He was taken into service as “capitan,” with pay of fifty thousand maravedis by a royal grant made at Lagroño, Oct. 20, 1512.[98] Eden,[99] in a translation of Peter Martyr, makes that author say that Cabot had been, at the time at which Martyr was writing, 1515, appointed a member of the Council of the Indies, but it is believed that the original language of Martyr, “concurialis noster,” will not bear that interpretation.[100] In 1515 he was appointed “Cosmographo de la Casa de la Contratacion,” an office which involved the care of revising maps and charts.[101] And in that same year, Peter Martyr tells us, there was projected a voyage under the command of Cabot, to search for that “hid secret of Nature” in the northwest, to sail in the following year, 1516. But the death of King Ferdinand, on the 23d of January of that year, put an end to the expedition. In November, 1515, Cabot and Juan Vespucius gave an opinion (_parecer_) concerning the demarcation line in Brazil.[102] I have already spoken of the alleged voyage of Cabot and Sir Thomas Pert from England, of 1516-17, concerning which serious doubts have been expressed. Herrera makes no mention of Cabot’s leaving Spain at this time; and De Barcia, not perhaps the highest authority, in the preface to his _Ensayo Chronologico_, etc., Madrid, 1723, says that Cabot was residing quietly in Spain from 1512 to 1526, and that “he never intended or proposed to prosecute the proposed discovery.” On Feb. 5, 1518, he was appointed “Piloto Mayor y Examinador de Pilotos,” succeeding Juan de Solis, who had been killed on the La Plata River in 1516, with the same pay in addition to that of capitano.[103] In 1520 this appointment is again confirmed, with orders that no pilot should pass to the Indies without being first examined and approved by him.[104] On April 14, 1524, the celebrated Congress at Badajos was held, which was attended by Cabot, not as a member but as an expert; and he and several others delivered an opinion on the questions submitted, April 15, the second day of the session.[105] Immediately after the decision of the Congress, which was pronounced practically in favor of the Spanish interest, a company was formed at Seville to prosecute the trade to the Moluccas, through the Straits of Magellan, and Cabot was invited to take the command; and in September of this year he received the sanction of the Council of the Indies to engage in the enterprise, and the agreement with the Emperor was executed at Madrid on March 4, 1525, and the title of Captain-General was conferred upon him. It was intended that the expedition should depart in August, but it was delayed by the intrigues of the Portuguese, and did not sail till April 3, 1526.[106] Cabot’s expedition to the La Plata, it having been diverted on the coast from its original destination, will be considered in another volume. On Oct. 25, 1525, his wife, Catalina Medrano, was directed by a royal order to