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, 10_l._,” 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] [Sidenote: Second patent, 3 Feb., 1498.] [Sidenote: Rival claimants to the discovery of the North American continent.]