SEBASTIAN CABOT 195 have been a matter of common knowledge. The reader may put what construction he chooses upon Sebastian's assertion that his father died about 1493. Raimondo di Soncino, the Duke of Milan's ambassador in London, states that John Cabot, having heard how Spain and Portugal were acquiring new lands, thought of conferring a similar favor upon the King of England.1 Indeed, it is from the pen of this diplomat that we derive all our knowledge of the genesis of Cabot's project. He tells us further that the navigator had a map of the world and a globe, and that earlier in life he had been in Mecca, where he learned that spices came from the remoter East. He believed that all the spices in the world grew in Cipango (Japan), which he expected to reach. If his efforts were successful, "he hoped to make London a greater market for spices than Alexandria."2 The world knows now what this Italian sailor did for England. An entry in the privy-purse accounts shows that on August 10th the frugal Henry VII gave "To hym that found the New Isle, £10." Later in the same year, however, he was given in addition a pension of £20 a year, to be paid out of the customs' receipts of Bristol. £10.”3 1Ramusio, Vol. I, fo. 374. 2Bourne, Spain in America, 57. Weare, Cabot's Discovery, 124. Little Known of John Cabot. Whether Sebastian Cabot was on either the voyage of 1497 or that of 1498 is a controverted point. Some authorities go so far as to state that he was never on the coast of North America, and that his only connection with the New World was his command, in 1526, of an unsuccessful expedition to the region of the river La Plata, in South America. Of Sebastian Cabot we know much. His father still remains, after vast research, little more than the shadow of a name. He was not, like his great compatriot, Columbus, a fluent writer, but left his fame as a rich legacy to his son Sebastian. His attitude toward his father has been told, and to the writer it seems to rest on much more than the gossip of Ramusio. England, to whom John Cabot gave a continent, has preserved few memorials concerning him. Columbus was much more fortunate. Spanish records of his achievements are abundant. Moreover, unlike Sebastian Cabot, Ferdinand Columbus bestowed the most pious care in illustrating the exploits of his father. For a time, it is true, the English failed to follow up the discoveries of Cabot, but when they were prepared to do so, men of affairs and writers, such as Hakluyt, promptly claimed North America by reason of priority of dis ENGLAND'S TITLE 197 covery. Hakluyt, Vol. VIII, p. 35, says that the Cabots "were the first finders out of all that great tract of land stretching from the cape of Florida unto those islands which we now call Newfoundland; all which they brought and annexed unto the crowne of England." Afterward that claim was never forgotten. In his two voyages John Cabot may have traced the outline of much of North America. From the second, that of 1498, he is believed never to have returned—at any rate, no man knows his resting place. CHAPTER XI. CONSEQUENCES OF THE DISCOVERY. As we have seen in a preceding chapter, the little caravel of Columbus encountered a second tempest as it approached the coast of Portugal. This it was that compelled the daring mariners to seek a haven in the mouth of the river Tagus. The tidings told by them were soon known in every part of the kingdom. Indeed, before the Admiral resumed his voyage the news had travelled far. His reception in Spain and the subsequent incidents of his career are among the most familiar topics in history. It is not the object of this section to tell over this eventful story, but briefly to enumerate some of the larger consequences of the discovery. Returns to Palos. Chapter VIII brought the progress of Columbus back to the bar of Saltes. During the afternoon of March 15, 1493, the Admiral cast anchor in the harbor of Palos. One can hardly imagine 198 SPREADING THE NEWS 199 the rejoicings in that little port. The entire population turned out to welcome Columbus with a procession, and, in the words of his son Ferdinand, to give "thanks to our Lord for so great favor and victory." Some among the list of immortals who had volunteered to accompany the Admiral into strange seas were not with those who witnessed his triumph, but concerning the fate of those left in the Indies there were no misgivings. When near the Azores, and shipwreck seemed imminent, the Admiral wrote to Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez, both high officers of the government, an account of the expedition. One letter is merely a duplicate of the other. The contents of these communications soon became known in Spain, as the news of the discovery was already known in Portugal. Peter Martyr had a share in spreading the intelligence through Italy. Among foreign potentates Pope Alexander VI, himself a Spaniard, was the first to be informed of the discovery. While in making this announcement the Sovereigns mention the existence in the new islands of gold and spices, they declare that discovery and the extension of Christianity were the motives that influenced them to equip the 1Ferdinand Columbus, Historie, 124, |