USA > Maine > A history of the discovery of Maine > Part 12
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Having come in sight of land in the far west, which they believed to be a part of Eastern Asia, having seen more water in the north, and having ascertained, at least for some distance, the trending of the coast, they were eager to bring this interesting news, as quickly as possible, home to Eng- land. The little vessel, the "Matthew," arrived in Bristol on some day in the early part of August, 1497 .;
2. VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
John Cabot, on his return in the month of August, 1497, was received in England with great joy, because he was said to have discovered " the island of the Seven Cities," and
* This is said in the letter of L. Pasqualigo, l. c. t This becomes pretty certain, at first, from an entry in the privy-purse accounts of Henry VII, which is dated "August 10, 1497," and in which the king says, "that he has given a reward of ten pounds to hym, that found the new Isle;" and, secondly, from the above-quoted letter of the Venetian Lorenzo Pasqualigo, who, under the date, " London, 23d August, 1497," announces to his brothers in Venice the return of John Cabot from bis voyage of discovery.
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1408.
" the country of the Great Chan " (the emperor of China), or, at least, a part of it ; and this was probably, also, the opinion of the Cabots themselves .*
Henry himself was also filled with hope and confidence ; and issued, in favor of John Cabot, another patent or license, dated February 3, 1498, in which he gave him permission to take, at his pleasure, in the king's name, six English vessels, in any port of the realın of England, "and them convey and lead to the land and iles, of late found by the said John in our name and by our commandment ; paying for them and every of them, as and if we should, in our own cause pay, and none otherwise."¡ The son of John Cabot, Sebastian, is not mentioned in this patent, as he had been in that of 1496. Yet he alone profited by it. For the father is not again men- tioned in connection with the voyage ; for what reason, is not disclosed. It is supposed that he died soon after the grant was made.
Sebastian was now, if Humboldt's supposition is true that he was born in 1477, a young man of about twenty or twenty- one years of age. And as he had become proficient in astronomy and mathematics, and had gained naval expe- rience in the voyage he had made in company with his father ; and as he knew better than any one else his father's views, and also the position of the newly discovered regions, he may now have well appeared to Henry, as a fit person for the command of another expedition to the north-west.
Two ships, manned with three hundred mariners and vol- unteers, were ready for him early in the spring of 1498; and he sailed with them from Bristol, probably in the begin- ning of the month of May.
* See this described in the above-quoted letter of Lorenzo Pasqualigo, 1. c. p. 20.
t See the patent in Biddle's Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, p. 76.
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
We have no certain information regarding his route. But he appears to have directed his course again to the country which he had seen the year before on the voyage with his father, our present Labrador .* He sailed along the coast of this country so far north, that, even in the month of July, he encountered much ice. Observing, at the same time, to his great displeasure, that the coast was trending to the east, t he resolved to give up a further advance to the north, and returned in a southern direction.
The northern latitude which Cabot had now reached, has been put down variously in the different notices of this voyage. In Ramusio, the latitude 56º north is given. But this cannot be true, because it is said in the same passage of Ramusio which mentions this latitude, that Cabot, finding in the highest latitude reached by him the coast turning to the east, in despair changed his course to the south; and because we now know, that in the said latitude of 56º N., the coast of Labrador does not turn toward the east.
The Spanish historian, Gomara, a contemporary of Cabot, and living with him in Spain, and who, consequently, may have known him personally, says that the ice encountered by Cabot in the month of July, and which hindered him from sailing further north, occurred in 58º north latitude. "Cabot himself," adds Gomara, "says that it was much more."
As "Cabot himself" is a much better authority on the point in question, than the incredulous Gomara, we must
* See the report which Sebastian Cabot himself communicated in a conversation with Peter Martyr, De Orbe novo, p. 232. Parisiis, 1587. See also Ramusio, Delle navigationi et viaggi, tom. 1, fol. 374. Vene- tiis, 1613.
t This turning of the coast to the east, is mentioned in Ramusio, vol. 1, fol. 374, as having been observed on Cabot's expedition in the year 1498. ¿ See Gomara, Historia de las Indias, fol. 20, 1. c. Saragossa, 1553.
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
think that he reached a higher latitude than 58º N., even according to Gomara's own statement.
The Portuguese Galvano, also one of the original and con- temporary authorities on Cabot's voyage of 1498, says, that having reached 60° north latitude, he and his men found the air very cold, and great islands of ice, and from thence putting about and finding the land to turn eastward, they trended along by it, to see if it passed on the other side. Then they sailed back again to the south .* From this report of Galvano it appears, that he believed that Cabot sailed much beyond 60º north latitude, and also along a tract of country toward the east.
As Cabot in 1498, without doubt, sailed along the coast of Labrador and the western shores of Davis' Strait, and as we have there no other long turn-off coast to the east beyond 60º north latitude, but the great peninsula of Cumberland, it becomes very probable, from Galvano, that he reached the shores of this peninsula in 673º north latitude, and that, despairing of finding a passage, he there turned to the south. In adopting this opinion, which was also that of Humboldt, we suppose that Cabot must have overlooked the compara- tively narrow entrance of Hudson's Strait, or that he found it obstructed by ice.
In his encounter and struggle with the ice in this high lati- tude he probably lost a great part of his men ;¿ and his crew may have been opposed to a further advance toward the north, though the young. commander himself appears to have
* See this in Galvano, The Discoveries of the World, edited by the Hak- luyt Society, p. 88. London, 1601.
t See Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, page 447. Berlin, 1852
# See upon this point D'Avezac in Bulletin de la Societé de Geographie, Aoüt et Septembre, 1857, p. 276.
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
been disposed to continue still further the search in that direction .*
From this northern terminus Cabot retraced his course southerly along the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland. At Newfoundland, he probably came to anchor in some port, and refreshed his men, and refitted his vessels after their arctic hardships. The harbors of Newfoundland have always been stations of refuge and for the refitting of vessels coming from the north. Perhaps Cabot had seen, on the voyage with his father, the abundance of fish on these coasts, which was so great, that the ships were said to have been stopped by their numberless swarms. He probably was the first fisherman on the banks or shores of Newfoundland, which through him became famous in Europe.
Sailing from Newfoundland south-west, he kept the coast in view as much as possible, on his right side, "always with the intent to find a passage and open water to India."f
The more he proceeded to the south, the more he deviated from his "shortest way" along the North Pole. But, having been baffled in the north, he probably thought, that even a longer way to the Indies would be better than no way at all. It is not likely, that, having failed to find this passage in the high north, he would have returned at once, in despair, to England. According to his notions of the configuration of the shores and countries in the western recesses of the ocean, he was, no doubt, convinced, that sailing south he would very
* See upon this Ramusio in his preface to the third volume of his great work (Edit. Venetia, 1556), fol. 4, where he appears to me to speak of this voyage made at the command of Henry VII, in 1498, though others have believed, that he speaks of some other voyage.
f Ramusio, vol. 1, fol. 374, Venetia, 1613, where Cabot himself is made to say, "me ne tornai à dietro à riconoscere anchora à la detta costa dalla parte verso l' equinottiale, sempre con intentione di trovar passagio alle Indie."
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
soon find water broadly opening toward China. Such open waters were depicted on all the globes and maps which Cabot would have consulted, on the maps of Toscanelli, Bartholo- mew Columbus, Behaim, and other geographers. Neither Cabot nor any one else, at that time, had the slightest expecta- tion of meeting, on a western route, an immense continent other than that of Asia. He expected, at every stage, to see the end of Newfoundland, and to find, not merely a narrow strait, but the vast Western Ocean itself. This, perhaps, was the reason, that, on this coasting voyage, he appears not to have taken notice of the comparatively narrow entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. If he observed something of it, he may not have thought it worth his while to explore it, expecting to find a more open passage further south.
After having sailed along the south-east of Newfoundland, and passed the entrance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, he must have come in sight of the coast of Nova Scotia. At the south-eastern end of this peninsula he would see the coast abruptly falling off to the west and north-west; and, of course, must have followed this trending of the shore-line in the direction of his intended route. It is, therefore, very probable, that he entered with good hope the broad Gulf of Maine, and came to and sailed along its coast.
The entire elevated coast of Maine is seen at a great dis- tance from the ocean. This view, no doubt, convinced him, that there could be no broad water in that direction. He therefore passed speedily on, losing no time in minute explora- tion. We must always keep in mind, that a detailed exami- nation could not have entered into the designs of Cabot. In his expectation of finding a broad ocean to the west, such as was portrayed on the maps of his time, he, of course, must have been disposed to neglect narrower inlets, and even such as were only moderately broad. As long as he saw the con-
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
tinuous line of coast, he went onward further to the south- west, quite sure that the great ocean, presented on the maps as lying eastward of China, must soon make its appearance.
It is, however, probable, that, in the southern parts of the Gulf of Maine, he approached the coast somewhat nearer, because they are there lower, and, from a distance, not so easily recognized as being land-locked. Thus he may have been caught in this cul de sac of Cape Cod Bay, entering it for the purpose of looking for a passage. But he was beaten back by the shores, turning round to the east, and was forced to circumnavigate the long hook of the cape. The hopes, with which he had been filled at the south-eastern extremity of Nova Scotia (Cape Sable), were now lowered again, and that disagreeable hook of Cape Cod, of so unusual a shape, must have impressed itself on his memory, and been delin- eated on his chart. In the Appendage to this chapter, where I shall give what has come down to us of Cabot's chart, and examine it, I shall have occasion to point out upon it certain coast-lines which appear to me to represent Cape Cod and the Gulf of Maine, and, consequently, to support the view, that Cabot visited both these objects of the coast and reconnoi- tered them; an opinion which I think I have made somewhat probable.
After having rounded Cape Cod, he must have felt fresh hope. He saw a coast running to the west and open water before him in that direction. It is therefore nearly certain, that he entered somewhat that broad gulf, in the interior corner of which lies the harbor of New York. I say "some- what;" for it is not at all necessary to suppose, that Cabot made a thorough search of this gulf, to convince himself of its being land-locked. The soundings were sufficient to make this known to him. The soundings in that gulf and along the whole coast to the south of New York, are very low. At
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a distance of a hundred miles from the coast, they begin to decrease from sixty fathoms to twenty and ten, and still less. Cabot, of course, was constantly sounding; the sounding-lead at that time being one of the principal instruments for detecting the approach to land. They would enter this gulf only so far as it was necessary for them to be convinced, that the coast was near. The question, therefore, which has been raised, whether Cabot saw any thing of New York harbor,* cannot be answered with any degree of certainty.
From a statement contained in the work of Peter Martyr it appears, however, certain, that Cabot landed on some places of the coast along which he sailed. This author, relating a conversation which he had with his friend Cabot, on the subject of his voyage of 1498, says, that Cabot told him "he had found, on most of the places, copper or brass among the aborigines" (orichalcum in plerisque locis se vidisse apud incolas praedicat). ¡ From another authority we learn, that he captured some of these aborigines and brought them to England, where they lived and were seen a few years after his return, by the English chronicler, Robert Fabyan.# It is not stated at what place he captured those Indians ; but it was not customary with the navigators of that time to take on board the Indians, until near the time of their leaving the country. Cabot's Indians, therefore, were proba- bly captured on some shore south of New York harbor. At all events, from both the statements alluded to, it becomes highly probable, that this great discoverer put his feet on the shores of the present United States, which, in several respects, it is not uninteresting to know.
* For instance, by Rev. Mr. Miller in his discourse on the discovery of New York harbor in New York Historical Collections, vol. 1, p. 23. t Peter Martyr, De orbe Novo, Dec. 3, cap. 6.
[ See the quotation from Fabyan's chronicle in Hakluyt, vol. 3, p. 31, Ed. London, 1810.
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
When beyond the vicinity of New York Cabot saw the coast taking a more southern turn, and holding on in this direction, his hopes for a large and distant run to the west, must have entirely vanished ; and his provisions also falling short, and apprehending that he was approaching the Spanish possessions, he now entered on his homeward voyage.
The southern terminus of his voyage is pretty well ascer- tained. He himself informed his friend, Peter Martyr, that he went as far south as about the latitude of the Strait of Gibraltar,* that is to say, about 36° north latitude, which is near that of Cape Hatteras.
Peter Martyr adds the following : "He sailed so far to the west, that he had the island of Cuba on his left hand, nearly in the same degree of longitude." This additional remark, some authors have interpreted as if he had intended to cor- rect himself, and to add, that Cabot had sailed along the entire coast of the United States down to Cape Florida ; where, at last, he had the island of Cuba quite near to his larboard side. But it is evident, that neither Peter Martyr nor Cabot intended by this statement to determine anything about his latitude. That was fixed at the latitude of the Strait of Gibraltar. Cuba was mentioned only to determine the longitude. The east coast of North America, in 36° north latitude, is in about the longitude of the eastern part of the island of Cuba ; and a navigator, who sails along that coast with the idea of penetrating to the west, may well say, that he had the island of Cuba on the left, -- but, of course, at a great distance.
At the time Cabot made the above statement to Peter Martyr, which was before the year 1515,; the island of Cuba
* See Peter Martyr, l. c.
t Peter Martyr's record of his conversation with Cabot was written in 1515; but the conversation itself must have taken place before, between 1512 and 1315.
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
was the only place north of Hispaniola (St. Domingo) and the other West Indian islands, of which the position was known with certainty. It was therefore natural for Cabot, to use this island in order to make his longitude intelligible. It was the more natural, because Cabot, in the latitude of the Strait of Gibraltar, must have thought himself much nearer to the island of Cuba than he really was. At the time of his voyage-and even much later-that island was laid down on the charts several degrees too far north.
From this I consider it clear, that Cabot saw nothing of our coast to the south of Cape Hatteras.
On the direction of his homeward track from the shores of the United States to England, the short original reports of his voyage state nothing. The nearest route to England was running on the same track on which he had come out, that is to say, back along the coasts of New York, New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. And, according to what we have stated above on his knowledge of the globe, and the shortest route by great circle-sailing, we should be inclined to think, that he returned by this route, and came again in sight of the New England coast. It is however possible, that, like the greater part of the navigators of his time, he may have followed a more southern track by the Azores.
On their return from their first voyage of 1497, the Cabots believed, that they had discovered portions of Asia, and so proclaimed it. But the more extensive discoveries of the second voyage corrected the views of Sebastian, and revealed to him nothing but a wild and barbarous coast stretching through thirty degrees of latitude, from 673° to 36°. The discovery of this impassable barrier across his passage to Cathay, as he often complained, was a sore displeasure to him. Instead of the rich possessions of China, which he hoped to reach, he was arrested by a New found land, savage and
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
uncultivated. A spirited German author, Dr. G. M. Asher, in his life of Henry Hudson, published in London in 1860, observes : " The displeasure of Cabot involves the scientific discovery of a new world. He was the first to recognize, that a new and unknown continent was lying, as one vast barrier, between Western Europe and Eastern Asia."
Still, a long time after Cabot, geographers represented on their maps Newfoundland, Labrador, and the neighboring territory, as parts of Northern Asia. But Cabot, on the first chart of his discoveries, which has been preserved to us by a Spanish cosmographer, represented the entire eastern coast of North America as a separate and independent conti- nent, entirely distinct from Asia.
The scientific results of Cabot's voyage consequently were very great, though they could not be appreciated at once by all his contemporaries.
The more practical, pecuniary, and commercial gains of the expedition were not so attractive as the merchants of Bristol and the covetous Henry had expected : it was probably for this reason, principally, that when Cabot made proposals in the following year, 1499, for another expedition to the same regions, he was supported neither by the king nor the mer- chants .* For several years the scheme for the discovery of a north-western route to Cathay, was not much favored in England.
Nevertheless, the voyage of this gifted and enterprising youth along the entire coast of the present United States, nay, along the whole extent of that great continent, in which now the English race and language prevail and flourish, has
* Nevertheless, some authors believe that he made in that year another voyage of discovery, which, however, is said to have been directed to the tropical regions. The scattered hints which we have on this expedition of 1493, have been collected in Biddle's Memoir, p. 91 seq.
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VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT IN 1498.
always been considered as the true beginning, the foundation and corner-stone of all the English claims and possessions in the northern half of America. English flags were the first which were planted along those shores, and English men were the first of modern Europeans, who with their own eyes sur- veyed the border of that great assemblage of countries, in which they were destined to become so prominent ; and were also the first to put their feet upon it. The history of each one of that chain of States, stretching along the western shores of the Atlantic, begins with Sebastian Cabot, and his expedition of 1498. And this is especially true of the State of Maine, and the other States of New England; whose remarkable coasts were particularly observed by him, and clearly delineated on his chart, as I shall endeavor to show in my examination of Cosa's map.
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Nº. IV.
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The Ocean and Sstands between Weftern Europe and Gaftern Afla from the Globus of Martin Behaim 1492.
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APPENDAGE TO CHAPTER IV.
1. ON THE MAP, No. 4, OF THE OCEAN AND ISLANDS BETWEEN WESTERN EUROPE AND EASTERN ASIA, FROM THE GLOBE OF MARTIN BEILAIM, 1492 .*
MARTIN BEHAIM, a well-known German astronomer and cosmogra- pher, was born in Nuremburg in the year 1459, and in 1479 went from there to Lisbon, where several of his countrymen were settled. Being a scholar of the celebrated German astronomer and mathematician, Regiomontanus, he soon made himself known among the Portuguese for his cosmographical and mathematical knowledge, and was made, by John II, of Portugal, a member of a commission for improving ma- rine instruments. In the year 1483, he constructed upon the principle of his master, Regiomontanus, a new astrolabium, which was adopted by this commission and introduced into the Portuguese navy. The Por- tuguese navigators were enabled, by this instrument, to find their lati- tude with much more accuracy than before.
Behaim himself, in company with the Portuguese discoverers, made extensive voyages along the coast of Africa and to the Azores, where he married a Portuguese lady of Flemish extraction. In all these and other respects his life was similar to that of Columbus, with whom he became personally acquainted in Lisbon. He shared the views of Co- lumbus on the feasibility of a passage from Portugal to India on a western route, and on the short distance between Western Europe and Eastern Asia. He did not, however, make this voyage; but in the glo- rious year 1492, the German cosmographer, being on a visit to his friends in Nuremburg, constructed the celebrated globe, on which he clearly proved, that it was possible to do, what the more enterprising Italian meanwhile did.
* See upon this globe and upon Behaim, the work : F. W. Ghillany, Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim. Nurnberg, 1853.
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MAP OF BEHAIM, 1492.
This globe, on which the entire world and all its then known parts and islands were depicted, is highly interesting to us, because we see represented upon it the views and ideas of Behaim, which were also more or less those of Toscanelli, Columbus, Cabot, and all their intelli- gent and well-informed contemporaries.
In map No. 4, I have given from that globe only the portion which most interests us here; namely, the western coasts of Europe and Northern Africa, the eastern coast of Asia, and the ocean and islands between them. With respect to the configuration of these coasts and islands, and the distances between them, our copy is a reduced fac- simile, from the copy of the globe in the above-quoted work of Ghilla- ny, though not in the handwriting, names, and inscriptions. The original has many names in Asia and Africa, which I have left out as not connected with our subject. I have retained nearly all those of the islands as important; but have omitted the long German inscriptions or legends added to them, of which I shall speak, however, as occasion may require.
In the north-east of our representation appears "Island " (Iceland), under the arctic circle. To the south of it, in the same meridian, " Ir- lant" (Ireland) and " Hispania " (Spain). In Africa I have preserved only the names " Atlas Montes " (Mount Atlas), " Cabo verde " (Cape Verde), and " Sera lion " (Sierra Leone).
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