"Of Island to write is little nede,

Save of Stockfish: yet, forsooth indeed,
Out of Bristowe, and costes many one,

Men have practised by needle, and by stone
Thitherwards," &c.

Seven years before, a treaty had been made with the king of Denmark, securing that privilege. (Selden's Mare Clausum, lib. 2. c. 32.) The theory in reference to which Cabot had projected the voyage would lead him as far North as possible, and it would be a natural precaution to break the dreary continuity at sea, which had exercised so depressing an influence on the sailors of Columbus, by touching at a point so far on his way and yet so familiarly known. Hudson, it may be remarked, took the same route.

We turn now to the translation of Fumee; "Il mena avec soy trois cens hommes et print la route d' Island au dessus du Cap de Labeur, jusques a ce qui il se trouva a 58 degrez et par dela. Il racomptoit," &c. Acquainted as we are with the original, it seems difficult to mistake even the French version. Hakluyt, however, had no such previous knowledge, and he confesses (Dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh, vol. iii. p. 301) that he was not a perfect master even of the French language. Obliged thus to grope after a meaning, his version is as follows, (vol. iii. p. 9)" He carried with him 300 men, and took the way towards Island from beyond the Cape of Labrador, (!) until he found himself in 580 and better. He made relation," &c. The timid servility with which Hakluyt strove to follow Fumee is apparent even in the structure of the sentences, for it is improbable that two independent versions of Gomara would concur in such a distribution of the original matter.

It is difficult to understand how Hakluyt could consent to put forth such palpable nonsense. He is evidently quite

aware that the word "Island" in the French could mean nothing but Iceland; and, indeed, it is the designation which he himself uniformly employs, particularly at p. 550, &c. of his first volume, where is given at great length" The true state of Island," being a translation from a Latin work, en

C

titled, "Brevis Commentarius de Islandia." Yet with this knowledge, and with all the means of a correct version, he represents Cabot as first reaching America and then proceeding onward to Iceland,

The version of Hakluyt is adopted by every subsequent English writer except LEDIARD, who, in his Naval History, seems to have paused over language seemingly so enigmatical. Not perceiving that a proper name was intended, he asked himself, in vexation, what "Island" could possibly be meant. Besides, the expression was ungrammatical, for it is not said "an Island," or "the Island," but simply, "towards Island." He therefore ventures on an amendment (p. 88)—" He took the way towards the Islands, (!) from beyond the Cape of Labrador, till he was beyond 58°." Having made grammar of *the passage, he leaves the reader to make sense of it.

Wearisome as the examination may be, we have not yet reached the principal error of Hakluyt in reference to this short passage. It will be noted that the Spanish writer, after saying that Cabot reached the lat. of 58°, adds, “aunque el dize mucho mas contando como avia por el mes de Julio tante frio," &c. (" although he says much further, relating, how he had in the middle of July, such cold," &c.) Here, too, Hakluyt might have taken advantage of previous translations. In the Italian version of 1576, it is, "finchesi trovo in 58 gradi benche egli dice di piu et narrava come, " &c.; and in that of 1556," et fino a mettersi in 58 gradi anchor che lui dice molto piu il quale diceva." Hakluyt, however, relying on Fumee" jusques a ce qu'il ce trouva a 58 degrez et par dela," renders the passage "until he found himself in 58° and better." Thus the Spanish writer, who had peremptorily fixed the limit of 58°, is made, without qualification, to carry Cabot to an indefinite extent beyond it.*

The true version of the passage, not only renders it harmless, but an auxiliary in establishing the truth. That Gomara

Campbell, in his Lives of the Admirals, changes Hakluyt's phrase into "somewhat more than fifty-eight degrees," for which he quotes Gomara.

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should speak slightingly of Cabot was to be expected. His work was published in 1552, not long after our Navigator had quitted the service of Spain, and is dedicated to the Emperor Charles V., whose overtures for the return of Cabot, had been, as will be seen hereafter, rejected. Of the discoveries of Cabot, none, he says, were made for Spain ("ninguno fue por nuestros Reyes"), and we shall have repeated occasion to expose his disparaging comments on every incident of Cabot's life while in the service of that country. He is of little authority, it may be remarked, even with his own countrymen, and is most notorious for having, from a paltry jealousy of foreigners, revived and given currency to the idle tale that Columbus was guided in his great enterprise by the charts of a pilot who died in his house. We know, from Peter Martyr (Dec. 3. cap. 6), that, as early as 1515, the Spaniards were jealous of the reputation of Cabot, then in their service; and Gomara, writing immediately after the deep offence which had been given by the abandonment of the service of Spain, and the slight of the emperor's application, was disposed to yield an eager welcome to every falsehood. With regard to an account, then, from such a quarter, we would attach importance to it only from the presumed acquiescence of Cabot in the representation of a contemporary. Now, so far is this from the fact, the very passage, as at length redeemed from a perversion no less absurd than flagitious, furnishes, in itself, a triumphant proof, that the writer's assertion is in direct conflict with that of the Navigator. The importance of this argument is increased by the consideration that Gomara's work was published two years before Ramusio's third volume in the preface to which appears the extract from Cabot's letter. This shows that other means of information, and probably Cabot's map amongst the rest, were before Gomara. All that we care to know, under such circumstances, is the real statement of Cabot; and in answer to that inquiry we have the clear and precise language of his letter to Ramusio.

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CHAP. III.

CABOT PENETRATED INTO HUDSON'S BAY.

ON quitting the authorities which have so long been supposed to involve irreconcilable contradictions, the only remaining difficulty is that of selection from the numerous testimonials which offer, as to the real extent of the voyage. A few are referred to which speak in general terms of the latitude reached, before proceeding to such as describe particularly the course pursued.

In De Bry (Grand Voyages, iv. p. 69), is the following

passage:-

"Sebastianus Gabottus, sumptibus Regis Angliæ, Henrici VII., per septentrionalem plagam ad Cataium penetrare voluit. Ille primus Cuspidem Baccalaos detexit (quam hodie Britones et Nortmanni, nautæ la coste des Molues hoc est Asselorum marinorum oram appellant) atque etiam ulterius usque ad 67 gradum versus polum articum."*

Belle-forest, in his Cosmographie Universelle, which appeared at Paris, in 1576 (tom. ii. p. 2175), makes the same

statement.

In the treatise of Chauveton, "Du Nouveau Monde," published at Geneva, in 1579, he says (p. 141), "Sebastian Gabotto, entreprit aux despens de Henry VII., Rex d'Angleterre, de cercher quelque passage pour aller en Catay par la Tramontaine. Cestuy la descouvrit la pointe de Baccalaos, (que les mariniers de Bretaigne, et de Normandie appellent

*“Sebastian Cabot attempted, at the expense of Henry VII., King of England to find a way by the north to Cataia. He first discovered the point of Baccalaos, which the Breton and Norman sailors now call the Coast of Codfish; and, proceeding yet further, he reached the latitude of sixty-seven degrees towards the Arctic Pole."

La Coste des Molues) et plus haut jusqu'a soixante sept degrez du Pole."

There is a volume entitled, " A Prayse and Reporte of Martyne Frobisher's voyage to Meta Incognita, by Thomas Churchyard," published at London, in 1578 (in Library of British Museum, title Churchyard), wherein it is said, "I find that Gabotta was the first, in king Henry VII.'s days, that discovered this frozen land or seas from sixty-seven towards the North, and from thence towards the South, along the coast of America to 36 degrees and a half," &c.

Herrera, (dec. i. lib. 6. cap. 16) in rejecting the fraction, adopts the higher number, and states Cabot to have reached 68°.

We proceed now to establish the proposition which stands at the head of this chapter, but must first disclaim for it a character of novelty, since in Anderson's History of Commerce, (vol. i. p. 549), is found the following passage :—

"How weak then are the pretensions of France to the prior discovery of North America, by alleging that one John Verazzan, a Florentine, employed by their King, Francis I., was the first discoverer of those coasts, when that king did not come to the crown till about nineteen years after our Cabot's discovery of the whole coast of North America, from sixty-eight degrees north, down to the south end of Florida? So that, from beyond Hudson's Bay (into which Bay, also, Cabot then sailed, and gave English names to several places therein) southward to Florida, the whole compass of North America, on the Eastern coast thereof, does, by all the right that prior discovery can give, belong to the Crown of Great Britain: excepting, however, what our monarchs have, by subsequent treaties with other European powers, given up or ceded."

The same assertion appears in the work as subsequently enlarged into Macpherson's Annals of Commerce (vol. ii. p. 12).

The statement is sufficiently pointed; and it is not impossible, that Anderson, who wrote seventy years ago, and whose employments probably placed within his reach many curious documents connected with the early efforts to discover a North-West passage to India, may have seen one of Cabot's maps. As he is silent with regard to the source of his information, it is necessary to seek elsewhere for evidence on the subject.