Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/536

 530 CABOT ered in Germany ; but the legend is not by Sebastian Cabot himself, and the original char- ter of 1496, the letter of Pasqualigo in 1497, and the license of 1498, combine to prove the date 1494 to be an error. The better knowl- , edge of the career of John Cabot is particularly due to the researches of an accomplished Eng- lish scholar, Rawdon Brown. M. d'Avezac, in the Bulletin of the French geographical society for October, 1869, cites from the tirst edition of this Cyclopaedia the preceding argument in regard to the date of the original discovery, and says that the true date in the map of Sebastian Cabot, on an original copy preserv- ed in the geographical cabinet of the impe- rial library at Paris, is 1494, and that the date of 1497 in Hakluyt is a typographical error. The legend to this map is in Latin and Spanish. The portion relating to the Tierra de los Bacal- laos, according to D'Avezac, reads: "That land was discovered by John Cabot, Venetian, and Sebastian Cabot his son, in the year of the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ M.CCCO.- XCIIII. the 24th of June [at 5 o'clock] in the morning ; to which has been given the name of First Land Seen; and to a great island which is very near the aforesaid land has been given the name of St. John, from having been discovered on that day." With respect to the legend, M. d'Avezac adds : " If any one could for an instant doubt that the whole was the actual work of Sebastian Cabot, it is only ne- cessary, in order to remove any hesitation, to read the lines of the Retulo del auctor, begin- ning thus : ' Sebastian Caboto capitan y piloto mayor de la Sacra Cesarea Catolica Majestad del Imperador Don Carlos quinto deste nombre y Key Nuestro Sennor, hizo esta figura extensa en piano, anno del nascimiento de nuestro Sal- vador Jesu Christo de M.D.XLIIII annos,' &c." Hence M. d'Avezac argues that the charter of March 5, 1496, was granted in consequence of this previous discovery. He also asserts, upon what he considers good proof, that John Cabot was a Genoese by birth. II. Sebastian, son of the preceding, a cosmographer, and the discov- erer of the coast line of the United States as far south as the Chesapeake. The time and the place of his birth are uncertain. Eden says, " Sebastian Cabotte tould me that he was borne in Bristowe, and that at four yeare old he was carried with his father to Venice ; " but Contarini, the Venetian ambassador at the court of Charles V., relates in his diary that Sebastian Cabot informed him he was born in Venice, but bred in England ; and this is con- firmed by the denization of John Cabot at Venice in 1476, after a residence there of 15 years. The time of Sebastian's birth seems to have been not earlier than 1475, nor later than 1477. There is no sufficient reason to doubt that he accompanied his father in the voyage in which North America was discover- ed. In May, 1498, he, without his father, led forth two ships and a large company of English volunteers from Bristol, in search of a short northwestern passage to China and Japan. He sailed so far to the north that in the early part of July the light of day was almost con- tinuous. Finding the sea full of icebergs, he turned more to the south, and arrived at land which most persons believe to have been New- foundland. Pursuing his search, he reached the mainland of North America, landed in several places, and saw natives clad in the skins of beasts and making use of copper. He proceeded as far south as the latitude of the straits of Gib- raltar, and as far west as the longitude of Cuba. His object had been to find a passage to Asia, and though he discovered an immense territory under a temperate sky, his voyage was consid- ered a failure. Vasco da Gama had reached India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and filled the world with his fame. The discov- eries of the Cabots were so little valued, that the family suffered the patent granting them the exclusive privilege of trade to be lost. On the death of Henry VII., Sebastian Cabot was invited from England by Ferdinand of Spain, father-in-law of Henry VIII., and was appointed one of the council for the New In- dies. In 1518 he was named pilot major of Spain ; in April, 1524, he attended the con- gress assembled at Badajoz to decide on the conflicting claims of Spain and Portugal to the Moluccas. All the while, and during his whole life, the great object of his ambition was the discovery of a direct passage to Asia. Having in early life failed to find one by the north- west, in 1526 he commanded an expedition sent out in search of a southwestern passage. In this pursuit, in 1527 he entered the river Plata. Remaining in those regions for several years, he discovered Paraguay. He did not pass round the continent at the south, but, re- turning to Spain, reached Seville near the end of July, 1530. In the first year of the reign of Edward VI., on Oct. 9, 1547, the privy council issued a warrant " for the transporting of one Shabot, a pilot, to come out of Hispain to serve and inhabit in England ;" and he came at the summons in 1548, with his mind still bent on finding a short passage to the Indies. On Jan. 6, 1549, the king gave him a pension of 250 marks, or 166 13*. 4d., "in considera- tion of good and acceptable service done and to be done" by him. On Jan. 19, 1550, the em- peror Charles V. applied for his return, but without result. His influence was observable in inspiring confidence and enterprise among the merchants of England; and in March, 1551, " Sebastian Cabote, the great seaman," received from the king a special reward of 200. The patent granted to the family by Henry VII. in 1496 having been lost, he ob- tained of Edward VI. a copy of it from the rolls., and prepared to prosecute a new voyage of discovery, still in search of a passage to the Indies. In 1553 a company of merchants, of which he was the president, sought to find it by way of the northeast, expecting to turn the North cape of Norway, and sail southerly to