Sebastian Cabot, the second son of John Cabot, was born in Venice, probably about the year 1473. He was early devoted to the study of cosmography, in which science his father had become a proficient, and Sebastian was largely imbued with the same spirit of enterprise; and on the removal of his father with his family to England, he lived with them at Bristol. His name first occurs in the letters patent of Henry VII., dated March 5, 1495/6, issued to John Cabot and his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius, and to their heirs and assigns, authorizing them to discover unknown lands. There is some reason to believe that he accompanied his father in the expedition, already mentioned, on which the first discovery of North America was made; but in none of the contemporary documents which have recently come to light respecting this voyage is Sebastian’s name mentioned as connected with it. A second expedition, as already stated, followed, and John Cabot is distinctly named as having sailed with it as its commander; but thenceforward he passes out of sight. Sebastian Cabot, without doubt, accompanied the expedition. No contemporary account of it was written, or at least published, and for the incidents of the voyage we are mainly indebted to the reports of others written at a later period, and derived originally from conversations with Sebastian Cabot himself; in all of which the father’s name, except incidentally, as having taken Sebastian to England when he was very young, is not mentioned. In these several reports but one voyage is spoken of, and that, apparently, the voyage on which the discovery of North America was made; but circumstances are narrated in them which could have taken place only on the second or a later voyage. With a company of three hundred men, the little fleet steered its course in the direction of the northwest in search of the land of Cathay. They came to a coast running to the north, which they followed to a great distance, where they found, in the month of July, large bodies of ice floating in the water, and almost continual daylight. Failing to find the passage sought around this formidable headland, they turned their prows and, as one account says, sought refreshment at Baccalaos. Thence, coasting southwards, they ran down to about the latitude of Gibraltar, or 36° N., still in search of a passage to India, when, their provisions failing, they returned to England. If the views expressed by John Cabot, on his return from his first voyage, had been seriously cherished, it seems strange that this expedition did not, at first, on arriving at the coast, pursue the more southerly direction, where he was confident lay the land of jewels and spices.