"A briefe extract concerning the discoverie of Newfound-land taken out of the booke of M. Robert Thorne, to Doctor Leigh &c. “I reason that as some sickenesses are hereditarie, so this inclination or desire of this discovery I inherited from my father, which with another marchant of Bristol named Hugh Eliot, were the discoverers of the Newfound-lands; of the which there is no doubt (as nowe plainely appeareth) if the Mariners would then have bene ruled, and followed their Pilots minde, but the lands of the West Indies, from whence all the golde commeth, had bene ours; for all is one coast as the Card appeareth, and is aforesaid.” The “card” here referred to was a rude map of the world on which, along the line of the coast of Labrador, was written the inscription in Latin, “This land was first discovered by the English.” A short time after this voyage the fisheries about Newfoundland had become well known to Frenchmen, and were being frequented by the hardy fishermen of Brittany and Normandy. Hence the later name of the isle of Cape Breton. No further patents for English navigations were issued for more than half a century. Still English interest in maritime discovery and commercial advancement was not altogether stagnant during this period. Early in Henry the eighth’s reign quite a promising enterprise was set on foot by Sebastian Cabot, then back in England, and in high standing for his knowledge in cosmography. He had been in Spain for seven years (having entered Spain’s service three years after the death of Henry the seventh, which occurred in 1509), acting part of that time as one of the council of the Indies, and latterly completing plans for a new expedition for the search of the Northwest passage under the Spanish flag, which he had been compelled to abandon by Ferdinand’s death, in 1516. Returned to England he had found Henry the eighth hospitable to his scheme and had induced him to fit out a small squadron for its pursuit. The supreme command, however, was given to another,—Sir Thomas Pert, at that time vice-admiral of England,—and this proved disastrous to the enterprise; for, it is recorded, Sir Thomas’s “faint heart was the cause that the voyage took none effect.” All that the expedition accomplished was a visit to the coast of Brazil, to San Domingo, and to Porto Rico, whence it returned to England. Hakluyt gives a narration which he supposes to relate to this voyage, written by the Spanish historian Gonzalo de Oviedo, and reprinted by Ramusio, from whom he translates it: