Note 55 — Chapter II

A close examination of the story of Cabot shows that the spot first seen by him could not have been Newfoundland. Moreover, Ortelius, who had Cabot’s own map before him, places an island of St. John in lat. 56° N., off the coast of Labrador, with which the account of its general sterility and the abundance of Polar bears agrees much better than with Newfoundland. The present Isle of St. John’s, off the coast of Newfoundland, was so called by Cartier, A.D. 1534 (Hakluyt, iii. p. 204). The second patent, too, speaks of “land and islands” as distinct discoveries of the first voyage. The fact is, all the territory round that neighbourhood was called “New Land,” as in the Stat. 33 Henry VIII., and Robert Thorne (ap. Hakluyt, i. p. 214) speaks of “our New found lands.” Thus, West Indies once meant the whole of America. That Cabot reached 67½° of N. lat. cannot be doubted, as Ramusio, in the Preface to the third volume of his ‘Voyages,’ distinctly states that the navigator had written to him to that effect (Ramusio, iii. 417). The presumption is, further, strong that John Cabot, the father, did not make any voyages, but that all the credit of the new discoveries is due to Sebastian and his brothers. Indeed, Sir George Peckham (ap. Hakluyt, iii. p. 165) asserts this as a fact. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, too, while saying that Sebastian was specially sent, makes no allusion to the father.