CHAPTER VI

IN the year 1521 we find that Sebastian Cabot had made terms with King Henry VIII. for taking command of an expedition. As a matter of fact, we cannot tell for certain whether the expedition ever sailed; it is certain, however, that if it actually sailed, Sebastian Cabot took no part whatever in it. But the records of the proceedings connected with the negotiations tend to throw some very important side-lights on the history of Sebastian Cabot.

Sir Robert Wynkfeld and Sir Wolston Brown, two members of the council of Henry VIII., called upon the wardens of the various livery companies of London to furnish five vessels "for a viage to be made into the newe found Iland," which was to be placed under the command of "one man callyd as understoud Sebastyan." It is certain that this means. that arrangements of some kind-whether of a complete nature or subject to some condition, must be left to conjecture-had been made with Sebastyan Cabot, whose surname was suppressed. At that time he was in the employ of Spain. The wardens of the drapers and of the mercers took exception to the proposed expedition on the ground, as they alleged, that the king and his council were not duely and substancially enformed in such manner as perfite knowledge myght be had by credible reporte

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of maisters and mariners naturally born within this Realm of England,1 having experience and excersided in and about the forsaid Iland." The report also says: "And we thynk it were too sore a venture to joperd v shipps with men and goods unto the said Iland uppon the singuler trust of one man, callyd, as we understand, Sebastyan, which Sebastyan, as we here say, was never in that land hym self, all if he maks report of many things as he hath hard his father and other men speke in tymes past.'

The substance of Sebastian's negotiations with England, at a time when he was receiving considerable pay as pilot-major in Spain, seems to point to the fact that he was making capital out of his alleged knowledge, that some further important discovery was within the realm of fact. At this period he was certainly looked upon by some Spaniards as a born Englishman, and, judging by his subsequent intrigues with Venice, we must receive any representation made by him regarding his birthplace with suspicion. It is certain he was a man who would not hesitate to make any number of misrepresentations when it suited his purpose to do so. We are much puzzled when we find that he did not take part in a projected enterprise, which was, in accordance with negotiations carried on with Cardinal Wolsey and the king's council, in course of preparation. Did he use the fact that the English were negotiating with him for his services for any ulterior purpose? It is not at all improbable that it was only part of a plan to enhance the value of his

1 This is evidently a hit at Sebastian Cabot's supposed nationality. 2 Of course, they may have had no good cause for their belief that he was not a natural-born Englishman.

services in the eyes of the Spanish Court. We are still further puzzled when we find, as a fact, that in 1522 he was intriguing with the Council of Ten of Venice to sell to the republic a piece of secret information. He represented that he was acquainted with a north-west passage to the Indies. In his negotiations with Venice it will be seen that he refers to his English negotiations, and, in M. Harrisse's words, we find that he represented that, "Cardinal Wolsey had made great efforts to induce him to take the command of an important expedition to discover new countries, 30,000 ducats having actually been obtained for equipping the fleet: 'Hor ritrovandomi ja tre anni, salvo il vero, in Ingilterra, quel Reverendissimo Cardinal mi volea far grandi partiti che io navigasse cum una sua armada per discoprir paesi novi la quale ora quasi in ordine, et haveano preparati per spender in casa ducati 30 m.'” 1

It strikes one as a most extraordinary coincidence that his idea of a passage to the Indies by the northwest was first disclosed at a time when the southwest route was actually suggested or delineated on a globe, and at a time, too, when Magellan's proposals for circumnavigation were in actual existence." The

1 C. Bullo, La vera patria di, p. 64, and Jean et Sebastian Cabot, Nicolo, de' Conti e di Giovanni Caboto, doc. xxviii. p. 348; Studj e Documenti Chioggia, 1880.

2 Magellan returned to Portugal from Morocco in 1514, and at once devoted himself to scientific researches in connection with cosmography and navigation. In consequence of the existence of the Treaty of Tordesillas, and of the papal bulls, Portugal had no interest in discovering either a south-west or a north-west passage to the Indies; on the contrary, inasmuch as the Spaniards were prohibited by the terms of the agreement between Spain and Portugal, which had been ratified by the papal authority, from sailing to the Indies by the way of Good Hope, it was to the interest of Portugal to throw obstacles in the way

fact that the circumnavigation of the globe, in accordance with the theory of Magellan, had become an accomplished fact at the time Sebastian sent his communication to Venice, should not be entirely lost sight of. The brave Portuguese lost his life in the course of his marvellous voyage. He was killed in a fight with the natives of the island of Matan, in April 1521, after a most desperate encounter, in which he proved himself almost insensible to danger. When he was disabled and laid low, the natives "threw themselves upon him with iron-pointed bamboo spears and scimitars, and every weapon they had, and ran him through-our mirror, our light, our comforter, our true guide-until they killed him." 1 On the 6th of September 1522, the Victoria, one of the five vessels which took part in Magellan's expedition, arrived in the Guadalquivir, and the story of the circumnavigation of the globe by a south-west passage was then made known. Mr. Fiske describes this voyage "as the greatest feat of navigation that has ever been performed, and nothing can be imagined that would surpass it except a journey to some other planet. It has not the unique historical position of the first voyage of Columbus, which brought together two streams of human life that had been disjoined since the Glacial period. But as an achievement in ocean navigation, that voyage of Columbus sinks into insignificance by the side of it. . . . When we consider the frailness of the ships, the immeasurable extent of the unknown, the of any proposal for the discovery of another route. As a consequence, Magellan, a Portuguese, very reluctantly offered his services to Spain, and they were accepted.

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1 Guillemard's Magellan, p. 252, 2 Vol. ii. p. 210,

mutinies that were prevented or quelled, and the hardships that were endured, we can have no hesitation in speaking of Magellan as the prince of navigators." This little digression has been made for the purpose of pointing out that it was just at the period when the survivors of Magellan's expedition arrived in Spain that Sebastian Cabot opened his negotiations as to the "North-West Passage" with Venice.

It is now proposed to give the correspondence relating to Sebastian Cabot's intrigue with Venice during the time he was in the employment of Spain.

DESPATCH of the Council of Ten to Gaspar Contarini, Venetian Ambassador to Spain, 27th September 1522.

"Oratori nostro apud Cæsaream et Cattolicam Maiestatem.

"Zonze l'altro giorno de qui uno Don hierolamo di Marin de Bucignolo Rhaguseo, quale venuto alla presentia delli Capi del Consiglio nostro di Dieci Disse esser sta mandato per uno Sebastian Cabotto, che dice esser di questa città nostra, et al presente habita in Sybilia, dove par habbi provvision da quella Cesarea et Cattolica Maestà per suo pedota major in le navigation del discoprir terre nove. Et per nome di quello referi quanto per la insertia deposition sua vederete, dalla quale ancorchè ne appari non poter prestare molta fede, pure per esser de la importantia le non havremmo dovuto refiutare la oblation ne fa epso Sebastian de poter venir de qui alla presentia nostra, per dichiarirne quanto li va per mente in la materia propostane. Unde siamo sta contenti che el ditto Hierolamo li rescrivi nel modo che per le sue