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. [Sidenote: Discovery of the north-west coast of America, 21 June, 1497.]