Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

most probable that the absence of all information as to the return of John Cabot's expeditions is due to the fact that they all perished? If Ojeda really met with them it is pretty clear that he would have had very little doubt as to the course to be adopted; it may be considered certain that he would have felt justified in exterminating men who, according to his view of the papal bull, were incurring the wrath of the Church, and had placed themselves in the position of excommunicated persons. Of course there may not be the slightest ground for such a suggestion, but it is not to be regarded as an impossible solution of the mystery. Then, we must also remember, quite apart from the possibility of Ojeda having met with the English adventurers, that the natives had a nasty habit of making short work of the intruders on their land. Here, again, we are merely plunging ourselves into a mass of conjectures from which it is not possible to extract any real informa

in which the supposed entry of repayment is given is incorrect. The following entry, which is taken from the B.M. Add. MS. 21,480, folio 766, refers to two future payments for the livery [of seisin], that is, the actual delivery of certain lands. These amounts have no connection whatever with the payments (ante, pp. 154, 155) to Thirkill by Henry VII.; in fact, it is not at all certain that the sums paid by the king were loans in the true meaning of the word. "Prest-money means a payment for impressment, and it is highly probable, although it is not a certainty, that the king impressed or requisitioned Thirkill's ships. On the 6th June 1501, "Lancelot Thirkell Thomas Par Walt. Strickland and Thomas Mydelton ar bounde in 1/ obliğ [obligation] to pay at Whitsontyde next coming xxli and that day twelve moneth xl marcs for lyverye of Flemyngs lands." In the absence of any distinct contemporary statement that Thirkill actually sailed from Bristol in 1498, the question must be relegated to the realm of probabilities. And even if we consider that the probabilities are in favour of Thirkill's having joined in the expedition, we are at once met with another probability, namely, that he may have joined the ship in which the Friar returned! Directly you commence to wander from actual facts, you are never sure as to your ultimate destination.

tion. We can only say that the men who endured the toils of the ocean, and who risked everything with a view to colonise the newly-discovered lands, must be placed among those who have helped towards the advancement and glory of England, and -sad to relate their fate is quite unknown. But while we are bound to express our regret that we have nothing, or very little, to guide us as to the fate of the pioneer of English colonisation, it is satisfactory to be assured that, after the lapse of centuries, in the year 1897, the quater-centenary of John Cabot's great achievement, the men of England on the one side of the Atlantic will join with their kith and kin on the other to celebrate duly this important historical episode. And, as a matter of yet greater satisfaction, we must recognise the fact that by almost unanimous consent the name of John Cabot will for evermore be allowed a niche in a prominent position in the Temple of Fame.

APPENDIX A

PLATO'S STORY OF THE LOST ISLAND
OF ATLANTIS

He

Critias: "Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale, which is, however, certainly true, as Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages, declared. was a relative and great friend of my great-grandfather, Dropidas, as he himself says in several of his poems; and Dropidas told Critias, my grandfather, who remembered, and told us, that there were of old great and marvellous actions of the Athenians, which have passed into oblivion through time and the destruction of the human raceand one in particular, which was the greatest of them all, the recital of which will be a suitable testimony of our gratitude to you."

Socrates: "Very good; and what is this ancient famous action of which Critias spoke, not as a mere legend, but as a veritable action of the Athenian State, which Solon recounted?"

Critias: "I will tell an Old-World story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias was, as he said, at that time nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten years of age. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the registration of youth; at which, according to custom,

our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sung the poems of Solon, which were new at the time. One of our tribe, either because this was his real opinion, or because he thought that he would please Critias, said that, in his judgment, Solon was not only the wisest of men but the noblest of poets. The old man, I well remember, brightened up at this, and said, smiling: Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in this country when he came home, to attend to other matters,-in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer, or Hesiod, or any poet.'

"And what was that poem about, Critias?" said the person who addressed him.

"About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been most famous, but which, through the lapse of time and the destructions of the actors, has not come down to us."

"Tell us," said the other, "the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition." He replied: "At the head of the Egyptian Delta, where the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which Amasis the king was sprung. And the citizens have a deity who is their foundress she is called in the Egyptian tongue

« AnteriorContinuar »