On the death of Nicolo Zeno, his brother Antonio succeeded to his property, dignities, and honours, with which latter, it seems, he would have gladly dispensed, wishing to return to his own country, but the earl would not hear of it. Antonio therefore remained in his service, and has recorded the accounts of some fishermen who had undoubtedly reached North America; as also a voyage made by the Earl Sinclair and himself, wherein the former at least appears to have reached Newfoundland and Labrador. A part of these voyages may with more propriety be considered when we come to the discoveries in regard to the New World made by Columbus and the Cabots. And here a fact little known may be briefly recorded, on account of the absence of almost any history, that Cristoforo Colon (Columbus), prior to those great voyages which have made his name immortal, did undoubtedly make a northern voyage, visiting both Greenland and Iceland. The object of this voyage is unknown; but, judging from the ruling ambition of the navigators of those days, it was to attempt a north-west or north-east passage to the Indies. As our next voyage will show, it is a question to whom belongs the honour of having first made this attempt. Giovanni Cabota, or Cabot, a Venetian, had settled in Bristol during the reign of Henry VII., and being a skilful pilot and navigator, the king encouraged him to attempt discoveries by granting him a patent, in virtue whereof he had leave to go in search of strange lands, and to conquer and settle them. One-fifth of the profits was to be the king’s. The patent bears date March 5th, 1496, and is granted to Cabot and his three sons, Ludovico, Sebastian, and Sancio. There is some little difficulty in collating the various accounts collected by Hakluyt, but the voyage reported by Sebastian to the Pope’s legate in Spain is distinct enough. He says in effect that the discoveries of Columbus had inflamed his desire to attempt to reach India by the north-west. By studying the globe—“understanding by reason of the sphere,” he terms it—he thought that he must, theoretically at least, reach India that way, if no land intervened. He, of course, knew nothing of the icy barriers that stopped Franklin and M’Clure from actually taking a vessel that way. The king favoured his ideas, “and immediately commanded two caravels to bee furnished with all things appertayning to the voyage,” which was made, as far as he could remember, in 1496. Sailing to the north-west, he encountered land in latitude 56°. Then, despairing to find the passage, he turned back, sailing down the coast of America as far as Florida, when, his provisions failing, he returned to England. The Cabots brought home three natives of Newfoundland, who “were clothed in beasts’ skins, and did eate raw flesh, and, spake such speach that no man could understand them; and in their demeanour like to bruite beastes.” The attempt of Cabot furnishes a clue to the object of many subsequent voyages, which were