Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/79

 *rant of the discoveries made by Cabot on the 24th of June, 1497, which created nearly as much noise in Europe as his own had done a few years before, and were considered of such vast importance that Henry VII., whose court was then filled with the agents of various foreign powers, fitted out the second expedition under the decree of 3rd July, 1498, which had for its object commercial intercourse with a continent the existence of which was unknown to Columbus, except, perhaps, by common report, until six months afterwards.

The discovery of a new world of vast extent is, however, too high an honour to be conferred on any one man. While the great Genoese navigator fully deserves the credit of having explored the mysteries of the Atlantic Ocean, and of having shown the existence of rich continental lands to the west, Sebastian Cabot is entitled to the honour of having been the first to discover that portion of those lands now constituting the United States of America; and to Great Britain more than to any other country is due the fame of the thorough exploration and first colonisation of a world destined to surpass in wealth and power the greatest of modern nations.

Cabot, like Columbus and all of the navigators of the fifteenth century, was of opinion that Cathay (China or India) could be reached by sailing to the west, and more especially to the north-west, an opinion which has prevailed even to our own times. Consequently the vessels under his first patent sailed from Bristol to discover a north-west passage to that country; and it was only when Cabot found his