[Footnote 25: The name 'Labrador' is supposed to have been derived from the fact that some North American natives, brought back in one of the ships which accompanied Corte Real on this second voyage, were said to be 'admirably calculated for labour and the best slaves I have ever seen.' Hence the name 'Laboratoris terra,' or Labrador. On Thorne's map (1527) printed in the _Divers Voyages to America_, there appears 'Nova terra Laboratorum dicta.' Sir Clements Markham, in his edition of the _Journal of Columbus, Cabot, and Corte Real_ (Hakluyt Society, 1893, Int. p. 51, note), says: 'There is no reference to Labrador in any of the authorities for the voyages of Corte Real. The King of Portugal is said to have hoped to derive good slave labour from the lands discovered by Corte Real. That is all. The name Labrador is not Portuguese; and Corte Real was never on the Labrador coast.' Another derivation given is: 'This land was discovered by the English from Bristol, and named Labrador because the one who saw it first was a labourer from the Azores.' One more derivation is that Labrador was the name of the Basque captain of a fishing-vessel. See Justin Winsor, vol. iv, chap. i, pp. 2, 46, and Parkman's _Pioneers of France in the New World_, p. 216, note.] [Sidenote: _The Cabots._] On March 5, 1496, King Henry VII of England granted a patent to 'John Cabot, citizen of Venice,' and to his three sons--Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius--empowering them 'to discover unknown lands under the king's banner.'[26] Under this patent--'the earliest surviving document which connects England with the New World'[27]--North America was discovered. [Footnote 26: Quoted from the marginal note to the patent. See Hakluyt's _Divers Voyages touching the discovery of America_, published by the Hakluyt Society, 1850, p. 21.] [Footnote 27: From Doyle's _History of the English in America_, vol. i, chap. iv.] Almost every point connected with the voyages of the Cabots is dark and doubtful. What the father did and what {18} the son, whence they came, and whither they went, is all uncertain. The tale of Columbus and his voyages is known to all the world; but readers are left to grope after the Cabots, as the latter groped after the strange wild regions of the north-west.