PREFACE. AKLUYT, a Prebendary of Briftol, in 1584, in writing the "Early History of Maritime Enterprife," conferred a great boon on all fucceeding historians; but it must be allowed that, occafionally, he took great liberties with the text of his authorities. His errors have been followed to a greater or leffer extent, by our principal naval writers, who were most of them content to accept his authority without the trouble of further fearch. Thus the three or more voyages of Cabot are jumbled together in Ramufio's statement altered by Hakluyt, and again by his copyifts, leaving the whole a contradictory and bewildering puzzle to all who read the differing ftate ments. The writer has felt that the recent discovery in the "Bibliothèque Imperial" of a map of Cabot, dated 1544, gives a key to the enigma, and the following pages attempt to define the separate voyages, the object and results of each, from a careful analysis of all the evidence at command. Still, had Biddle's memoir of Sebaftian Cabot (A.D. 1831) been written in a conciser and clearer ftyle, with lefs of petulance and hypercriticism, the probabilities are that this attempt would never have been made. His work is full of hiftoric research, and has done good service; the writer has drawn largely from his materials, and defires to acknowledge the obligation. Differing widely from him on fome points, it is but right to add that the author's conclufions have been mainly arrived at through evidence which was not known to be in existence thirty years fince. This additional evidence created a defire to clear the character of a fellow-citizen, and to place him in his proper position before the world. For that Cabot was really a great man, few or none who read thefe pages will difpute. Nor does his greatness arise from the mere accident of discovery. What he found he fought for, or, at all events, its equivalent; whilft his whole life manifefts a perfiftent, energetic determination to attain a given object; combined with a capacious power of intellect, which enabled him to grafp, determine, explain, and apply problems in fcience that his contemporaries understood not. In him was the proverb verified: "Seeft thou a man diligent in bufinefs? he fhall ftand before kings; he fhall not stand before mean men." The haughty grandees of Spain owned him as their peer, whilft the nobleft blood of England held office under him. The man who could not only come out unscathed from the hotbed of tyranny, licentious cruelty, and debasing superstition which Spain and the Spanish poffeffions in America openly displayed in that age, but could pen those prudent, wife, and pious inftructions which he gave to the men whom he felected and employed, must ever be entitled to the epithet of a great man. What he did for his country, its commerce and its fhipping, the following pages will in fome measure indicate. Though his duft lies in an unknown and unhonoured grave, and his ftatue graces neither palace nor city, if this work should clear for him a niche in the memory of his countrymen, it will be by them speedily filled, for "A good man's deeds are his best monument; And Sebaftian Cabot will henceforth have a home in every English heart, as well as in that of the great nation who dwell in the land which he first discovered, and which ought at this day, instead of America, to be called Cabotia. Venetian policy; growth in riches; causes of her decay; Reputed discovery of Brazil in A.D. 1460, by a citizen of Nuremberg. Columbus. John Cabot's advent in Eng- land; fettlement at Briftol; probable fite of his home; poffibility of his having been an Englishman; acquires his citizenship in Venice in A.D. 1476; Sebaftian born in Hypothetical voyage of the Cabots, in 1474, A.D., pre- vious to the Charter of Henry; fupported by Sebastian |