There were, however, efforts from time to time to follow up the discoveries of the Cabots. The merchants of Bristol do not seem to have been disappointed with the result of the Cabot enterprises, for as early as in 1501 they sent out a new expedition across the Atlantic. The sanction of the king was again invoked, and Henry VII granted letters patent to three men of Bristol--Richard Warde, Thomas Ashehurst, and John Thomas--to explore the western seas. These names have a homely English sound; but associated with them were three Portuguese--John Gonzales, and two men called Fernandez, all of the Azores, and probably of the class of master-pilots to which the Cabots and Columbus belonged. We know nothing of the results of the expedition, but it returned in safety in the same year, and the parsimonious king was moved to pay out five pounds from his treasury 'to the men of Bristol that found the isle.' Francis Fernandez and John Gonzales remained in the English service and became subjects of King Henry. Again, in the summer of 1502, they were sent out on another voyage from Bristol. In September they brought their ships safely back, and, in proof of the strangeness of the new lands they carried home 'three men brought out of an Iland forre beyond Irelond, the which were clothed in Beestes Skynnes and ate raw fflesh and were rude in their demeanure as Beestes.' From this description (written in an old atlas of the time), it looks as if the Fernandez expedition had turned north from the Great Banks and visited the coast where the Eskimos were found, either in Labrador or Greenland. This time Henry VII gave Fernandez and Gonzales a pension of ten pounds each, and made them 'captains' of the New Found Land. A sum of twenty pounds was given to the merchants of Bristol who had accompanied them. We must remember that at this time the New Found Land was the general name used for all the northern coast of America. There is evidence that a further expedition went out from Bristol in 1503, and still another in 1504. Fernandez and Gonzales, with two English associates, were again the leaders. They were to have a monopoly of trade for forty years, but were cautioned not to interfere with the territory of the king of Portugal. Of the fate of these enterprises nothing is known.