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THE CABOTS AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA

With A Brief Description And History Of Brandon Hill, The Site Of The
Cabot Memorial Tower.

By Elizabeth Hodges

Illustrated By S. Loxton

London:


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THE CABOTS AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA


|CHIEF among the attractions of Bristol has been for centuries past the
church of St. Mary Redcliffe; while few names on her roll of fame are
more widely known than that of the ancient citizen to whom the stately
fabric owes so much of its grace and beauty.

And we grudge not the mead of praise. He who gives of his best to the
service of God and his fellow men deserves high honour. But, when all
is said, the work of William Canynge was as a drop in the ocean compared
with that accomplished by the merchant-pilot, his contemporary and
probable neighbour. Canynge helped to re-build a church; John
Cabot discovered a continent, and secured it for all time to the
English-speaking race. Yet the one has been remembered and revered; the
other neglected and forgotten. An anomaly, perhaps accounted for by
the fact that Bristol has ever been slow to recognise merit outside her
borders, and John Cabot was an alien, while the claims of Sebastian, his
son, to citizenship are still hotly contested; which is not surprising,
as the evidence so far obtainable rests mainly upon the contradictory
accounts of Sebastian himself.

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To an unprejudiced mind, however, the assertion made by him to his
friend Eden in old age, when he had no purpose in view and nothing to
gain by it, "that he was borne in Bristowe, and at iiii. yeare ould he
was carried with his father to Venice, and so returned agayne to England
with his father after certayne years, whereby he was thought to have
been borne in Venice," appears far more likely to be true than his
statement in middle life to Contarini, the Venetian Ambassador, by which
he sought to obtain wealth and honour, "I was borne in Venice, but was
bred in England."

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Practically, the birthplace of either father or son is of little moment,
even to Bristolians; nor the question of earlier voyages, so long as the
great fact remains--That it was from Bristol port, in a Bristol ship,
manned by Bristol sailors, on the initiative of Bristol merchants, that
John Cabot sailed on that memorable May morning four hundred years ago;
and that to Bristol port he returned in the following August, after
having planted the flag of St. George on the eastern-most point of Cape
Breton, in the Dominion of Canada, and taken possession of that great
northern continent for the King of England!--An achievement, be it
remembered, preceding by more than a year the landing of Columbus on the
Southern continent.

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That land across the wide Atlantic had been discovered long before Cabot
sighted it is now generally admitted. Setting aside the claims of Madoc
the Welshman and the Irish sailor-saint Brendan as not yet proven, it
is certain that the Icelanders planted a colony in Greenland as early as
the tenth century. The colony perished, but its traditions remained and
were the inciting cause of later voyages; for Bristol merchants trading
with Iceland, heard thereof and sent out ships in search of the
"new land" for seven successive years before the the sailing of the
"Matthew"--thinking to get by way of it to the Indies, or "far Cathay,"
the name given to all countries east of the Persian Gulf.

Unfortunately for the future historian, Sebastian Cabot not only
"romanced" concerning his birth-place, but also concerning his voyages;
in consequence of which he has been, for centuries, honoured as the
commander of the "Matthew" and the discoverer of America. Thanks,
however, to modern research among musty rolls and ancient charters, it
has been proved beyond a doubt that the commander of the Bristol ship
and discoverer of the Continent was John Cabot. Whether Sebastian ever
sailed at all on that first voyage is entirely conjectural. The evidence
that he did rests mainly upon a reported conversation held with
a stranger at Seville, in which he appears to have mixed up the
discoveries of the first expedition with those of later ones, and
ignoring his father's share, himself claimed credit for the whole!

A modern writer suggests in excuse that he feared to excite the jealous
displeasure of the King of Spain, in whose service he then was, by
attracting attention to the prior discovery of a continent which his
Catholic majesty would fain claim as his own. Perhaps, however, as
the conversation was transcribed not at second, but at third hand, the
indictment may be best taken with the proverbial grain of salt; and,
certainly, both on Sebastian's portrait and on his famous "Mappamundi,"
the claims of the elder Cabot are acknowledged.

Of John Cabot's birthplace no record exists, though some writers claim
the honour for Bristol. Recent research, however, has proved him to have
been of Norman extraction, descended from the Jersey Cabots or Chabots.
In 1476, for purposes of commerce, he became a Venetian citizen. When he
first came to London "to follow the trade of merchandise" is uncertain;
but