_Stevens' Notes_, pp. 17-19; _Pinkerton's Col. Voy._, vol. xii. p. 158; _Bancroft's Hist. U. S._, vol. i. p. 13. The Portuguese, to complete their discovery of the route to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, sent out Vasco da Gama with four ships. Sailing from Lisbon July 8, 1497, he doubled the Cape of Good Hope the 22d of November, passed the limit reached by Dias on the 17th of December, received intelligence of Prester John at several points on the eastern coast, and anchored at Calicut May 20, 1498. Trading somewhat, jealous of everybody, after quarrelling with Arabian merchants and failing to make good his arbitrary measures, he thought best to return. Accordingly he set sail the 29th of August, passed the cape March 20, 1499, and reached Lisbon about the end of August. Thus Gama was the first to accomplish the grand object of so many efforts, and to reach India by water. His achievement would doubtless have been regarded as the most glorious on record, both to himself and to Portugal, had not Columbus for Spain reached the same continent, as he supposed, farther east several years before. _Navigatione di Vasco di Gama_, in _Ramusio_, tom. i. fol. 130; _Galvano's Discov._, pp. 93-4; _Navarrete_, _Col. de Viages_, tom. i. pp. xli.-ii.; _Major's Prince Henry_, pp. 391-406; _Voyages, Curious and Entertaining_, p. 103; _Leben der See-Helden_, p. 40; _Notizie di Vasquez di Gama_, in _Cancellieri_, _Notizie_, p. 165. [1498.] After the return of the Cabots in August, 1497, with the news of having discovered the northern regions of Cathay, King Henry issued a new patent dated February 3, 1498, and, probably in May of the same year, two vessels with 300 men sailed from Bristol under command of Sebastian Cabot. Little is known of the voyage, save that he reached the coast of Labrador, which he followed northward until at a certain point where the coast trends eastward he found much ice even in July. This northern limit is placed by Ramusio at latitude 56°; by Gomara, who states that Cabot himself gives a much higher latitude, at 58°; by Galvano, at above 60°. Kohl follows Humboldt in the opinion that it was 67° 30', which would place it on the Cumberland peninsula. Cabot then turned southward and sailed as near shore as possible. The southern limit of this voyage is more indefinite than the northern. In a conversation with Peter Martyr, prior to 1515, Cabot stated that he reached the latitude of Gibraltar, and the chronicler adds that he sailed so far west that he had Cuba on his left. Cabot's remark would place him in latitude 36°, near Cape Hatteras, while Martyr's addition might apply to any locality on the east coast. Martyr's statement is the only authority for the supposition by Humboldt and others—see _Exam. Crit._, tom. i. p. 313, and Preface to Ghillany—that Cabot reached Florida. Stevens, _Notes_, pp. 17-19 and 35, considers Peter Martyr's remark as absurd, since it would place Cabot near Cincinnati.