On board the admiral's vessel all hands were invariably assembled for the evening hymn; on this occasion a public prayer for success was added, and with those holy sounds Columbus hailed the appearance of that small, shifting light,[46] which crowned with certainty his long-cherished hope,[47] turned his faith into realization,[48] and stamped his name forever upon the memory of man.[49] It was by accident only that England had been deprived of the glory of these great discoveries. Columbus, when repulsed by the courts of Portugal and Spain, sent his brother Bartholomew to London,[50] to lay his projects before Henry VII., and seek assistance for their execution. The king, although the most penurious of European princes, saw the vast advantage of the offer, and at once invited the great Genoese to his court. Bartholomew was, however, captured by pirates on his return voyage, and detained till too late, for in the mean while Isabella of Castile had adopted the project of Columbus, and supplied the means for the expedition. Henry VII. was not discouraged by this disappointment: two years after the discoveries of Columbus became known in England, the king entered into an arrangement with John Cabot, an adventurous Venetian merchant, resident at Bristol, and, on the 5th of March, 1495, granted him letters patent for conquest and discovery. Henry stipulated that one fifth of the gains in this enterprise was to be retained for the crown, and that the vessels engaged in it should return to the port of Bristol. On the 24th of June, 1497, Cabot discovered the coast of Labrador, and gave it the name of _Primavista_. This was, without doubt, the first visit of Europeans to the Continent of North America,[51] since the time of the Scandinavian voyages. A large island lay opposite to this shore: from the vast quantity of fish frequenting the neighboring waters, the sailors called it _Bacallaos_.[53] Cabot gave this country the name of St. John's, having landed there on St. John's day. Newfoundland has long since superseded both appellations. John Cabot returned to England in August of the same year, and was knighted and otherwise rewarded by the king; he survived but a very short time in the enjoyment of his fame, and his son Sebastian Cabot, although only twenty-three years of age, succeeded him in the command of an expedition destined to seek a northwest passage to the South Seas.