Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 16.djvu/323

 almost in the same latitude with his countrey, and much neerer to England then to Portugall, or to Castile, he acquainted king Henrie the seuenth then king of England with the same, wherewith the saide king was greatly pleased, and furnished him out with two ships and three hundred men: which departed and set saile in the spring of the yeere, and they sailed westward til they came in sight of land in 45. degrees of latitude towards the north, and then went straight northwards till they came into 60. degrees of latitude, where the day is 17. howers long, and the night is very cleere and bright. There they found the aire cold, and great Islands of ice, but no ground in an hundred fathoms sounding: and so from thence finding the land to turne eastwards they trended along by it discouering all the Bay and riuer named Deseado, to see if it passed on the other side:

Then they sailed backe againe till they came to 38. degrees toward the Equinoctiall line, and from thence returned into England. There be others which say, that he went as far as the Cape of Florida, which standeth in 25. degrees.

In the yeere 1497. The king of Spaine Don Fernando sent out Christopher Columbus with sixe ships, and he himselfe prouided two ships at his owne cost, and sending his brother before, he made saile from the Bay of Cadiz, carrying with him his sonne Don Diego Colon. It was then reported that he went to take the Island of Madera, because he mistrusted the French men, and therefore sent thither three ships: others say it was to the Canaries.

But howsoeuer it was, this is true, that he and three more went vnto the Islands of Cape Verde, and ran along by the line, finding great calmes and raine, and the first land which they came vnto of the Antiles was an Island standing in 9. degrees of latitude towards the north ioining fast vnto the maine land, which they called La Trinidada; and so he entred into the Gulfe of Paria, and came out of the mouth which they name Bocca de Dragone, or the Dragons mouth: and they tooke their course hard by the coast, where they found three small Islands, which they named Los Testigos, that is to say, The Witnesses, beyond which standeth the Island of Cubagua, where is great fishing of muscle pearles: where also, as they say, there