Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
I have already briefly referred to this letter, in speaking of the
alleged voyage of 1516-17, contended for by Biddle (pp. 117-19), on
which occasion he thinks Cabot entered Hudson Bay. This passage in
Ramusio is mentioned twenty years later by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in
his tract, as we shall see farther on, principally on account of the
high degree of northern latitude reached, 67½°, and where the sea
was found still open.[26] As this is the only account of a voyage which
describes so high an elevation reached, and an immediate return thence
by reason of mutiny, some have supposed that the incidents described
must have occurred on a third voyage, in company with Sir Thomas
Pert. On Cabot’s map of 1544 there is inscribed a coast line trending
westward, terminating at the degree of latitude named.
In 1552 Gomara’s _Historia General de las Indias_ was published at
Saragossa in Spain. In cap. xxxix., under the head of “Los Baccalaos,”
he says:—
“Sebastian Cabot was the first that brought any knowledge of this
land, for being in England in the days of King Henry VII. he furnished
two ships at his own charges, or (as some say) at the King’s, whom
he persuaded that a passage might be found to Cathay by the North
Seas.... He went also to know what manner of lands those Indies
were to inhabit. He had with him three hundred men, and directed
his course by the track of Iceland, upon the Cape of Labrador, at
fifty-eight degrees (though he himself says much more), affirming
that in the month of July there was such cold and heaps of ice that
he durst pass no further; that the days were very long and in manner
without night, and the nights very clear. Certain it is that at sixty
degrees the longest day is of 18 hours. But considering the cold and
the strangeness of the unknown land, he turned his course from thence
to the west, refreshing themselves at Baccalaos; and following the
coast of the land unto the 38th degree, he returned to England.”[27]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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