was to be charged with a fifth part of the clear profit on every voyage, payable to the crown.[1]
The expedition contemplated at the date of this commission appears not then to have been made; but, in May 1498, Cabot with his second son Sebastian, embarked at Bristol, on board a ship furnished by the king, which was accompanied by four barks fitted out by merchants of that city.
The opinion of Columbus, that a shorter passage to the East Indies was to be opened by holding a western course, and that the islands he had discovered were contiguous to the great continent of India, was then generally received. Cabot therefore, who was in quest, not so much of establishments, as of the rich commerce of the east, deemed it probable that, by steering to the northwest, he might reach India by a shorter course than that which Columbus had taken. After sailing for some weeks due west, he discovered a large island which was called by him Prima Vista, and by his sailors Newfoundland; and, in a few days, he descried a smaller isle, to which he gave the name of St. John. Continuing his course westward, he soon reached the continent of North America, and sailed along it from the fifty-sixth to the thirty- eighth degree of north latitude, from the coast of Labrador to that of Virginia. He was not a little chagrined at being unable further to prosecute his commer-
- ↑ Robertson....Chalmer.
