The second expedition sailed from the port of Bristol in May of 1498. John Cabot and his son Sebastian were in command; of the younger brothers we hear no more. But the high hopes of the voyagers were doomed to disappointment. On arriving at the coast of America Cabot's ships seem first to have turned towards the north. The fatal idea, that the empires of Asia might be reached through the northern seas already asserted its sway. The search for a north-west passage, that will-o'-the-wisp of three centuries, had already begun. Many years later Sebastian Cabot related to a friend at Seville some details regarding this unfortunate attempt of his father to reach the spice islands of the East. The fleet, he said, with its three hundred men, first directed its course so far to the north that, even in the month of July, monstrous heaps of ice were found floating on the sea. 'There was,' so Sebastian told his friend, 'in a manner, continual daylight.' The forbidding aspect of the coast, the bitter cold of the northern seas, and the boundless extent of the silent drifting ice, chilled the hopes of the explorers. They turned towards the south. Day after day, week after week, they skirted the coast of North America. If we may believe Sebastian's friend, they reached a point as far south as Gibraltar in Europe. No more was there ice. The cold of Labrador changed to soft breezes from the sanded coast of Carolina and from the mild waters of the Gulf Stream. But of the fabled empires of Cathay and Cipango, and the 'towns and castles' over which the Great Admiral was to have dominion, they saw no trace. Reluctantly the expedition turned again towards Europe, and with its turning ends our knowledge of what happened on the voyage. That the ships came home either as a fleet, or at least in part, we have certain proof. We know that John Cabot returned to Bristol, for the ancient accounts of the port show that he lived to draw at least one or two instalments of his pension. But the sunlight of royal favour no longer illumined his path. In the annals of English history the name of John Cabot is never found again.