CHAPTER II.

Progress of maritime discovery—Henry VII., 1485-1509—His encouragement of maritime commerce, and treaties with foreign nations—Voyages to the Levant—Leading English ship-owners—Patent to the Cabots, 1496—Discovery of the north-west coast of America, June 21, 1497—Second patent, Feb. 3, 1498—Rival claimants to the discovery of the North American continent—Sebastian Cabot and his opinions—Objects of the second expedition—Third expedition, March 1501—How Sebastian Cabot was employed from 1498 to 1512—He enters the service of Spain, 1512—Letter of Robert Thorne to Henry VIII. on further maritime discoveries—Sebastian Cabot becomes pilot-master in Spain, 1518, and afterwards (1525) head of a great trading and colonising association—Leaves for South America, April 1526, in command of an expedition to the Brazils—A mutiny and its suppression—Explores the river La Plata while waiting instructions from Spain—Sanguinary encounter with the natives—Returns to Spain, 1531, and remains there till 1549, when he settles finally in Bristol—Edward VI., 1547-1553—Cabot forms an association for trading with the north, known as the “Merchant Adventurers”—Despatch of the first expedition under Sir H. Willoughby—Instructions for his guidance, probably drawn up by Cabot—Departure, May 20, 1553—Great storm and separation of the ships—Death of Sir H. Willoughby—Success of Chancellor—His shipwreck and death at Pitsligo—Arrival in London of the first ambassador from Russia, Feb. 1557—His reception—Commercial treaty—Early system of conducting business with Russia—The benefits conferred by the Merchant Adventurers upon England—The Steelyard merchants partially restored to their former influence—Cabot loses favour with the court, and dies at an advanced age.

The re-opening of the route to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope and the discovery of the West Indian Islands gave, at an early period, an impetus to the maritime commerce of England, and consequently rendered the reign of Henry VII. more important, so far as concerns her naval history, than that of any previous English monarch.

Like the sovereigns of more ancient times, Henry was not only a merchant on his own account, but a great encourager of maritime expeditions; in that he often himself furnished the ships and advanced the requisite capital for their equipment. Indeed, it seems probable that the vast sums found in his exchequer at his death were, in a great measure, derived from his own successful commercial adventures. Although the pursuit of trade may be sometimes deemed incompatible with regal functions and dignity, there can be no doubt that the example and practice of Henry VII. extended the field for maritime adventure among his subjects, and at the same time aroused the cupidity of the English nation by the prospect of incalculable wealth derivable from intercourse with distant foreign lands.

Beyond the encouragement he afforded to maritime discovery, Henry adopted various measures to promote, as he conceived, the interests of the merchant navy, among others removing the differential duties which had been in force against English shipping; but unfortunately, as has been too frequently the case in the conduct of the navigation laws of England, he adopted a policy of protection almost as ruinous to her commerce as that which had previously conferred special advantages upon the shipping of foreign nations. Thus we find a law of his first parliament[48] prohibiting the importation of Bordeaux wines in any other than English, Irish, and Welsh bottoms, these vessels being manned with sailors wholly of their own countrymen, a law which was, two years afterwards, even further extended and enlarged, the reasons assigned being “that great minishing and decay hath been now of late time of the navy of this realm of England, and idleness of the mariners within the same, by the which this noble realm, within short process of time, without reformation be had therein, shall not be of ability, nor of strength and power, to defend itself.” Of course such reasoning was then unanswerable; indeed, has been held to be so even in our own time. Accordingly it was enacted[49] that no wines of Gascony or Guienne should be imported into England unless in ships belonging to the king (of which, by the way, his Majesty had a goodly number) or to his subjects; nay more, any such wines imported in foreign bottoms were to be forfeited.

Many arguments might, indeed, at that time have been urged in favour of these stringent laws, more especially as the policy of the Italian republics aimed at monopolising in their own ships the transport of all they required, and at rendering their ports the entrepôt for the supply of goods not merely for their own peoples, but for all other nations. Although a difference of opinion has ever existed as to the best means of attaining these objects, Henry VII. lays down sound principles of political economy and liberal sentiments with regard to the advantages to be derived from free intercourse with all nations, in his instructions to the commissioners appointed to negotiate treaties of commercial reciprocity with foreign countries. “The earth,” he says, “being the common mother of all mankind, what can be more pleasant and more humane than to communicate a portion of all her productions to all her children by commerce?” This opinion, though at variance with the laws prohibiting the importation of French wines except in English ships, was practically carried into effect with the maritime states of Italy. His chief object in doing so may have been to obtain reciprocal advantages in their ports, and such was no doubt the case, for it is well known that Henry VII. materially reduced his import duties on the goods of Venice and of other Italian cities, and that he afterwards entered into a liberal commercial treaty with France.

On the 1st July, 1486, Henry likewise concluded a treaty with James III. of Scotland, by which a cessation of hostilities by sea and land was stipulated and mutual good will exchanged; while he also procured privileges for English fishermen in Norway and Sweden with the view of giving greater scope to the enterprise of English ship-owners.[50] These liberal measures produced the desired effect. We now[51] read of “tall ships” belonging to London, Southampton, and Bristol making their annual voyages to the Levant; their principal trading places at first being Sicily, Crete, Chios, and sometimes Cyprus, Tripoli, and Beyrout in Syria. Their outward cargoes consisted chiefly of fine kerseys of divers colours, coarse kerseys, and other kinds of cloths, in return for which they obtained silks, camlets, rhubarb, malmseys, muscatel and other wines, sweet oils, cotton, wool, Turkey carpets, galls, pepper, cinnamon and other spices. These details, with particulars of the more important of these voyages, were copied by Hakluyt himself “from certaine auncient Ligier bookes”[52] of Sir William Locke, mercer, of London, Sir Wm. Bowyer, Alderman, and Master John Gresham.

Many of these accounts are interesting and instructive, and two of them may be referred to with advantage as illustrative of the size and character of the ordinary English merchant vessels then trading with the Mediterranean. One of the smaller class, named the Holy Cross, is described as “a short ship of 160 tons burthen.” She traded with Crete and with Chios, and her last voyage seems to have been an unfortunate one. Having been a full year at sea in performance of this voyage, “she with great danger returned home, where, upon her arrival at Blackwall, her wine and oil casks were found so weak that they were not able to hoist them out of the ship, but were constrained to draw them as they lay, and put their wine and oil into new vessels, and so unload the ship.” As to the ship herself, she is described as having been “so shaken in this voyage and so weakened that she was laid up in the dock and never made voyage afterwards.”

As there is no reason for doubting the accuracy of the above statement, it is clear that these English merchantmen must have been badly-built vessels and very slow sailors. Indeed, the description of the voyage of a larger vessel confirms this opinion so far as regards speed. She is spoken of as “the good ship Matthew Gonson, of burthen 300 tons,” and the names of her owner, “old Mr. William Gonson, Pay-master of the King’s Navie,” and of her principal officers are also given. The whole number of this ship’s company is represented to have been one hundred men; she is said to have had “a great boat which was able to carry ten tons of water, which at our return homewards we towed all the way from Chio until we came through the Strait of Gibraltar into the main ocean,” as well as a long-boat and skiff; while it is remarked that, “we were out upon this voyage eleven months, and yet in all this time there died of sickness but one man.”

These are the only extant narratives furnishing any insight into the working of English merchant ships at the beginning of the sixteenth century; but the trade with the Levant must then have been of considerable importance, as an English consul was established at Chios in the year 1513,[53] while English factors were about that period sent to Cuba and the other countries in the West discovered and colonised by the Spaniards.

Among the earliest and most enterprising men engaged in the trade with the West Indies may be mentioned Mr. Robert Thorne, of Bristol, than whom the age produced no more shrewd and intelligent merchant. Having established agents in Cuba and placed others on board of the Spanish fleet, he expended large sums of money in procuring exact descriptions and charts of the newly-discovered seas, and, by his representations, the king was, in a great measure, induced to follow the example of Spain and Portugal, and to encourage voyages of discovery. Indeed before Vasco de Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope or Columbus discovered the West Indian Islands, the ship-owners of Bristol had found their way to Iceland, and had almost, if not quite, reached the coasts of Newfoundland. There is, however, no well-authenticated account of any of these voyages to the West till 1496, when Henry granted, March 5th, a patent to John Cabot, a Venetian by birth, who had settled at Bristol, and to his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sanctus, giving them authority to “sail to all parts, countries, and seas of the East, of the West, and of the North, under our banner and ensign, with four ships of what burden or quantity so ever they be, and as many mariners or men as they will have with them in the said ships, upon their own proper costs and charges.”[54] Cabot and his followers are therein authorised to set up the royal banner “in every village, town, castle, isle, or mainland by them newly found,” and to subdue, occupy, and possess all such regions, and to exercise jurisdiction over them in the name of the king of England. They were also to enjoy the privilege of exclusive resort and traffic to all places they might discover, reserving one-fifth of the clear profit of the enterprise to the crown.

The expedition proposed under this patent did not, however, actually set sail till the beginning of the year 1497. On the 21st of June of that year, Sebastian Cabot, in the ship Matthew, of Bristol, a vessel of two hundred tons burthen, first discovered, according to the common opinion, Newfoundland,[55] being the first Englishman (for he was born at Bristol) who had landed in America. How far he proceeded south has been a question of much controversy; it is, however, generally admitted that his voyage north and south was confined within the 67th and 38th degrees of north latitude, and that it did not occupy altogether more than six months. In the account of the privy purse expenses of Henry VII. there is the following entry: “10th of August, 1497. To hym that found the New Isle, 10l.,” and Hakluyt states, in the dedication of his second volume to Sir Robert Cecil, that “all that mighty tract of land from 67 degrees northward to the latitude almost of Florida was first discovered out of England by the commandment of Henry VII.” The same authority, quoting from Peter Martyr, further says, “He” (Cabot) “was thereby brought so far with the south, by reason of the land bending so much to the southward, that it was there almost equal in latitude with the sea Fretum Herculeum, having the North Pole elevated in manner in the same degree. He sailed likewise in this tract so far towards the west that he had the island of Cuba on his left hand in manner in the same degree of longitude.”[56]

That one of the Cabots discovered the northern continent of America, at the period named, is well authenticated, and in Biddle’s memoirs of him many other authorities are quoted in confirmation of this fact.[57] But if any doubt still remains, the second patent, granted on the 3rd of July, 1498, by Henry VII., the original of which was found by Mr. Biddle in the Rolls Chapel, sets this question finally at rest. That document indeed only named the father, “John,” but the previous patent was in the names of “John Cabot and his sons,” and it does not follow that the discovery of the “Lande and Isles” is intended to be attributed to the personal action of the elder Cabot. However, though the continent of America was first discovered by an expedition commissioned to “set up the banner” of England, this in no way detracts from the honour justly due to Christopher Columbus, who had five years previously made known, for the first time, the existence of a world in the West. Although his great discoveries were confined to the West Indian Islands and to a portion of the South American continent, they revealed the important fact that rich lands, hitherto unknown, lay in a certain quarter of the globe, and could be reached with no extraordinary difficulty or danger by intrepid and skilful mariners. Again, as Columbus did not sight the continent of America until August 1498, in the course of his third voyage, he could hardly then have been ignorant 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 voyage to the north and north-west impeded by ice and land respectively, that he turned to the south in the hope, no doubt, of finding either a western passage or reaching the countries which had been discovered by Columbus.

For this voyage of 1498, English merchants adventured small stocks of different kinds of merchandise, besides despatching various small vessels, all of which were placed under charge of Sebastian Cabot;[58] so that England commenced trading operations with America in the course of the very first year after its discovery. Henry VII. appears also to have taken a pecuniary interest in this expedition, for in the account of the privy purse expenses there are the following entries:—

“22nd March, 1498. To Lancelot Thirkill of London, upon a prest (loan or advance) for his shipp going towards the New Islande, 20l.”

“Delivered to Lancelot Thirkill (for himself), going towards the New Isle, on prest, 20l.”

“April 1st, 1498. To Thomas Bradley, and Lancelot Thirkill, going to the New Isle, 30l.”

“To I. Carter, as going to the New Isle, in rewerde, 2l.”

The object of this second expedition seems to have embraced colonisation as well as commerce, for, in the words of the patent, it extended “to all such masters, mariners, pages and other subjects, as of their own free will, will go and pass with him in the same ships, to the said Lande or Isles.” Three hundred men altogether are said to have gone with Cabot on this occasion, but there is no description of the vessels in which they embarked, beyond the expression in the patent that they were to be of the “bourdeyn of C.C. tonnes or under.” Nor are there any clear and well-authenticated accounts of the voyage. It, however, does not appear to have been so successful as had been anticipated; and as the great interest which the discoveries had at first excited languished soon afterwards, no further patents were granted by Henry until March 1501, when he commissioned three merchants of Bristol and three Portuguese to proceed in search of lands to the west. Sebastian Cabot himself would seem to have abandoned for a time any further expedition from England, and to have either sought employment in Spain or perhaps settled for a time in America, as we lose sight of him for a few years about that period. Nor are there any authentic accounts of the result of the expedition fitted out under the patent of 1501, nor of one subsequently issued by Henry VII., the last during his reign, and bearing date 9th December, 1502; but an intercourse, which had for its object both trade and colonisation, was, from the following entries in the account of the privy purse expenses, evidently maintained for some years afterwards:—

“17th November, 1503. To one that brought hawkes from the Newfounded Island, 1l.”

“8th April, 1504. To a preste (priest) that goeth to the New Island, 2l.”

“25th August, 1505. To Clays going to Richmond with wylde catts and popyngays of the Newfound Island; for his costs, 13s. 4d.”

“To Portugales” (Portuguese) “that brought popyngays and catts of the Mountaigne with other stuff to the King’s grace, 5l.”

No mention is made of Cabot in either of these patents, but as it is certain that he did not enter the service of Spain until the 13th of September, 1512, and as it is hardly possible to suppose that so active a mind would have remained unemployed during the intermediate period, it may therefore be presumed that for a portion at least of that time he was in some manner engaged on the coast of America. In confirmation of this opinion, the Calendars of Bristol of the year 1499 contain the following entry:—

“This yeare, Sebastian Cabot, borne in Bristoll, proferred his service to King Henry for discovering new countries; which had noe greate or favorable entertainment of the king, but he, with no extraordinary preparation, set forth from Bristoll, and made greate discoveries.”[59]

If Cabot was thus employed, the omission of any mention of his name in the patents of 1501 and 1502 is in some measure accounted for; and, in support of the Bristol records, it may be mentioned that Navarette, in describing from the records in the Spanish archives the voyage of Hojeda, who sailed from Spain on the 20th of May, 1499, says,[60] “What is certain is that Hojeda in his first voyage found certain Englishmen in the neighbourhood of Caquibaco.”

When it is considered that Cabot did not enter a foreign service for many years after this period, and that he was the only man in England at that time fully competent to conduct an expedition to America, it is likely that the Englishmen Hojeda saw were no other than Sebastian Cabot himself with his exploring party. Having been stopped the year before by the failure of provisions while sailing southward, it is natural to suppose that he would in a new expedition resume his former search, till at length he reached that part of the coast where Hojeda met with the party of Englishmen, and where the “great discoveries” mentioned in the Bristol manuscript were no doubt made. It is, however, a remarkable fact that while the name of Amerigo Vespucci, the pilot who accompanied Hojeda, is now for ever associated with the whole of that vast continent, no headland, cape, or bay has preserved the memory of Sebastian Cabot. But the mysterious disappearance of his “maps and discourses,” which he had prepared for publication,[61] may account in a great measure for the name of Cabot having been unnoticed in connection with America, and may be adduced as a reason why doubts have so long existed as to his occupations between 1498 and 1512. Had these documents been preserved, they would assuredly have supplied abundant information on this point. Peter Martyr says,[62] that Cabot did not leave England until after the death of Henry VII., which occurred in 1509; and Herrera, the Historiographer of the king of Spain, records the additional fact that, in 1512, he entered the service of Ferdinand, who, anxious to secure the services of so distinguished a navigator, “gave him the title of his Captain, and a liberal allowance, and retained him in his service, directing that he should reside at Seville, to await orders.”[63]

No specific duties were, however, assigned to him beyond the general revision of the Spanish maps and charts then extant, till, in 1515, he became a member of the Council of the Indies, with the expectation of commanding in the following year another expedition for the discovery of a north-west passage to India.[64] But the death of Ferdinand put an end to this scheme, and the troubles which then ensued in Spain induced Cabot to return to England, where, shortly afterwards, he was appointed to prepare an expedition similar to that which Ferdinand, shortly before his death, had proposed. The result, however, of this further attempt in the same direction, in 1517, while it confirmed the opinion which had been formed of Cabot’s ardent love of enterprise and dauntless intrepidity, proving, as all other similar expeditions have done, a failure, though, in this instance, chiefly as it would seem from the cowardice of Cabot’s companion Sir Thomas Pert, retarded for a time any renewed efforts in that most forbidding, but favourite region of discovery. Then, and for years afterwards, many persons were so impressed with the idea that the rich lands of Cathay could be reached either by passage directly across the North Pole, or to the east or west of it, that it has been a subject of almost constant discussion; and the following extracts from a letter addressed by the intelligent Robert Thorne to Henry VIII. describe pretty accurately the opinions prevailing in his time:—[65]

“Yet these dangers or darknesse hath not letted the Spanyards and Portingals and other to discover many unknowen realms to their great perill. Which considered (and that your Grace’s subjects may have the same light) it will seem your Grace’s subjects to be without activity or courage, in leaving to doe this glorious and noble enterprise. For they being past this little way which they named so dangerous (which may be two or three leagues before they come to the Pole, and as much more after they pass the Pole), it is cleere, that from thencefoorth the seas and landes are as temperate as in these partes, and that then it may be at the will and pleasure of the mariners to choose whether they will sayle by the coasts that be cold, temperate, or hot. For they, being past the Pole, it is plain they may decline to what part they list.

“If they will go toward the Orient, they shall enjoy the regions of all the Tartarians that extend toward the midday, and from thence they may go and proceed to the land of the Chinas, and from thence to the land of Cathaio Orientall, which is, of all the mainland, most orientall that can be reckoned from our habitation. And if, from thence, they doe continue their navigation, following the coasts that returne toward the Occident, they shall fall in with Malaca, and so with all the Indies which we call oriental, and following the way, may returne hither by the Cape of Buona Speransa, and thus they shall compasse the whole worlde. And if they will take their course, after they be past the Pole, toward the Occident, they shall go in the backeside of the new foundland, which of late was discovered by your Grace’s subjects, until they come to the backeside and south seas of the Indies Occidental. And so continuing their voyage, they may return through the Strait of Magellan to this countrey, and so they compasse also the world by that way; and if they go this third way, and after they be past the Pole, goe right toward the Pole Antarctike, and then decline towards the lands and islands situated between the Tropicks, and under the Equinoctiall, without doubt they shall find there the richest landes and islands of the world of golde, precious stones, balmes, spices, and other thinges that we here esteeme most; which come out of strange countries, and may return the same way.

“By this it appeareth, your Grace hath not onely a great advantage of the riches, but also your subjects shall not travell halfe of the way that other doe, which goe round about as aforesayd.”

Mr. Thorne further explains that as the Spaniards and Portuguese had found a way by the south to the rich lands of the East, and had thus gained a material advantage over English traders, his Majesty ought not to rest until a way was found by the north, “because the situation of this your realme is thereunto nearest and aptest of all other; and also for that you have already taken it in hand.[66] And in mine opinion it will not seeme well to leave so great and profitable an enterprise, seeing it may so easily, and with so little cost, labour, and danger, be followed and obtayned.” “The labour is much lesse,” he goes on to say, “yea, nothing at all where so great honour and glory is hoped for; and considering well the courses, truly the danger and way, shorter to us than to Spain or Portugal, as by evident reasons appeareth.”

Such were the arguments which had been used in the sixteenth century to induce the crown of England to fit out another expedition and discover an easier route to the world of “gold, balmes, and spices;” but beyond the failure of Cabot’s enterprise, a fearful scourge, the sweating sickness, had, from July to December of the year 1517, spread death and dismay, not only through the English court and city of London, but throughout the whole kingdom.[67] Suspending even the ordinary operations of commerce, it necessarily checked any further expeditions of discovery, so that Cabot would probably have remained for a time without employment, had he not been induced by the more promising aspect of affairs in Spain to return to that country. In 1518 he was appointed Pilot-Master to the Spanish monarchy, returning to Spain with Charles V. from England in 1520.

Though the functions of this office were of so much importance that no pilot was allowed to proceed to the Indies without previous examination and approval by him, they supply few incidents for record in his life. But a misunderstanding between Spain and Portugal soon brought him conspicuously forward in connection with the discoveries then being made by adventurous Spaniards, who were directing their attention to the Moluccas, through the passage which Magellan had been fortunate enough to find near the extreme southern point of the American continent. Portugal maintained that these discoveries fell within the limits assigned to her under the Papal Bull, and remonstrated in the strongest terms against any attempt on the part of Spain to carry on commerce in that quarter of the world.[68] A conference was consequently held to consider the claims of Portugal, to which the men most famed for their nautical knowledge and experience were invited. At the head of the list[69] stands the name of Sebastian Cabot, and in the roll of those present there will also be found that of Ferdinand, the son of Christopher Columbus. This conference was held at Badajos in April, 1524, and, on the 31st of May, its members solemnly proclaimed that the Moluccas were situate by at least twenty degrees within the Spanish limits.

As rumours had reached Spain that the king of Portugal (in spite of the decision of this conference) was determined to maintain his pretensions by force, a company, under Spanish protection, was formed at Seville to prosecute the trade with these eastern islands. Cabot was appointed chief of this association, and among its members appears the name of his sincere friend Robert Thorne[70] of Bristol, then a resident in Spain. The agreement, which was executed at Madrid on the 4th of March, 1525, stipulated that the king of Spain was to receive from the company four thousand ducats, besides a share of the profits of the expedition, and that a squadron of at least three vessels, of not less than one hundred tons,[71] and of one hundred and fifty men each, should be furnished and placed under the command of Cabot, who was to receive the title of Captain-General. But many vexatious obstacles were thrown in the way of the expedition. Instead of pushing directly across the Pacific after traversing the Straits of Magellan, Cabot had instructions to proceed deliberately to explore on every side, particularly the western coast of the continent,[72] where the Portuguese traded.

As Portugal had hitherto monopolised the lucrative commerce of that new-found region, the utmost alarm was excited when it became known that a Spanish expedition was preparing to sail under the charge of so daring and intrepid a mariner as Sebastian Cabot. Remonstrances in every conceivable form were addressed to the government of Spain; threats and entreaties were alternately used to terrify or to soothe the navigator himself, and even assassination was openly spoken of as not an unmerited punishment to defeat “so nefarious a project.” The king of Portugal himself had, more than once, in the most public manner, asserted that it would be “the utter destruction of his poor kingdom” if he was deprived of the monopoly of the trade with the Moluccas.[73] Although the opposition did not prevail, the influence which had been used delayed the departure of the expedition until April 1526, and the seeds of discontent had been so extensively sown among the fleet, that a mutiny on the coast of Brazil, not unlike what Columbus had encountered on his first great voyage of discovery, threatened the annihilation of the Spanish fleet. Cabot, like Columbus, when similarly situated, saw that his only safety lay in extreme boldness, for, like him, he belonged to that rare class of men whose powers unfold at trying moments. He knew that by a daring exercise of that rightful authority, to which the habit of command on the ocean lends a moral influence, men ready to commit murder may be awed into passive instruments. He therefore seized the three leaders of the mutiny, though they were his confidential officers, and the men next to himself in authority, and placing them in a boat, ordered them to be pulled on shore and there left. The effect throughout the fleet of these bold and summary proceedings was instantaneous. Discord disappeared with the chief conspirators, and, during the five years of service through which the expedition passed, full as they were of toil, peril, and privation, the voice of discontent was never afterwards heard.

Having expelled the only individuals who, in the event of his death, had been named in succession to the command of the expedition, Cabot felt that he would not have been justified in proceeding with the squadron on the long and perilous voyage originally contemplated. He therefore put into the La Plata, and sent advice to the king of what had occurred, by John Barlow, one of the Englishmen who had accompanied him; resolving in the meantime to explore that great river, in attempting which his predecessor in the office of pilot-major, Diego de Solis, had not long before been slain.[74]

Running boldly up the river, which, until very recently, was the dread of navigators, Cabot reached a small island about half a league from the northern shore, and nearly opposite to the present Buenos Ayres. Here the natives made a very formidable show of resistance, but were repulsed. Proceeding seven leagues farther up the river, he erected a fort. Having completed this work, and taken every precaution for the safety of the ships, he commenced the exploration of the Parana, taking care, as he proceeded, to build small forts, on which he could fall back with his boats and caravels in case of disaster, until he reached its junction with the Paraguay, which he ascended thirty-four leagues. Here everything presented a new aspect, with indications of a comparatively higher state of civilisation; but the natives engaged in the cultivation of the soil, being jealous of the strangers, and under the impression that they had come to take away their produce, seized three of Cabot’s men, who had incautiously strayed from the main body, and a sanguinary conflict ensued, in which three hundred of them were killed, and twenty-five of the Spaniards.

When Cabot returned to his ships, he made arrangements to convey to the king intelligence of his discoveries, and entered more fully into detail of the incidents which had occurred since he left, especially of those which had compelled him to abandon the voyage originally contemplated. The prospects were so promising that Charles V. resolved to fit out a fresh expedition to aid Cabot in the prosecution of further discoveries; means were, however, wanting to furnish the promised aid, the Cortes having, in the same year, refused a grant of money solicited by the king for pressing necessities of State. It was therefore hopeless to expect that they would vote fresh supplies for remote and hazardous expeditions. But though Cabot’s residence in the La Plata was measured tediously by hope deferred, and finally blasted, it was not passed in inactivity, his 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,”[75] 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.[76]

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 means whereby they were enabled to shape their courses with greater safety and certainty across the ocean. Not the least important of his studies was the variation of the compass; if not the first he was among the first who showed the extent of these variations in different places, and who attempted to frame a theory on this important subject. His earliest transatlantic voyage had carried him to a quarter where the variations of the needle are most sudden and striking. Nor are they much less sudden in the La Plata, where, from Cabot’s long residence, they must have secured his deliberate attention and careful consideration. But, in the absence of his “maps and discourses,” there are now no means extant of ascertaining the nature of the theory he had formed, though it must have been of a practical character, as the seamen brought up in his school, and sailing under his instructions, were particularly attentive in noting the variations of the needle.[77]

Though seeking retirement, his knowledge and experience, were of too varied and valuable a character to be allowed any lengthened repose. Frequently consulted, and his advice generally adopted, many adventures owe their origin to his genius; and one of the greatest of these, which arose out of the then prevailing stagnation of trade, is especially worthy of note. “Our merchants,” remarks Hakluyt,[78] “perceived the commodities and wares of England to be in small request about us and near unto us, and that their merchandise, which strangers, in the time and memory of our ancestors, did earnestly seek and desire, were now neglected and the price thereof abated, although they be carried to their own parts.”

Cabot, having been consulted as to the best mode of remedying this depressed state of things, recommended, after a conference with the merchants of London, “that three ships should be prepared and furnished out for the search and discovery of the northern part of the world, to open a way and passage to our men for travel to new and unknown kingdoms.”[79]

So general was the desire to secure a continuation of Cabot’s services, that, notwithstanding his advanced age, the Letters Patent incorporating the association for carrying out the expedition he had recommended declared him to be governor, an office he was to enjoy “during his natural life, without a moving or dismissing from the same room.” But the association had to encounter the opposition of the Steel-yard, the powerful foreign body whose monopoly had long exercised a very prejudicial influence on English manufactures and commerce.

For the interests, therefore, of England, and to afford a fair field in the then known markets of the world to her merchants and manufacturers, it became necessary to break down the monopoly exercised by the Germans, from their privileged site on the banks of the Thames, and the “Merchant Adventurers’ Company,” with Sebastian Cabot as its governor, was made the instrument of effecting this desirable change. Edward himself, fully alive to the necessity of abolishing the foreign monopoly, seems, by the records in his journals,[80] to have taken great interest in the formation and progress of this company of English traders, and, in spite of the vast influence of the Steel-yard, to have afforded to his merchants every facility in his power for the despatch of the expedition which Cabot had recommended.

“Strong; and well-seasoned planks for the building of the requisite ships were provided,” and to guard against the worms, “which many times pearceth and eateth through the strongest oak,” it was resolved for the first time in England, though sheathing had been used for some years previously in Spain, “to cover a piece of the keel of the shippes with thinne sheets of lead.”[81] Sir Hugh Willoughby, “a most valiant gentleman and well borne,” and highly recommended for his “skill in the services of war,”[82] was placed in command of the expedition. Nor were these the only requisite qualities, for it seems to have been thought no slight recommendation that he should be of “tall and commanding stature.” Richard Chancellor, the second in command, with the title of Pilot-Major, is described as a man of highly-cultivated intellect and refined manners, combined with great shrewdness and powers of observation, and withal a skilful and intrepid seaman.

Following the example of Portugal when she sent forth Vasco de Gama, and of Spain when Columbus was first despatched on his famous voyage, Edward had letters of safe conduct prepared for his expedition of discovery to the North, which were written in the Latin, Hebrew, and Chaldee tongues, and addressed to kings, princes, and foreign potentates and states.[83] By these addresses the people of strange nations were to be propitiated and enlightened as to the advantages they would derive from friendly intercourse with England. But all the instructions for the government of the expedition, which have been justly regarded as models, and as reflecting the highest credit on his sagacity, good sense, and comprehensive knowledge, were prepared by Cabot himself; they contain thirty-two voluminous articles. After the regulations to enforce discipline and obedience, it is therein required that “all courses in navigation are to be set and kept up by the advice of the captain, pilot-major, masters, and masters’ mates, with the assents of the counsailers and the most number of them, and in voyces uniformely agreeing in one to prevaile, and take place, so that the Captaine-generall shall in all counsailes and assemblies have a double voyce.” A log-book is ordered to be kept containing the courses steered and the observations on the winds, weather, and tides: the daily altitude of the sun at noon, and the position of the moon and stars, attention to these matters being carefully and specially enjoined. The captain is also required to record the “names of the people of every island, with the commodities and incommodities of the same, their natures, qualities, and dispositions, the site of the same, and what things they are most desirous of, and what commodities they will most willingly part with, and what mettals they have in hils, mountains, streames, or rivers, in or under the earth.”

But beyond these special and minute instructions for the navigation of the fleet, and for the discovery of new branches of commerce or sources of mineral wealth, the most rigid attention is enjoined to the moral and religious duties of the crews, so “that no blaspheming of God, or detestable swearing be used in any ship, nor communication of ribaldrie, filthy tales, or ungodly talke to be suffred in the company of any ship, neither dicing, carding, tabling, nor other devilish games to be frequented, whereby ensueth not only povertie to the players, but also strife, variance, brawling, fighting, and oftentimes murther, to the utter destruction of the parties, and provoking of God’s most just wrathe and sworde of vengeance. These, and all such like pestilences, and contagions of vices, and sinnes to be eschewed, and the offenders once monished and not reforming, to be punished at the discretion of the captaine and master, as appertaineth.” It is likewise ordered “that morning and evening prayer, with other common services appointed by the King’s Majestie, and lawes of this realme, to be reade and saide in every ship daily by the minister in the Admirall, and the marchant or some other person learned, in other ships, and the Bible or paraphrases to be read devoutly and Christianly to God’s honour, and for his grace to be obtained and had by humble and heartie praier of the navigants accordingly.”

Indeed, the whole document is full of admirable advice and of the soundest principles, as valuable to the success of the commercial adventure as to the discipline and comfort of every person engaged in the expedition.[84]

Descending to minute details, the cook or steward is required to give weekly, or oftener if desired by their superiors, an exact account of the victuals, such as “flesh, fish, biscuit, meat, bread,” as also of “beer, wine, oil, or vinegar,” with any other things under his charge. Incompetent officers and incapable seamen are to be discharged, whenever a suitable opportunity occurs of getting rid of them. Economy is strictly enjoined, and cleanliness in the cook’s room rigidly enforced. The best clothes of the sailors are only to be used when mustered in good array for the honour and advancement of the voyage. Various instructions are given for the security of health and general good management of the crew, and the sailors are warned against people who “can swim in the sea in havens, naked, armed with bows and shafts, who are desirous to seize the bodies of the sailors, which they covet for meat.”

On the 20th of May, 1553, the squadron dropped down the river Thames to Greenwich, and its departure is thus quaintly described:—

“The greater shippes are towed downe with boates and oares, and the mariners being all apparelled in watchet or skie-coloured cloth, rowed amaine and made way with diligence. And being come neere to Greenwich (where the court then lay), presently upon the newes thereof, the courtiers came running out, and the common people flocked together, standing very thicke upon the shoare: the Privie Counsel, they lookt out at the windowes of the court, and the rest ranne up to the toppe of the towers; the shippes hereupon discharge their ordinance, and shoot off their pieces after the manner of warre and of the sea, insomuch that the toppes of the hilles sounded therewith, the valleys and the waters gave an eccho, and the mariners they shouted in such sort that the skie rang again with the noyse thereof. One stood in the poope of the ship, and by his gesture bids farewell to his friendes in the best manner hee could, another walkes upon the hatches, another climbes the shrowds, another stands upon the maine yard, and another in the top of the shippe. To be short, it was a very triumph (after a sort) in all respects to the beholders. But (alas) the good King Edward (in respect of whom principally all this was prepared) hee only by reason of his sicknesse was absent from this shewe, and not long after the separation of these ships, the lamentable and most sorrowful accident of his death followed.”[85]

Amidst these great rejoicings, mingled with many lamentations and numerous misgivings, this celebrated expedition took its departure from the Thames. After leaving Harwich the ships had favourable winds, but, anticipating severe weather as they proceeded northwards, arrangements were made that in the event of separation, they were to rendezvous at the Castle of Wardhouse in Norway. Their anticipations were soon realised. Violent storms arose. The ships, though superior to most of the vessels of the period, were ill adapted to contend against the angry gales of the Northern Ocean. Sir Henry, with two of the ships, having been separated from the one under the command of Richard Chancellor, failed to make the contemplated progress to the eastward, and wintered in Lapland. But the rigour of the climate proved far more severe than had been anticipated. After terrible sufferings, he and the whole of the crews of the two ships perished, through cold, famine, and disease, amidst the ice and snow of the Arctic regions.

The pilot-major, Chancellor, was more fortunate. He reached the “Wardhouse” with his ship in safety, and having remained there several days, resolved to proceed, notwithstanding the disheartening representations which were made to him. Passing through unknown seas, he at last reached the Bay of St. Nicholas, where he anchored, and afterwards landed at a castle on the beach not far from the place where the town of Archangel has since been built. The natives, “being amazed with the strange greatnesse of the shippe (for in those parts before they had never seen the like), beganne presently to avoyde and to flee;” but Chancellor, in accordance with his instructions, “looked pleasantly upon them, comforting them by signs and gestures,”[86] and by numerous acts of courtesy and kindness he soon secured their confidence and friendship. Having gained in time an imperfect knowledge of their language, this remarkable seaman made a long tour through a portion of the interior, visiting Moscow, where he was well received. Here he opened the first commercial intercourse between Russia and England, which soon proved a source of great wealth to the people of both countries.

Though his task must have been of the most arduous character, he seems to have performed it with so much skill and judgment that the Emperor of Russia readily entered into his plans for promoting commercial intercourse between England and Russia, and despatched with him an ambassador to negotiate treaties on the most liberal bases, at the same time granting to the “Association of Merchant Adventurers” and “their successors for ever” special privileges. Chancellor, however, did not live to reap the fruit of his labours and receive the rewards and honours to which he was so well entitled. On his return to England, his ship was dashed to pieces during a furious gale at Pitsligo, in the north of Scotland; and, in his praiseworthy and successful exertions to save the life of the Russian ambassador, he unfortunately lost his own.[87] But mourning is only for a season. The lamentations on the loss of so many brave men, and especially on Chancellor, were drowned in the shouts of rejoicing which soon afterwards welcomed the Russian ambassador to the city of London. On the 27th February, 1557, he was met twelve miles from the City by “fourscore merchants with chaines of gold and goodly apparell,” with their retinue of servants and “horses and geldings” more gaudily adorned than themselves, and on reaching the boundaries of the City, the “Lord Mayor, accompanied by all the aldermen, received him, accompanied by Viscount Montague and other members of the court of the Queenes Majestie, together with a great number of merchants and notable personages riding before, and a large troupe of servants and apprentices following.”

So great, indeed, we are told, were the crowds of people that lined his path that the ambassador had much difficulty in reaching his lodging “in Fantchurch Streete,” where he was provided with every luxury befitting his dignity and the importance of the embassy on which he had come, till he finally left London on the 3rd of May following.[88]

Nor, indeed, were the attentions shown to this first Russian envoy bestowed in vain. Before he set out homewards, in “the noble shippe the Primrose,” a valuable commercial treaty was concluded with Russia, which continued in force almost until our own day, to the great advantage of the people of both countries, but especially of the English.

It is not a little curious now to look back to the early history of that trade and the mode whereby it was conducted, nor is it either uninteresting or uninstructive. The correspondence between the Company and its agents in Russia furnishes ample means for showing how it was conducted, and provides, probably, the earliest specimens extant of the English mode of conducting business with foreign countries, and of the care and precision with which it was carried on. Nothing can be clearer than the Company’s letter of instructions and bill of parcels,[89] containing as it does in the shortest possible space all that was necessary for the guidance of their agents.

To the Company of Merchant Adventurers, and more especially to its first governor, Sebastian Cabot, England is deeply indebted. They were among the earliest traders who gave an impetus to her over-sea commerce, aiming as they did to make England a depôt for foreign produce, and her ships the carriers by sea for the merchants of other nations as well as their own. “For we must take care,” remarks the Company in one of those letters to its agents, “to utter good quantitie of wares, especially the commodities of our realme, although we afford a good peny-worth to the intent to make others that have traded thither, wearie, and so to bring ourselves and commodities in estimation, and likewise to procure and have the chiefe commodities of that country in our hands as waxe and such others, that other nations may be served by us and at our hands.”[90]

It was by these means that England obtained her mercantile pre-eminence, achieving her maritime superiority by such methods rather than by any complicated scheme of legislative enactments, and in this she was assuredly far more indebted to the discoveries and wise policy of Sebastian Cabot, than to the so-called “celebrated Navigation Laws of Oliver Cromwell,” a hundred years afterwards. Barrow in his history frankly owns that Cabot’s knowledge and experience, combined with his zeal and penetration, were the means, not only of extending the foreign commerce of England, but of keeping alive the “spirit of enterprise which even in his lifetime was crowned with success, and which ultimately led to the most happy results for the nation”;[91] and Campbell observes “that with equal justice it may be said of Sebastian Cabot, that he was the author of our maritime strength, and opened the way to those improvements which have rendered us so great, so eminent, so flourishing a people.”[92]

But the Merchant Adventurers, besides leading the way to and developing the trade with Russia, were instrumental in the establishment of the whale fishery of Spitzbergen, and in the equally great, if not more important, fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland. Nor were their efforts confined to discoveries of new sources of wealth at sea, for, besides their extensive commercial operations with the interior of Russia where they had established various agencies, they entered into trading relations with Persia. Writing to one of these agents, they remark, “We have further hope of some good trade to be found out by Master Anthonie Jenkinson, by reason we do perceive by your letters, that raw silk is as plentiful in Persia as flax is in Russia, besides other commodities that may come from thence.”[93]

The untimely death of Edward VI. (6 July, 1553), while it operated as a severe check on the advancing commercial prosperity of England, was no less inauspicious to the fortunes of Sebastian Cabot, who had given to it the first great impulse. The generosity of the youthful monarch, his ingenuous and enterprising spirit, and his fondness for maritime affairs, offer a melancholy contrast to the sullen bigotry of Mary.[94] Without one spark of feeling for the commercial interests of the people whom she had been called to govern, or one thought about their happiness, she deputed all such matters to her husband, who reduced Cabot’s pension one half, and materially curtailed the influence he so long possessed, it may be with some gain to his own peace of mind in his now declining years, though to England’s loss. Foreign traders with England had now their former special privileges partially restored, while the Steel-Yard merchants, bringing the influence of Germany to bear upon Philip II., were thus enabled to obtain relief from the Act passed by Edward VI. They were not, however, satisfied with these changes in their favour, for “at an assembly of the Houses at Lubeck, an Edict was published against all Englishmen, forbidding all trade or commerce with them.”[95]

From this time Cabot sank into comparative insignificance. Sixty-one years had elapsed since the date of his first commission from Henry VII.; he was now a very old man, and the powers of nature, fast failing through age, were still more rapidly exhausted by the usage he received from the court. The exact date of his death is not known, nor has any record been left where he was buried. He who, with Christopher Columbus, had presented a new world to his sovereign, died like him neglected, if not despised, and at last so thoroughly unknown, that England cannot point to the spot of earth where rests all that was mortal of one of her best and bravest seamen.[96]