reached them. To those among them who were accustomed to sail from Bristol, a voyage of discovery to the westward was no new idea. When, therefore, a scientific Genoese seaman, with Venetian citizenship, named John Cabot, and his three sons, obtained letters patent for this discovery to the westward from Henry VII. in 1496, the voyage was made in a Bristol ship called the Matthew, with a crew of eighteen men, chiefly English seamen. The surgeon was a Genoese, and one of the men was a Burgundian. It is possible to gather a few particulars respecting this voyage from State papers, and from the letters of two Italian news' writers who were in London at the time. The Matthew sailed from Bristol in May, 1497, first steering northwards, after passing Ireland, and then westward for a month, during which time the vessel must have been set to the south. For, passing Newfoundland on the starboard had, the first sight of land (the "Prima Vista") was obtained on St. John's Day, the 24th of June, 1497. The "Prima Vista" is shown on a map drawn in 1544 by John Cabot's son Sebastian, to be the northern end of Cape Breton. The explorers can only have remained a very short time on the newly discovered coast, for the Matthew had returned to Bristol by the end of July or first days of August. On the 10th of August, Henry VII. granted Cabot the munificent sum of £10.[1]
The aspirations of Thylde and the other English explorers of the fifteenth century were thus at length realised. There was every encouragement to repeat the voyage, and on February 3rd, 1498, Henry VII. granted his second letters patent to John Cabot. Nothing whatsoever is known of the important second voyage of Cabot from any English source, except the facts that the expedition consisted of five vessels, and that it sailed from Bristol before the 25th of July, 1498. English seamen named Lancelot Thirkill and Thomas Bradley each received a loan of £30 from the king towards fitting out two of the ships. There was also a gratuity of £40 5s. to John Carter "going to the newe ile." Nothing more is recorded. We know nothing more of John Cabot, nor of the expedition, except that Captain Thirkill returned home — for he is again mentioned in a document dated June 6th, 1501. But when the Spanish pilot, Juan de la Cosa, produced his famous map in 1500,
- ↑ Mr. Harrisse disbelieves in the legend on the Selastian Cabot map of 1544 (which is the authority for the "Prima Vista") both as regards the date and the place. He places the landfall of Cabot on the coast of Labrador in 51° 15′ N.
