Page:Lamb - History of the city of New York - Volume 1.djvu/33

Rh to that time regarded himself as the legal proprietor of all the real estate in Christendom, issued a bull, the material parts of which are still extant, granting the new territory to Spain.

It is interesting to note how all the great plans and projects of the period tended and verged to one point. There was a Venetian merchant living in Bristol, England, who had paid particular attention to science, and who had long housed in his heart a scheme of going to Cathay by the north. It was John Cabot. He was incited to active effort by the prospect of obtaining spices and other valuable articles of trade independent of haughty Venice. His son Sebastian, then a promising youth about nineteen years of age, was, like his sire, stimulated by the fame of Columbus, and anxious to attempt some notable thing. He was a scholar, had been thoroughly drilled in mathematics, astronomy, and the art of navigation, and accompanied the elder Cabot to the Court of Henry VII., in order to obtain the royal consent to their proposed researches. Henry is well known to have been one of the most penurious monarchs who ever sat upon a throne. He listened graciously, and, upon condition that the whole enterprise should be conducted at their own private expense, issued a patent guaranteeing protection and privileges. But he cunningly reserved to himself one fifth of the profits.

1497 The Cabots first steered directly for Iceland, where they stopped for a few days. For some years a steady and profitable commerce had been carried on between Bristol and that country. Iceland, although the heroic age of the Northmen had long since passed, was pretty well peopled, and its inhabitants had many wants which their northern land was unable to supply. The English sold them cloth, corn, wheat, wines, etc., and took fish, chiefly cod, in exchange. Some of the Norwegian authors say that in April, 1419, a heavy snow-storm destroyed more than