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CHAPTER II.
OUR MERCHANT ADVENTURERS.
THE discovery of America by Columbus in 1492 and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama in 1497 were the two events that turned the energy of the maritime races of Europe in the direction of India. Both were enterprises undertaken for the quest of the Indies. While the Portuguese were actively establishing their position and extending their trade by the south-east route, the northern nations and especially England clung to the hope that the North-west Passage might still prove the highway to the markets of the East. Henry the Seventh gave John Cabot his royal authority to discover that passage in t496, before da Gama had sailed from Lisbon. Sebastian Cabot renewed his father's attempt at half a century's interval; Sir Hugh Willoughby went to his death on the same errand; Martin Frobisher, John Davis
