A discussion of the several interesting questions relating to the voyages of the Cabots belongs to another chapter;[455] but assuming here that the voyage of the “Mathew” from Bristol, England, in the summer of 1497, is beyond controversy, the precedence of the Cabots over Columbus in the discovery of the continent may be taken for granted. There is other ample evidence besides his curious letters to show that the latter was on the coast of South America in the summer of 1498, just thirteen months and one week after the Cabots made the _terra primum visa_, whether on the coast of Nova Scotia, Labrador, or possibly Newfoundland.[456] Not that this detracts in any degree, however slight, from the great name of Columbus as the discoverer of the New World. Of him Sebastian Cabot was mindful to say, in conversation with the Pope’s envoy in Spain,—just quoted from in the preceding paragraph,—that “when newes were brought that Don Christopher Colonus, Genoese, had discovered the coasts of India, whereof was great talke in all the Court of King Henry the 7, who then raigned, insomuch that all men with great admiration affirmed it to be a thing more divine than humane to saile by the West into the Easte, where spices growe, by a map that was never knowen before,—by this fame and report there increased in my heart a great flame of desire to attempt some notable thing.” However notable the thing might be, it could be only secondary to that achievement of Columbus which Cabot looked upon as “more divine than human;” but whether in the first sight of the mainland which all hoped to find beyond the islands already visited, Vespucci did not take precedence both of the Cabots and of Columbus, has been a disputed question for nearly four hundred years; and it will probably never be considered as satisfactorily settled, should it continue in dispute for four hundred years longer.