skill in discovering new islands_, and he has returned safe ... and next spring his Majesty means to send him with twenty ships.” All this shows the strong presumption that the first charter was granted _after_ discoveries that Cabot had made previously on his own or his father’s account. Mr. Nicholls also gives an engraving of a remarkable portrait of Cabot, then a very old man, and a copy of the unique map of his travels, dated 1544, preserved in the Bibliothèque at Paris. On this map it is stated in Latin and Spanish that John and Sebastian Cabot together discovered the New Land on June the 24th, 1494, and that Cabot himself “made this figure extended in plane” (i. e. the Map) in 1544. The street in Bristol where Canynge, and probably the Cabots, lived is still called ‘Cathay.’ [58] ‘Memoir of Sebastian Cabot,’ by Biddle, p. 86, Lond., 1832. [59] ‘Memoirs, Historical and Topographical, of Bristol and its neighbourhood, from the earliest period down to the present time,’ by the Rev. J. W. Seyer, vol. ii. p. 208. [60] Tom. iii. p. 41. [61] In a tract addressed to Sir Philip Sydney and published in 1582, Hakluyt says: “But, shortly, God willing, shall come out in print all his (Sebastian Cabot’s) own mappes and discourses drawne and written by himselfe;” at the same time, stating that these were then in the “custody of Mr. William Worthington.” [62] Peter Martyr speaks of Cabot as “his very friend whom I use familiarly, and delight to have him sometimes keep me company in mine own house; for being called out of England, by command of the Catholic King of Castile, after the death of King Henry VII., he was made _one of our council_, as touching the affair of the New Indies, looking daily for ships to be furnished for him, to discover this hid secret of nature (i. e. why the seas in these parts ran with so swift a current from the east to the west), this voyage is appointed to be begun in March in the year next following, being the year of Christ 1516.”—Decades, ii. c. 12. [63] Herrera, dec. i. lib. ix. cap. xiii. [64] R. Eden’s ‘Munster,’ Lond., 1553. Cabot calls himself on the map previously referred to “Captain and Pilot-Major of his sacred Imperial Majesty the Emperor Don Carlos the Vth.” Robert Thorne (said by Stowe to have been born in 1492) was one of the most eminent of the Bristol merchants of his days. He died in London in 1532, and is buried in the Temple Church. At his death he forgave all his debtors, at the same time leaving £4440 for charitable purposes, and £5140 to poor relations. [65] Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 112. [66] A note on the margin of Hakluyt (vol. i. p. 213) adds, “in the eighth year of his reigne” i. e. 1516-7. This letter is not dated, but cannot be earlier than 1517, when Henry VIIIth’s voyage of discovery was undertaken.