“In the latter part of this volume are put certaine relations of John de Vararzana [Verrazzano], Florentine, and of a great captaine a Frenchman, and the two voyages of Jaques Cartier a Briton [of Brittany], who sailed unto the land situate in 50 degrees of latitude to the North, which is called New France, which landes hitherto are not throughly knowen, whether they doo joyne with the firme land of Florida and Nova Hispania, or whether they bee separated and divided all by the Sea as Ilands: and whether that by that way we may goe by Sea unto the countrey of Cathaia. As many yeeres past it was written unto mee by Sebastian Cabota our Countrey man, a Venetian, a man of great experience, and very rare in the art of Navigation, and the knowledge of Cosmographie, who sailed along and beyond this lande of New France, at the charges of King Henry the seventh king of England: and he advertised mee that having sailed a long time West by North, beyond those Ilands unto the Latitude of 67 degrees and an halfe under the North pole, and at the 11 day of June finding still the open Sea without any maner of impediment, he thought verily by that way to have passed on still the way to Cathaia, which is in the East, and would have done it, if the mutinie of the shipmaster and Mariners had not hindered him and made him to returne homeward from that place. But it seemeth that God doeth yet still reserve this great enterprise for some great prince to discover this voyage of Cathaia by this way, which for the bringing of the Spiceries from India into Europe, were the most easie and shortest of all other wayes hitherto found out. And surely this enterprise would be the most glorious, and of most importance of all other that can be imagined to make his name great, and fame immortall, to all ages to come, farre more then can be done by any of all these great troubles and warres which dayly are used in Europe among the miserable Christian people.” The fourth testimony is the most important of the six, being an account by Peter Martyr drawn directly from Sebastian Cabot’s statements to him. The Third Decade of Martyr’s history of the New World, from which Hakluyt takes it, was first printed in Seville, in 1516. At the time of Martyr’s writing Sebastian Cabot was in Spain, in the Spanish king’s service, and, as the text shows, an intimate friend of Martyr’s. This being the first printed account of the Cabot voyages, American historians based their relations of them upon it till its several inaccuracies were disclosed by other data. Hakluyt presents it in full as below.