Sebastian Cabot

He was born in Venice, and, when still very young, was taken to England with the rest of his family by his father.

Continuing Cabots Discover North America Mainland,
our selection from Voyage of the Cabots 1497-1498 by Samuel Edward Dawson published in 1894. The selection is presented in six easy 5-minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Cabots Discover North America Mainland.

Time: 1497
Place: Newfoundland

All these circumstances concerning the first voyage are derived from John Cabot’s own reports, and are extracted from documents dated previous to the return of the second expedition, and therefore are, of necessity, free from admixture with extraneous incidents. Antonio Galvano, an experienced Portuguese sailor and cosmographer, writing in 1563, like the others, knows of one voyage only, which he fixes in 1496. He interweaves, like them, in his narrative many circumstances of the second voyage, but it is important to note that from some independent source is given the landfall at 45°, the latitude very nearly of Cape Breton, on the island of Cape Breton. Another point is also recorded in the letters that, on the return voyage, Cabot passed two islands to the right, which the shortness of his provisions prevented him from examining. This note should not be considered identical with the statement recorded by Soncino in his first letter, for this last writer evidently means to indicate the land which Cabot found and examined; he says that Cabot discovered two large and fertile islands but the two islands of Pasqualigo were passed without examination. They were probably the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon; but that John Cabot had no idea of a northward voyage at that time in his mind would appear from his intention to sail farther to the east on his next voyage until he reached the longitude of Cipango. Moreover, the reward recorded in the King’s privy-purse accounts “to hym that founde the new ile,” and the wording, thrice repeated, of the second letters-patent, “the land and isles of late found by the said John,” indicate that it was not at that time known whether the mainland of Cathay had been reached, or, as in the discoveries of Columbus, islands upon the coast of Asia.

From the preceding narrative, based solely upon documents written within twelve months of the event — which documents are records of statements taken from the lips of John Cabot, the chief actor, at the very time of his return from the first voyage — it will, I trust, appear that in 1497, at a time of year when the ice was not clear from the coasts of Labrador, he discovered a part of America in a temperate climate, and that this was done without the name of Sebastian Cabot once coming to the surface, excepting when it appears in the patent of 1496, together with the names of Lewis and Sancio, his brothers. While the circumstances recorded are incompatible with a landfall at Labrador, they do not exclude the possibility of a landfall on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, which is so varied in its character as to correspond with almost any conditions likely to be found in a landfall on the American coast; but inasmuch as, from other reasons, it will, I think, appear that the landfall was at Cape Breton, it will be a shorter process to prove by a positive argument where it was than to show by a negative argument where it was not.

I might here borrow the quaint phrase of Herodotus and say, “Now I have done speaking of” John Cabot. He has, beyond doubt, discovered the eastern coast of this our Canada, and he has organized a second expedition, and he has sailed in command. Forthwith, upon such sailing, he vanishes utterly, and his second son, Sebastian, both of his brothers having in some unknown way also vanished, emerges, and from henceforth becomes the whole Cabot family. It behooves us, therefore, if we wish to grasp the whole subject, to inquire what manner of man he was.

Sebastian Cabot was born in Venice, and, when still very young, was taken to England with the rest of his family by his father. He was then, however, old enough to have learned the humanities and the properties of the sphere, and to this latter knowledge he became so addicted that he, early in life, formed fixed ideas. He is probably entitled to the merit of having urged the practical application of the truths that the shortest course from point to point upon the globe lies upon a great circle, and also that the great circle uniting Western Europe with Cathay passes over the north pole. This fixed idea of the younger Cabot pervaded all his life and shows in all his reported conversations. He adhered to it with the pertinacity of a Columbus, and, in his later life after his return to England, his efforts, which in youth were directed to a northwest passage, went out toward a northeast passage to Cathay. John Cabot’s genius was more practical, as the second letter of Raimondo di Soncino shows. His intention was to occupy on the second voyage the landfall he had made and then push on to the east (west, as we call it now) and south. The diversion of that expedition to the coast of Labrador would indicate that the death of the elder Cabot and the assumption of command by his son occurred early in the voyage. Sebastian Cabot seems to have been not so much a great sailor as a great nautical theorizer. Gomara says he discovered nothing for Spain; and beyond doubt his expedition to La Plata cannot be considered successful, for it was intended to reach the Moluccas. One fixed idea of his life was the course to Cathay by the north. That idea he monopolized to himself. He overvalued its importance and thought to be the Columbus of a new highway to the east. Hence he may have underrated his father’s achievements as he brooded over what he considered to be his own great secret. He theorized on the sphere and he theorized on the variation of the compass, and he theorized on a method of finding longitude by the variation of the needle; so that even Richard Eden, who greatly admired him, wrote as follows: “Sebastian Cabot on his death-bed told me that he had the knowledge thereof (longitude by variation) by divine revelation, yet so that he might not teach any man. But I thinke that the goode olde man in that extreme age somewhat doted, and had not, yet even in the article of death, utterly shaken off all worldlye vaine glorie.” These words would seem to contain the solution of most of the mystery of the suppression of John Cabot’s name in the narratives of Peter Martyr, Ramusio, Gomara, and all the other writers who derived their information from Sebastian Cabot during his long residence in Spain.

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