Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/93

 researches while there having ultimately proved of great value to the commerce of Spain.

On Cabot's return to Spain, in 1531, he resumed his former position of pilot-major, and about eighteen years afterwards, or fifty-three years after the date of his first commission from Henry VII., he, then an old man, returned to Bristol, the place of his birth in 1549. Whatever may have been the motives of the king of Spain for consenting to the departure of his pilot-major, he soon became alarmed at the event. To England the services of a man of Cabot's skill and knowledge was then invaluable. The youth who had then just ascended the English throne had already given such evidence of capacity as to excite the attention of Europe, and anticipations were universally expressed of the memorable part he was destined to perform. Edward VI. saw the advantages to be derived from the services of Sebastian Cabot. Naval affairs had from his boyhood seized his attention as a sort of passion. Even when a child "he knew all the harbours and ports both of his own dominions and of France and Scotland, and how much water they had, and what was the way of coming into them: and, hence," Charles V., seeing the mistake he had made in parting with Cabot, endeavoured by various means, though without avail, to induce him to return to Spain.

But for some time after his arrival in England Cabot lived in comparative retirement, devoting himself to the consideration of questions of importance to navigators, and endeavouring to improve the