the Entertainment, too, provided at Gravesend, his countenance to the joyous amusements of the company not only shows the unbroken spirits of this wonderful man, but the terms in which Burrough records these minute incidents prove how well Cabot understood the character of those around him, and knew that

See his Commission from Queen Elizabeth, dated 3d January, 1563, amongst the Lansdowne MSS. No. 116, art. iii.

+ Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 274.

he was leaving, to cheer them amidst their perils, a grateful impression of kind and familiar sympathy at home.

"The 27 April being Munday, the Right Worshipful Sebastian Caboto came aboord our Pinnesse at Gravesende, accompanied with divers Gentlemen, and Gentlewomen, who after that they had viewed our Pinnesse and tasted of such cheere as we could make them aboord, they went on shore, giving to our mariners right liberall rewards: and the good olde Gentleman Master Cabota gave to the poore most liberall almes, wishing them to pray for the good fortune, and prosperous successe of the Serchthrift, our Pinnesse. And then at the signe of the Christopher, he and his friends banketted, and made me, and them that were in the company great cheere: and for very joy that he had to see the towardness of our intended discovery, he entered into the dance himselfe, amongst the rest of the young and lusty company which being ended, hee and his friends departed most gently, commending us to the Governance of Almighty God."

A gloom now overspreads the history of Cabot, and we approach the closing scenes of his life with a painful conviction that they exhibit a signal instance of ingratitude and bad faith.

The untimely death of Edward VI. while it operated as a severe check on the advancing commercial prosperity of England, was no less inauspicious to the personal fortunes of him who had given the first great impulse. The generosity of the youthful monarch,-his ingenious and enterprising spirit, -and his fondness for the studies and inquiries connected with sea affairs-are in melancholy contrast with the close and sullen bigotry of Mary. It would form no recommendation to her that Cabot had been a personal favourite with a brother whom she regarded as a heretic and as her own persecutor. With her husband he was still less likely to find favour. Jealous of the growing commerce and maritime enterprise of England, Philip saw in Sebastian Cabot the man who had left his father's service, had refused peremptorily to return, and who was now imparting to others the benefit of his vast experience and accumulated stores of knowledge.

Edward died on the 6 July, 1553. On the 27 November, 1555, the pension to Cabot was renewed (Rymer, Fœdera, vol. xv. p. 427), but there is no clause having a retrospective character, to cover the intervening period, such as would be necessary if, as the fact of renewal implies, the pension made payable for life by the king and his successors was deemed to expire on the death of the reigning monarch.

The most alarming indication of the complete change in the aspect of affairs is the fact that the Stilyard merchants, by the influence of Charles V., through the marriage of his son with Mary, were enabled to obtain relief from the Act of the late King. "This," says Rapin, "was the first fruit of the Queen's alliance with the Emperor."

Their insolent confidence is strikingly apparent in one Document, which shews, at the same time, their knowledge of Philip's brutal disregard of the feelings of his wife.

"At an assembly of the Hanses at Lubeck, an Edict was published against all Englishmen, forbidding all trade or commerce with them, and staying the carrying out of Corne, which was provided for the service and necessitie of the Realme : yet for all these indignities, the said Queene was contented that Commissaries on both parts should meet in England, and agree upon, and set downe a certaine and immutable manner of Trade to be held, and observed on both sides: but the Hanses were so farre from accepting of this gracious offer, that they wholly refused it, as by a Petition of theirs exhibited to King Philip, the third of June 1557 appeareth, wherein they declare the cause of that their refusall to bee, for that they coulde not have in this Realme anie other iudges of their cause, but such as were suspected, not sparing or excepting the Queene herselfe of whose good will and favour they had received so often experience and triall.*"

A crisis approaches. Philip reached London on the 20th May, 1557, and the formal declaration of war against France took place immediately after.† The period was one of great · pecuniary embarrassment with Mary, and she saw the dreaded necessity approaching for a demand on Parliament of money to enable her to promote the schemes of her husband. We recall, at such a moment, with alarm, the almost incredible

• Treatise of Commerce by Wheeler, Ed. of 1601, p. 97.

"Philip had come to London in order to support his partizans; and he told the Queen, that if he were not gratified in so reasonable a request, he never more would set foot in England. This declaration extremely heightened her zeal for promoting his interests, and overcoming the inflexibility of her Council." Hume, anno 1557.

"Any considerable supplies could scarcely be expected from Parliament, considering the present disposition of the nation; and as the war would sensibly diminish that branch arising from the customs, the finances, it was foreseen, would fall short even of the ordinary charges of government; and must still more prove unequal to the expenses of war. But though the Queen owed great arrears to all her servants, besides the loans extorted from the subjects, these considerations had no influence with her." Ib.

baseness and ingratitude of this man, who, the year before, had withheld from his father, Charles V., the paltry pittance reserved on surrendering a mighty empire.*

On the 27th May, 1557, Cabot resigned his pension.† On the 29th, a new grant is made, but in a form essentially dif ferent. It is no longer to him exclusively, but jointly with William Worthington; "eidem Sebastiano et dilecto servienti nostro Willielmo Worthington."

On the face of this transaction Cabot is cheated of one-half of the sum which had been granted to him for life. This was done, no doubt, on the pretence that age prevented an efficient discharge of his duties, forgetting that the very nature of the grant for life had indulgent reference to such a contingency, and that Cabot by refusing to quit England had forfeited his pension from the Emperor.

That Worthington-probably a favourite of that dark hour was thus provided for on pretence of aiding in the discharge of Cabot's functions seems placed beyond doubt by evidence found in Hakluyt. The dedication of the first volume of the greater work to the Lord High Admiral of England contains these remarkable expressions:

"King Edward VI., that Prince of Peerless hope, with the advice of his sage and prudent counsel, before he entered into the North-Eastern discovery, advanced the worthy and excellent Sebastian Cabota to be Grand Pilot of England, allowing him a most bountifull Pension of £166 by the year, during his life, as appeareth in his letters Patent, which are to be seen in the third part of my work. And if God had granted him longer life, I doubt not but as he dealt most royally in establishing that office of Pilot Major, (which not long after to the great hindrance of the common-wealth, was miserably turned to other private uses) so his Princely Majesty would have showed himself no niggard in erecting, &c. &c."

Robertson's Charles V. anno 1556. "But though he might have soon learned to view with unconcern the levity of his subjects, or to have despised their neglect, he was more deeply afflicted with the ingratitude of his Son, who, forgetting already how much he owed to his father's bounty, obliged him to remain some weeks at Burgos, before he paid him the first moiety of that small Pension, which was all that he had reserved of so many kingdoms. As without this sum Charles could not dismiss his domestics with such rewards as their services merited, or his generosity had destined for them, he could not help expressing both surprise and dissatisfaction."

† Rymer, vol. xv. p. 427. * Ib. p. 466.