Sebastian Cabot sailed in the summer of 1498: he soon reached Newfoundland, and thence proceeded north as far as the fifty-eighth degree. Having failed in discovering the hoped-for passage, he returned toward the south, examining the coast as far as the southern boundary of Maryland, and perhaps Virginia. After a long interval, the enterprising mariner again, in 1517, sailed for America, and entered the bay[54] which, a century afterward, received the name of Hudson. If prior discovery confer a right of possession, there is no doubt that the whole eastern coast of the North American Continent may be justly claimed by the English race.[55] Gaspar Cortereal was the next voyager in the succession of discoverers: he had been brought up in the household of the King of Portugal, but nourished an ardent spirit of enterprise and thirst for glory, despite the enervating influences of a court. He sailed early in the year 1500, and pursued the track of John Cabot as far as the northern point of Newfoundland; to him is due the discovery of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,[56] and he also pushed on northward, by the coast of Labrador,[57] almost to the entrance of Hudson's Bay. The adventurer returned to Lisbon in October of the same year. This expedition was undertaken more for mercantile advantage than for the advancement of knowledge; timber and slaves seem to have been the objects; no less than fifty-seven of the natives were brought back to Portugal, and doomed to bondage. These unhappy savages proved so robust and useful, that great benefits were anticipated from trading on their servitude;[58] the dreary and distant land of their birth, covered with snow for half the year, was despised by the Portuguese, whose thoughts and hopes were ever turned to the fertile plains, the sunny skies, and the inexhaustible treasures of the East.[59] But disaster and destruction soon fell upon these bold and merciless adventurers. In a second voyage, the ensuing year, Cortereal and all his followers were lost at sea: when some time had elapsed without tidings of their fate, his brother sailed to seek them; but he too, probably, perished in the stormy waters of the North Atlantic, for none of them were ever heard of more. The King of Portugal, feeling a deep interest in these brothers, fitted out three armed vessels and sent them to the northwest. Inquiries were made along the wild shores which Cortereal had first explored, without trace or tidings being found of the bold mariner, and the ocean was searched for many months, but the deep still keeps it secret.