ROYAL SOC. CAN, VOL, SEC. 1, THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA — BY JOHN CABOT IN 1497 BEING EXTRACTS FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA RELATIVE’ TO A CABOT CELEBRATION IN 1897 AND THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS A PAPER. FROM ‘THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY IN. 1896 WITH APPENDICES ON KINDRED SUBJECTS “By SAMUEL EDWARD DAWSON, Lit.D. (Laval) OTTAWA FOR SALE BY JAMES HOPE AND SONS cena AE ce naa i RSS NN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY JOHN CABOT IN 1497 IE ‘TY OF CANADA IN IN 1897 With the Author’s Compliments. , CABOTS A PAPER FROM THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY IN 1896 WITH APPENDICES ON KINDRED SUBJECTS ¢ By SAMUEL EDWARD DAWSON, Lit.D. (Laval) OTTAWA FOR SALE BY JAMES HOPE AND SONS 13896 = ——— EE THE ~ DISCOVERY OF AMERICA | BY JOHN CABOT IN 1497 BEING EXTRACTS FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA RELATIVE TO A CABOT CELEBRATION IN 1897 AND THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS A PAPER FROM THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY IN 1896 WITH APPENDICES CN KINDRED SUBJECTS } rd By SAMUEL EDWARD DAWSON, Lit.D. (Laval) OTTAWA FOR SALE BY JAMES HOPE AND SONS 1896 Ai AAD SL Na SI A UL a . . — Se eee z 3 3 = TS Se PREFACE. In order to place before the members a convenient summary of the present state of the projecced celebration of the fourth centenary of the discovery of America by John Cabot, advantage has been taken of the detached publication of a paper on the Voyages of the Cabots, read at Yug ) the meeting of the Society in May last, to pretix such extracts from the 5S ' ) Proceedings as have any bearing on the question, NM TET ERD, TER ier rytg Ade Slab eared Aaa a Slice nae CONTENTS. PAGE EXTRACTS FROM THE ReEPorT oF Council, MAY, 1896 .....c..eceee Vil Letter from the Rey. Dr. O’Brien, A rchbishop of Halifax......... Vil Letter from Mr, Clements R. Markham, F.R.S.. President of the Royal Geographical Society.......isrwseovsesssevscedaescenveessceees Vil Lotter trom: Dr.) webin: Wieor 543s ca sinigacedacessdcaesenaus. peedsdvacae VItI Letter from the Rey, Dr. Harvey....... see cuales cataaian totes tatvetcaees 1X Report of the Committee on the Cabot Celebration ........ .cecee8 XEL Rosolutions Of The: Socks os suvsecvavedaos cunycecedearyeekvns ies Heedebess XIV TRANSACTIONS. THe Voyages or THe Canors In 1497 anv 1498—A Sequel to a Paper in the © Transactions” of 1894 "y Samuel Edward DU WSO, Tits CAVA) Vrs ssledececasyauccivad teeseadhsgads oaReeis ues 3 AprpENDIX A.—The Atlantic Coast of Labrador.........cccccceceucceceees 17 B.-—Living Slime of the Arctic Current ..........cccceee canes 20) C.—Cape North on the Map of 1544......... .....06 Suxealida 21 ee D.—Juan de La Cosa and his Map.......... . csceeseeseeeeees 23 a B= J AO US CALTELOR sa irpsinis tvpeketwidocad seseedawsein ieee 469% 26 h.—The Liturgical Method of tracing the Discovery of au Coast Line .......... seivade eae sain te Serr Jevsnetadesestecs ak G.—Table of the Dates of Arrival of the Cod on the Coasts of Labrador.,........ dae Sage eacinnes wavidedtbedace OO IN OD BS sis cl sock sata as vane ga ate nails eaens senate waka eral oa Ge lena ened eeees 30 ILLUSTRATIONS : Map of Juan do La Cosa, A.D. 1500...........ccceccececeeeecen es 2 Exterior Outline of Cape Breton Island ....-..........00e000ee Bei 21 Outline facsimile of a portion of the Map of 1544........... ...0608 22 Corresponding Outline of the Acadian Coast..............65. iaensens 23 View of Cape Race from the Sea ...........cc ce cece ee eceveeneeeeence 26 AXTRACT FROM THE REPORT OF COUNCIL, The Society will be called upon at the present meeting to decide finally whether it will assemble at Halifax in 1897 from the 20th to the 26th of June, and commemorate the landing of the famous navigator John Cabot, on some point on the Atlantic coast of the North American continent, The committee appointed last year to consider the subject will report to the Society through Dr. S. KE. Dawson, who has given to the famous voyages of 1497 and 1498 most patient and thorough study. The proposed celebration has attracted the attention of historical students everywhere, and, if the matter is pushed with energy, there is no doubt that the meeting will be largely attended. The Archbishop of Halifax, Dr. O’Brien, who is at present at Rome, has written to the honorary secretary in the following terms : “ ArcuBISHOP’s House, HALIFAX, N.S., Jan. 31st, 1896. “ Dear Dr. Bourtnot,—I leave on 15th Feb., for Rome, and shall pay a short visit to Egypt and Jerusalem, As [ cannot be back in time for the meeting of the Royal Society, and may not be in the way of sending a note at that time, I beg you to accept this as my excuse for non-appear- ance. “Regarding the report the sub-committee are expected to make, re meeting at Halifax in 1897, I see no difficulty in arranging suitably during the course of next summer, If’ it should seem advisable to you and the other members of the committee, we could easily arrange for an excur- sion to Sydney, set up a stone there—the most suitable place as Cape Breton is inaecessible—and thus fittingly celebrate the occasion. “T remain, ‘‘ Dear Dr. Bourinot, “ Yours very sincerely, “C. O'Brien.” Several letters have also been received from distinguished persons whose historical and cartographical knowledge enables them to speak with authoriiy on the subject of the Cabot voyages. Special attention is called to the following interesting letter from Mr, Clements R. Markham, F.R.S., C.B., the president ot the Royal Geographical Society, whose opinion is of great value. It will be seen that he promises the ¢O-oper- ation of the great society of which he is at present the distinguished head, Mr. Markham writes : , “21 Eccigsrone Square, Lonpon, 8.W., April 26th, 1896, ‘‘ Dear Sir,—I have read the proposal for a Cabot celebration, in Can- ada, on the 24th of June, 1897, in the ‘ Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada,’ with great satisfaction ond interest. VIII THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS “It is fitting that the memorable achievement of that intrepid seaman, John Cabot, should be remembered on the four hundredth anniversary of his discovery, and it seems to me to be specially fitting that a commemor- ation should take place in the land which he Was the first to discover, “There is great significance in the voyage of Cabot. It was not the first British enterprise of the kind; for during the previous seven years expeditions had been annually despatched from Bristol to discover land to the westward. But it was the first that was led by a man possessed of ull the scientitic knowledge of his time, and the first that was successful. * John Cabot must, therefore, be considered to have been the founder of British maritime enterprise. It is unfortunate that nothing has been preserved that can give us a clear idea of the man, of his character and hisattainments. We can forma judgment of Columbus from his writings. We know something of his heroisms and of his failings, He is a living man to us, and, therefore, he has attained world-wide celebrity, and appeals to our sympathy and our reverence, John Cabot is little more than a name; but it is a great name. The few certain facts we know concerning him are immortal facts, ever to be had in remembrance. THe made the third voyage across the Atlantic and returned. He discovered the mainland of America. He raised the beacon which showed Knglish- men the way to the new world. He was the first to hoist the cross of St. (reorge on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean. His fate is unknown. Searcely anything is known of his companions. But the names of three Englishmen are preserved, who certainly fitted out vessels, and probably went with Cabot in 1498. The names of Laicelot Thirkill, Thomas Bradley, and John Carter, therefore, should also be had in remembrance, * There are very solid reasons for a Cabot celebration ; very complete justifications of the proposal of the Royal Society of Canada. I trust that the proposal will receive the support it deserves, and I can assure you that this honour, done to the memory of the great navigator, has my very cordial sympathy ; and I am sure that it will have the sympathy of the Society over which I have the honour to preside, “ Believe me, dear sir, to be ever “ Yours faithfully, “CLEMENTS R. Markuam, * President R. G. 8. “ Dr. J. G. Bourinot, Secretary to the Royal Society of Canada.” Dr. Justin Winsor, the librarian of Harvard University, and editor of the “ Narrative and Critical History of America,” whose knowledge of artography is not equalled by that of any other student in America, also writes to the society : ‘Gore Haut, Campripas, Mass., May 2nd, 1896. “ Dear Dr. Bourtnot,—I think the Royal Society does well to com. memorate the Cabot voyages. Perhaps I can send a paper in June, 1897, I shall be at that time on my way abroad for fifteen months’ absence, A ai i Nani Se seaman, orsary of amemor- over, snot the en years ver land sessed of iccessful, founder has been ster and vritings, a living ity, and le more re know ce. He covered inglish- ss of St. known, f three robably Thomas brance. ymplete I trust assure has my athy of GS. editor dge of ‘a, also 896. 0 com: , 1897. Ce, na hat cael a i ei i pata PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY IX “Could it not be arranged that the meeting of 1897 at Halifax be a joint meeting of the Royal Society and the American Historical Assovia- tion, with delegates from the state historical societies ? “Very truly, “Justin WINsor, Dr. Moses Harvey, F.R.S.C., the well-known historical writer of Newfoundland, also approves most warmly of the idea in the following terms : “Sr, Jony’s, Newfoundland, May 5th, 1896, “Dear Dr. Bourtnor,—I am glad to learn that at the approaching meeting of the Royal Society of Canada a proposal will be submitted in favour of some suitable celebration of the discovery of the continent of' North America by John Cabot. Iam aware that 2 proposal of the same nature has been laid before the public of Canada, and T believe also, to some small extent, before the people of the United States, and has met with a favourable response. [ have long taken a deep interest in this matter, and in a paper on ‘The Voyages and Discoveries of the Cabots,’ read before the Historical Society of Nova Scotia, November 14th, 1893, and since printed in their ‘Collections,’ I ventured to make a suggestion in favour of such a celebration as is now under discussion. in 1897, the fourth centenary of Cabot’s great achievement. Subsequently I sent you a brief communication on the same subject which you were good enough to lay before the Royal Society of Canada, where it met with a favour- able reception. Doubtiess the same thought may have presented itself to many other minds ; but whether I was the first to give it expression in tangible shape is of little moment. That it is now likely to be translated into fact and become an embodied r ality is to me a matter of profound satisfaction, as it will be the realization of a long-cherished hope, “ Indeed it seems to me that the proposal is one which will commend itself, when duly expounded and considered, to most men of thought and intelligence. The whole civilized world lately united in celebrating the fourth centenary of the discovery of America with unequalled pomp and splendour and in heaping fresh laurels on the grave of Columbus. The Old World fittingly joined hands with the New, in expressing their sense of the greatness of an achievement which must stand alone in the records of time as having influenced the destinies of humanity more widely and permanently than any other single deed accomplished by the courege and genius of man, But, while we would not for a moment detract from the glory which must for ever encircle the name of Columbus, should we for- get to honour the memory of the man who achieved a discovery which though not so brilliant and dazzling as that of Columbus, yet, judging it by its far-reaching results, was second only to his. The real discoverer of North America was John Cabot; and his landing on its shores pre- ceded by nearly a year the date when Columbus first touched, without i ee ao eet mor a X THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS knowing it, the coast 0, South America, In virtue of Cabot’s discoveries England established her claims to the sovereignty ‘f a large portion of these northern laads. The fish-wealth of these northern seas, which Cabot was the first to make known, speedily attracted fishermen ; and for the provection and development of the fisheries colonies were first planted, Other nations, such as France, profited by the great discovery. That North America is now so largely occupied by an English speaking population, with all their vast energies and accumulated wealth, has been largely owing to the daring genius of Cabot who opened a pathway to the northern portion of the new hemisphere. But for Cabot, Spain might have monopolized discovery in North as well as South America; English and French enterprise might have taken different directions and the his- tory of North America been shaped in different fashion. “The genius and courage of Cabot were second only to those of Col- umbus. He too pushed out in a little barque into the unknown waters of one of the stormiest seas in the world, braving its perils, and opened the way to new and boundless regions of natural wealth. Cartier, Marquette, La Salle, followed as explorers, ‘The Old Dominion,’ founded by Sir Walter Ralegh, was the first of that cluster of colonies which finally developed into the United States. Quebec was founded and the occupa- tion of Canada commenced, All this was the outcome of Cabot’s voyage in 1497. As truly as Columbus pioneered the way in the south did Cabot open the way to a far nobler civilization in the north, the developments of which continue to expand before our eyes to-day. As Fiske has well remarked in his ‘Discovery of America,’ ‘The first fateful note that heralded the coming English supremacy was sounded when John Cabot’s tiny craft sailed out from Bristol Channel on a bright May morning of 1497.’ “Tt seems to me that it would not be creditable to the northern people to permit the year 1897 to pass without some worthy celebration in grateful recollection of the man who first opened North America to Euro- pean civilization. It would be no more than an act of tardy justice ; for it is discreditable to England that one of the bravest of her sailors who gave her a continent, has never yet had the smallest honour conferred on his name, or the most insignificant recognition of the vast services he rendered to his adopted country. He sleeps in an unknown grave and no statue or monument has been raised to his memory. “ Let us hope, then, that this reproach will soon be wiped away and that arrangements will be made ere long for paying a, becoming tribute to one of the noblest names on the roll of England’s great explorers. “There are strong reason 3 why Canada should lead the way in such a celebration. It is perhaps impossible to decide with certainty as to the landfall of Cabot, or to reach unanimity of opinion on that point We must be guided by probabilities, as in many of the most important affairs oe pints E Tisai eras ne edit ai liscoveries portion of as, which men ; and were first discovery, speaking , has been ithway to un might ; English | the his- se of Col- waters of ened the arquette, 1 by Sir h finally occupa- s voyage id Cabot Opments has well ote that Cabot’s rning of n people ition in o Kuro- ice; for ors who rred on ‘ices he ave and ay and tribute 's. such a to the t We affairs Pee iat lis ie ah chee NSE nt alle co PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY XI of life, But it seems to me that the preponderance of evidence is alto- gether in favour of some part of the island of Cape Breton having been the first land seen by Cabot, At all events his discoveries pioneered the way for the original settlement of Canada, so that Canadians would fit- tingly take the lead in a centenary celebration. Newfoundland was cer- tainly discovered by Cabot at some time during his first voyage, and doubtless will join in a Cabot celebration. “T do not presume to conjecture what shape such a commemoration may take; but Iam satisfied it will be one that. will be worthy of the great name of Cabot and worthy of the great confede ‘acy that initiates and carries out such a centenary celebration, ‘Sincerely yours, “M. Harvey.” The founder of the society, the Marquis of Lorne, takes much inter- est in the project, and writes most approvingly to the secretary, and it is proposed to invite both him and Mr. Markham to be present on the oceca- sion of the celebration, In directing the attention of the society once more to the subject, the council need only remark that in honouring the famous Italian navigator there is no thought of detracting in the slightest degree from the fame of the intrepid sailor of St. Malo, who was assuredly the first to enter the great valley of the St. Lawrence, and see the ancient Villages of Canada on the banks of the great river, which he followed to Hocheiaga. But all historians agree that John Cabot discovered the continent of North America before the Spaniard had even landed on the shores of Florida, and an eminent Spanish pilot, the Basque, Juan de La Cosa, who accom- panied Columbus on_ his voyages, has recognized beyond dispute the claim of English discovery on the Atlantic coast of North America by his remarkable map. Englend, therefore, owes much to Cabot, since it is on his discovery that her claim to the country on the Atlantic seaboard of the continent was first based. Ver ‘azano, On Whose misty later voy- age the French also based a claim, came to America twenty-seven years later. It seems, then, only fitting that the people of the Canadian Dominion, who own so large a portion of the continent on which Cabot first landed, should at last pay a tribute of respect to the memory of a great navigator, whose name must always be recorded on the scroll on which the names of Columbus, Corte Real, Verrazano and Cartier already find so conspicuous a place. 628 BO ARE Pa XII THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS Report oF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED IN May, 1895, iN RELATION TO THE COMMEMORATION IN 1897 oF THE Discovery oF THE Matn- LAND oF Norti AMERICA By JOHN CABOT, Your committee regret that, in discussing this important question, the society will not, at this meeting, have the aid of two of the members of the committee—the Most Reverend the Archbishop of THalifax and Mr. Sandford Fleming—who, from their intimate local knowledge, apart from all other considerations, would be of great assistance in the deliber- ations of the society. They are, however, contident that the substance of this report is in accordance with the views of the whole committee, inas- much as the archbishop has expressed his views in letters, and Mr. Sandford Fleming in several conversations with the remaining members, While the committee are of opinion that the greatly preponderating weight of evidence points to the easternmost cape of Cape Breton as the landfall of John Cabot in 1497, they would observe that the commemor- ation now proposed will not commit the Royal Society of Canada, as a whole, to the definite acceptance of that theory. The alternative theory of a landfall on Labrador excludes any possibility of a commemoration there; because no locality on a coast extending over eight degrees of latitude has been specially indicated, excepting Cape Chidley, which is un- approachable because of ice at the time of the landfall, and, if a lower latitude be assumed, the want of means of communication on the coast of Labrador renders it for such a purpose inaccessible. The event to be commemorated is the discovery of the continent of America on the 24th of June, 1497—an event of profound importance, the far-reaching conse- quences of which cannot be over-estimated. Such an event the Royal Society of Canada cannot afford to ignore. Nevertheless, although the society may not definitely decide upon the locality of the landfall, it is fitting that the commemoration should take place upon the Atlantic coast of the Dominion; for, beyond ail question, it was along that coast that Cabot sailed, and he did not pene- trate into any part of the gulf. For this reason the proposal to hold the next meeting of the society at Halifax seems most appropriate ; and that city, from its accessibility and the facilities it possesses for such a meet- ing, is well suited for the celebration. If the resolution of the society, at its last meeting, to hold the ses- sion of 1897 at Halifax be sustained, it will be necessary to appoint, at this meeting, a committee to make the requisite arrangements. That committee should be commissioned to act in concert with a committee of citizens of Halifax who may be disposed to co-operate with them. That would be their first duty, and the joint committee would then make such further arrangements as might appear necessary. LATION TO ‘HE MAIN- t question, » members vifux and dge, apart he deliber- Ibstance of ittee, inas- , and Mr, members. mnderating ton as the ommMemor- nada, asa ive theory emoration legrees of hich is un- if a lower e coast of ent to be 1 the 24th ing conse- the Royal side upon on should eyond ail not pene- » hold the and that 1 a meet- d the ses- ppoint, at ts. That mittee of m. That lake such Rants Bie RNS Saveteiins aciicnsiicdatasdad ble PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY XIII It will be remembered that the council of the Royal Society, at the mecting in May last, suggested that a permanent memento of the great achievement of Cabot should be erected upon some point of the Nova Scotia coast. Your committee would remark that no place on the whole Atlantic coast seems so suitable as Sydney. On the brow of the hill over- looking the mouth of the harbour is an ideal spot for such a monument. Standing there the spectator may look out eastwards upon a stretch of ocean, unbroken and uninterrupted, until it washes the western shore of Brittany or extends into the English Channel, This spot is about twenty miles in a direct line from the easternmost point of land in the province, At this remote period it is impossible to locate with certainty, within a few miles, the precise spot upon which the banner of St, George was first planted ; and, while your committee believe that the landfall was at the easternmost point of Cape Breton, it is not probable that the exact apex of that point was lighted upon after so long a voyage across an ocean of' darkness. Sydney would then, in their opinion, seem to be sufticiently near the landfall, if the Cape Breton theory be adopted, and yet the society will not be so absolutely bound to that theory as if they were to erect & monument on the Cape itself. The Cape is an unfrequented and forgotten place. No one now lands on 2 point which was the rendezyous of the fishing fleets of three hundred years ago, and one of two points found on all the maps from 1504 down to the present moment. There are many very well informed men, even in the maritime provinces, who do not know of a real Cape Breton, which gives its name to the Isle Royale of old Louisbourg days. The overjoyed courtier who, at an anxious period of the old French war, ran to tell King George that Cape Bretoa was an island was the prototype of a number of excellent people Who are discovering that the island is named after a cape, next to Cape Race, the most ancient. and persistently known to mariners since the veil of the western ocean was lifted, Sydney is the easternmost settle- ment of any importance on the continent of America, and may, therefore, rightly claim the monument to Cabot. Your committee have inquired into the mitter, and find that a simple and sufticient monument could be erected at a cost ot $1,000 to $1.800. Without in the least degree compromising the question or bind- ing themselves, still less the society, to even an opinion, they obtained tentative drawings, with approximate cost. It now remains for the society to decide upon what is required and as to the amount it js advisable to expend. The drawings are, in the committee's opinion, un- suitable, but they are useful as a guide to the approximate cost of the monument to be erected. The monument should be easily visible from vessels entering the harbour, and an Obelisk about twenty feet high could be had for about $1,000, and would, in their opinion, be more suitable. SE te XIV THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS Such mementos of’ great historic events often cost lar ning up to many thousands of dollars, and without some de point the subject could not be discussed, Your committee trust that this report will be sufficiently detinite to bring the whole question up in such a way that it may be thoroughly und intelligently discussed. If anything is to be done, it must be done at this meeting. ge sums, run- finite starting- On motion the report was adopted, Moved by Dr. S. E. Dawson, seconded by Dr. George Stewart,— “That the Committee on the Cabot celebration be continued, and that Mr. B. Sulte and Capt. Deville be added thereto, with power to add to their number from among the members of’ the Society resident in Nova Scotia, and that the Committee so constituted be instructed to make arrangements for the meeting of the Society in 1897, at Halifax.’— Carried. d Moved by Dr. S. EB. Dawson, seconded by Dr. George Stewart, — “That the Most Reverend the Archbishop of Halifax, the Hono ‘ary Sec- retary, and Messrs, Sandford Fleming and S, FE. Dawson be appointed a committee to obtain designs for a monument to be erected at Sydney to commemorate the discovery of America by John Cabot—such monument not to cost less than $1000—and to submit the designs to the Council for adoption, and that the Council be hereby wuthorized to approve and finally to adopt a design and to give an order for its execution whenever | it shall appear that funds will be a railable, from subscriptions or any 4 other source, to pay for the work.’—Carried, Ottawa, meeting of May, 1896. NE acta bE lRS Sit Ria iio liam conte ae Ai a sums, run- ite starting- y detinite to thoroughly ust be done Stewart,— 1, and that to add to it in Nova d to make Halifax.’ Stewart, — 1orary Sec- ppointed a Sydney to monument Jouncil for prove and whenever ns or any hiatal ER Sit Biante ili haan coon ses. SECRETE ANAL ENT OTL IR“ Bea MCT - onure cau» Qnralr a) Eno a ee | yrpou op OARD “6I “yepHuasy Up op VILL” “ODUOT ol * "Sos pu { 40d O}4 V7QNISIP JVIY ‘ISVY, OL LSAAY NOUA ONIUVAY SANVN de ynglaterra SeS.Joh Via betatrenidat a $eS luyia a = co] = E ray 4] 2 mar tele 1ertapor mole ° *[BULSLIO OF} Tita natra agron lagofor quo Stuy f delifarte oate Mmehilire , f Cauo defu bierto® argair { tufgues \ regitia { { ano, } } cot T de-Jorge as \ Ul OJOY UV SHIVUI SVG pity} oy} Iveu oul[}NO Poz70p OFT, # -ouvost A O1UOJUY Aq BOTdIJOsop T YIM JOULBIT, *“Jo1g pus ofa|[@A SBAoUBD JOUSIg Aq ‘prupeyy 3 ZEgl UE poys:|qud *sINO[OO [BULBIIO EY} Ul O[IUISoBy OY} MMOL Aqdeisoj0qd 4q poonpel pus ‘peovs; sea Yoxoys sIyT—“ALON ‘00ST “a'V ‘dVW &.VSOO VT ad NVA | al Pr) ¢ ra ™~ Cauo mf @ SBSN BSEODOLEN e Carnceo cance Circe bcanceo coh inboidancasiorneneic Src, IT., 1896. [3] Trans, R. S.C, l.—The Voyages of the Cahots in 1497 and 1498—A sequel toa paper in the * Transactions ”’ of 1S94, By Samurn Epwarp Dawson, Lit. D. (Laval. ) (Read May 19, 1896.) At the suggestion of one of its fellows—the Rey, Moses Harvey—the Council of the Royal Society of Canada, in its report published in the “ Proceedings” of May, 1894, called attention to the near approach of the year 1897, and to the fact that it was the four hundredth uiniversary of the discovery of the continent of Americ: by John Cabot; and in the “Transactions” of that same year is a paper discussing the landfalls of the Cabot vovages, together with other kindred questions, The paper was written at some length and with much detail, and was illustrated by facsimiles of early maps. A few copies were published separately, and were sent to those (so far as their addresses could be ascertained) who had made a study of’ the subject. Various reviews and notices of this paper appeared from time to time, and letters, generally commendatory , were received from scholars who had devoted years to the solution of the question, One notice, however, may with propriety be reproduced, be- “uuse it is by a fellow of’ this society, and that one who had first drawn the attention of the society to the approaching anniversary—it is by the Rev. Moses Harvey—a scholar who has made a lifelong study of this and of cognate subjects, whose works on the history of Newfoundland are of high authority, and whose Writings upon the geography and natural his- tory of that island appear not only in many separate volumes but as con- tributions in many standard works of importance. Of the paper Dr. Harvey said :! “This admirable monograph on ‘The Voyages of the Cabots’ is * peculiarly timely, and will help to awaken attention to the projected “commemoration. It is incomparably the best thing ever written on “ the subject. It discovers great industry in research and rare skill in “the treatment of his materials. I have read and written a great deal * on this subject, but we must all dof our caps to De. Dawson’s exhaus- “tive monograph. It appears to me he has settled the long disputed ‘question of Cabot’s landfall. The weight of evidence he has accumu- “ lated in favour of the Cape Breton theory will set aside all other claims. “That in favour of Bonavista, Newfoundland, rests on vague tradition, ‘and is sustained by no substantial evidence whatever.” This testimony comes with very great weight from a scholar of such authority on those questions, and a resident, moreover, of Newfoundland. ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA The monograph, however, attracted very little attention at the time it was read in May, 1894; and the subject appeared to excite little inter- est in the public mind. All the discussion of fifty years, so profoundly interesting to Humboldt, Biddle, Kohl, Harrisse, Justin Winsor, Kretsch- mer, Kunstmann, D’Avezac, Deane, Henry Stevens, Fiske, Brevoort, and many others, had taken place, for the most part, outside of Canada. The Abbé Beaudoin, in Le Canada Francais tor October, 1888, did indeed con- tribute a valuable paper upon the question, and it was incidentally treated by Laverdi¢re? and Ferland,’ but they did not devote any special atten- tion to it. Our honorary secretary, in his ex’ vustive monograph on Cape Breton, published in 1892, paused to consider it in some of its aspects, but, while apparently inclining to the Cape Breton landfall, he did not diverge from his main theme to follow the details of what was then to him a side issue. Another of our members, Mr. Sulte, in his Histoire des Canadiens Francais, mentions the Cabots, without stopping to discuss their achievements; but the scholars who have taken up the Cabot voyages tor their main theme and have elaborated special studies upon them, were almost all not resident in Canada, In January, 1895, Mr. O. A. Howland contributed to the Canadian Magazine an crticle upon this question, and took the year 1497 as his starting point for Cana- dian history. Ile has taken up the subject of a commemoration with great vigour and earnestness, and is the leader of a movement for a his- torical exposition in Toronto in the year 1897, planned on a broad, national scale. The monograph of L894 had two principal objects. Its main motive was to establish the landfall of 1497; but another motive, scarcely less in the writer's mind, was to dispel, before it was too late, the fog that was gathering around our early geographical history in the shape of a theory that Cabot had entered the gulf and discovered Prince Edward Island and had named it the Island of St. John. This utterly baseless notion was creeping into all the books. as one writer would repeat from another, and it had got at last into the railway guide-books and began to crop out in advertising pamphlets. Whatever may be said about the landfall, this last theory may be considered as ettectually disposed of. The landfall advocated in the monograph has not passed without challenge and the present paper is intended to consider such objections as have come under the writer's notice since its publication, Not such objections as are continually appearing in the shape of letters to newspapers written by persons who would seem to have recently heard of the matter for the first time ; but objections made by scholars and students who recognize the difficulties surrounding the inquiry ; who know and can weigh the original authorities, who take a real interest in the subject, und who are prepared to give to it the time and the attention necessary in all matters of historical research, Lr ene te En ee time Ater- ndly tsch- and The cone ) eated itten- i on of its ill, he it Was in his ing to p) the tudies 13895, article Cana- » with ra his- tional Motive ‘ly less at was theory Island notion nother, rop out wll, this vithout tions as yt such spapers of the students ow and subject, 2VEssary aca San ead a ee eae [8. E. DAWSON ] THE VOYAGES OF TILE CABOTS 5B In the tirst rank of that class of estimable scholars must be reckoned Mr. Justice Prowse, whose valuable and exhaustive history of Newfound- land appeared in the year 1895, In a note at page 30 he refers to the monograph in courteous terms and gives the reasons why he holds to the theory that Cape Bonavista in Newfoundland was Cabot’s landfall, These reasons ire set forth concisely in his text at page 10 as follows : “In this colony an unbroken tradition points to Cape Bonavista, “ Newfoundland, as the first land seen, This tradition is confirmed by an “ English map of Newfoundland made by John Mason, a distinguished “captain in the Royal Navy of England about 1616. Opposite to Cape * Bonavista he writes these words, probably copying the wording of an “older map: First found by Cabot, A Cabote primum reperta. On this “ground and for other reasons as a Newfoundlander, [ claim for Cape “ Bonavista the honour of being the first land seen in North America. “ Tn all probability St. John’s was also discovered either on Cabot’s first or * second voyage.” This is practically all which can be urged in favour ot Newfoundland ; because if the “other reasons’ were of weight they would find thei* ap- propriate place there. Judge Prowse is no doubt referring to the reasons he urges against other theories, but the above are the reasons in favour of his own—the positive and substantial reasons—in short, the only reasons. That the learned judge is a Newfoundlander is irrelevant as a reason. If indeed, it had any bearing upon the discussion it might be thought to obscure that impartial (learness of vision so essential in estimating evi- dence. Moreover, Newfoundlanders are not all in aceord with Judge Prowse, Mr, J. P. Howley, the director of the Geological Survey of Newfoundland, is the advocate of a landfall at Labrador, and the Rey. Dr. Harvey, also of Newfoundland, is an advocate of a landfall at Cape Breton. There is no more dangerous snare in the investigation of such questions than national or local feeling. The student of history must eliminate from his reasoning all such “idols of the tribe””—to borrow a phrase from Lord Bacon, The present writer came to this inquiry with the belief that Newfoundland was the landfall and was astonished to find on inve.tigation no substantial evidence for it, Judge Prowse’s second reason, viz., the unbroken tradition of the coast, cannot possibly have weight because there were no inhabitants on the coast by whom a tradi- tion could be preserved. A tradition pre-supposes settlers on the coast to hand it down. But there were no settlers for a hundred years after Cabot. The charter for the first settlement was for Guy’s colony in 1610 and that was the first colony. Judge Prowse himself calls the century previous to that date the chaotic period and describes the island as a veritable no-man’s-land, without law, religion or gdvernment, the resort alike of English and foreign fishermen. Even the Indians all perished—their only 6 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA relations to the rough fishermen who thronged the harbours in summer and to the settlers who came in 1610 were relations of hatred and aversion. The Beothiks of Newfoundland were exterminated and made no sign— their language perished with them, excepting the scanty vocabularies of doubtful value which Dr. Patterson ‘ tells us were got from John August, Mary March and Shanandithit, the only three individuals who feli alive into the hands of the white men. Then, those lawless fishermen of every nation who alone for 110 years frequented the coast in the fishing season, they were not such people as inquire into or perpetuate traditions. All that can be said is that the English based their claims to the American continent on Cabot’s discovery and his sailing along the coast,’ not spec- ially of Newfoundland but of Nova Scotia and of the American colonies as far south as Florida as well. There is positive evidence of some kind for Labrador and more still for Cape Breton but none for Bonavista until John Mason’s map of 1616. As regards Mason's map it is, comparatively, of recent date. The supposition that he borrowed from an older map the words which indicate Bonavista as the landfall is a supposition and no more. The name Bona- vista may have originally suggested in later years the kindred bit differ- ent idea of prima vista, for no previous map bas been found which contains a similar statement. Cabot’s discovery was in 1497 and this map was published one hundred and nineteen years after, in 1616. Very many maps were made and were engraved and published in the interim but none until Mason’s contained such a legend. His map has therefore not the authority of the earlier maps to support it. Judge Prowse evidently feels the difficulty that Bonavista is not Italian, but Portuguese ; to which another may be added that Cabot, in an English ship, with an English crew, and under an English royal charter, would not be likely to give any but an English name to his land- fall. As repeatedly pointed out by the writerin 1894, and previously by the Rev. Dr. Patterson in the “Transactions” of this society for 1890, the sast coast of Newfoundland was named by the Portuguese.® Bonavista is a Portuguese word, and the fact is moreover strongly antagonistic to Judge Prowse’s theory that it is not laid down on any map until Gaspar Viegas’ in 1534, that is for thirty-seven years after Cabot’s discovery, Although the whole east coast before that year was studded with names that one is absent, This peculiar difficulty seems to have suggested Judge Prowse’s remark that Cabot may not have named it, though he dis- covered it. If so, it is a unique instance of a discoverer not naming his landfall. Again, Judge Prowse observes that Viegas must have got the name from sailors on the coast, and not from the geographers. Viegas was himself a geographer, and it could only be from sailors to the coast that any information could be had about the coast. He says Viegas translated DA a SL ANS met Sst aa a ln per bebe lass summer version. 0 sign— laries of August, feli alive of every y sonson, ns. All .merican 10t Spec- ylonies as kind for sta until ite. The 1 indicate me Bona- nit ditfer- . contains map was sry many erim but efore not sta is not Cabot, in lish royal » his land- viously by > 1890, the ynavista 18 ronistic to til Gaspar discovery. ith names sted Judge gh he dis- aming his t the name Viegas was coast that translated it a chi es Scie Sits a a Maa IR BEN ret eerie Mehta eat [s. B. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 7 soe the original Italian into Portuguese, but he does not show that there ever was an original Italian, He assumes that there must have been one, which is the very thing to be proved. He says Viegas gives the name as Boavista, but he has not noticed that in Portuguese, after the vowel, the n is sounded, though not written, as on that very map, do Breto for Breton, and, on Reinel’s map, Joha for Johan and Boaventura for Bonaventura. The tilde over the vowel may be omitted, but the n is sounded all the same. [ venture to think, therefore, that Judge Prowse has not proved his thesis. Beyond doubt there was, in the uncritical time before Biddle wrote in 1833, a general assumption that Newfoundland was the landfall, and the effects of’ this are still felt in general literature ; and on looking at a map one is led to think that Cabot would have steered for New- foundland, without remembering that the whole ocean was to him a perfect blank, a veil behind which lay he knew not what. And here again, in this most natural supposition, is another of Lord Bacon’s “idols of the tribe.” The thing which looks so plausible on our modern maps, with all our modern knowledge, is not likely to have happened to a ship feeling her way over an unknown and unquiet ocean, As Pasqualigo describes the voyage from Cabot’s own lips, “he wandered about for a long time, and at length hit upon land”; but we sit down to an atlas and trace the shortest course, as if Cabot, knowing where he was going, made a course, as the crow flies, straight to an objective point, Such evidence from presupptions and probabilities cannot weigh against the positive evidence adduced for Cape Breton, During the last few months Mr. Henry Harrisse’ has published a new work on the Cabots, and although, in his first book, Jean et Sébastien Cabot, he advocated Cape Breton, he adheres to his second theory of the landfall and places it in Labrador at or near Cape Chidley. I cannot sufficiently express my obligations to Mr, Harrisse, for he has made these studies possible to me by his industry and research, and by republishing so many original documents. I have had all the advantages of Mr. Har- risse’s learning and labour; but the adventitious circumstance of having been born among the localities under discussion, and therefore familiar with them from boyhood, compels me to see that Mr. Harrisse’s judgment upon his materials is misled by the absence of a personal knowledge of the northeast coast of America. The monograph of 1894 pointed out some of the misconceptions which led him astray. 'This last book aftords other instances. Mr. Ganong’s paper in the “Transactions” of this society for 1889, set him right, as he frankly admits, about Prince Edward Island, but in going to Cape Chidley he has fallen into a new set of errors, and in discussing these the Labrador theory must be incidentally discussed, (See Appendix A, Labrador.) Mr. Harrisse, in attempting to disprove his earlier theory of the Cape SESE Se ts BSE = Ey IIs a FEET NO 8S DONE eS } 1 4 | | 4 i ‘ 8 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA Breton landfall, says that in June and July navigation all round New- foundland and the Gulf of St, Lawrence is impeded by fogs, icebergs and undercurrents ; therefore Cabot could not have reached Cape Breton at the time stated. Addressing Canadians, it is not necessary to waste time on this astonishing error; but the more wonderful part of it is that therefore My, Harrisse thinks that northern Labrador was the landfall, as if, while the St. Lawrence was blocked, that coast was free from ice at that season, whereas, while the ports of Quebec and Montreal are crowded with ocean vessels, there is there a procession of icebergs and _ field-ice 1,000 miles long coming down the Arctic current from the north. This is so well known here that in 1886 the Minister of Marine did not send sailing instructions to Capt. Gordon until June 22nd, and the steamship “Alert” did not leave Halifax for Labrador until June 24th. He re- ported* that the season was unusually early. He left Blane Sablon, in the Strait of’ Belle Isle, on the 2vch of June, and steamed along the coast. On the 30th he met large numbers of small icebergs; on July Ist he passed 2 number of large bergs, one being 170 feet high On July 2nd he got into field-ice, and had to lie on the outer edge of it until the weather clexsed. On that day he saw many more bergs, some very close to the ship. He was then sixty miles south of Cape Mugford, north of which point Mr, Harrisse places Cabot’s landfall in 1497. He found there heavy tield-ice, which extended all along the coast to Cape Chidley, packed tight for fifteen miles off the shore, with a * bordage ” of'slack ice ten miles further out. That was an early season, and jt was July 2nd; but John Jabot told Raimondo di Soncino that “the land he found was excellent, ‘aad the climate temperate, suggesting that brazil wood and silk grow * there,” and that on June 24th. Mr. Harrisse has not distinguished sufticiently between the two voy- ages,” and makes 1497 to be the year of the long coasting voyage, but so little does he realize what the coast of Labrador is, that in order to get Cabot back in London on the 10th of August (where he, in fact, was), he thinks the landfail must have been earlier. That is to say, this landfall, impos- sible on the 2nd of July in an exceptionally early season, he thinks was made much earlier than June 24th ; and if, as he supposes, Cabot made in 1497 the long coasting voyage to Flor .a, his Jandfall must indeed have been very much earlier than June 24th, because, beyond all cavil, he was present in London on August 10th, 1497." Among the causes which Mr. Harrisse assigns as contributing to delay Cabot’s progress is the supposed fact that ‘‘in those days, particu- “larly when coasting in unknown regions, anchor was cast at sundown, “and sailing renewed again only with daylight the next morning.” The impossibility of a vessel coasting along northern Labrador and anchoring out every night on a coast where field-ice and enormous bergs are sweep- ing down with the Arctic current, is evident. No doubt vessels have to 3 3 / pie Nabe ie ts j 3 j } 4a : 3 ; | 1 New- ‘gs and eton at te time is that ndfall, n ice at ‘owded ield-ice This yt send imship He re- lon, in coast. Ist he ly 2nd til the y close ith of | there yacked 1 miles ; John ellent, grow 0 voy- but so Cabot thinks iM. pos- ks was made indeed | cavil, ing to urticu- down, ’ The 1oring sweep- ie to Bits a acca MCE is Shi RUS tab cas i Saat ONE RS | at ee [s. B. DAWsoN] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 9 run into a harbour or under the lee of an island every night to get shel- ter, and sometimes they have to make fast to a piece of ice ; but this very necessity is another indication of where the landfall could not have been, for there is no trace of such expedients in the records of the first voyage, Another note of the landfall is John Cabot’s statement to Pasqualigo, immediately after his return, that he saw. “ two islands” ; whereas there the whole coast is fringed by an archipelago of barren and rocky islands, where trees do not grow. These are shown only on the large charts, and Writers not conversant with the coast are misled by the small scale maps in atlases. The coast line is, moreover, 1,000 to 4,000 feet high, steep and precipitous, with a swell which in calm weather (see Appendix A, p. 20) breaks over islands thirty feet high. This formidable and rugged coast, ice-encumbered and frequently lashed ‘with the heaviest sea known to sailors, cannot, in our view, be the land “with an excellent and temperate “climate,” where silk and dye-woods grow, as described by Cabot ; but Mr. Harrisse dismisses the difticulty by quoting from the “ Kneyelo- pedia Britannica” the short but graphic phrase, “In Labrador summer “is brief but lovely.” (See Appendix A, Labrador.) Mr. Harrisse has read books on Labrador but the want of’ local knowledge still obscures his conclusions, THe finds another proof of the Labrador landfall in the abundance of fish reported by Cabot. This leads him to r-mark that “however plentiful codfish may be on the banks ‘of Newfoundland the quantity is surpassed near the entrance of “ Hudson's Strait. Modern explorers report that there cod and salmon “ form in many places a living mass, a vast ocean of living slime, which * accumulates on the banks of Northern Labrador and the spot noted for “its amazing quantity of tish is the vicinity of Cape Chidleigh, which as “the above details and other reasons seem to indicate as the place visited “by John Cabot in 1497.” This is a curious misconception. Mr. Harrisse is doubtless alluding to Prof. Hind as “the modern explorer,” but neither Prof. Hind nor any one who borrows his graphic phrase applies the expression “ living slime” to the salmon and cod, but to the infusoria and other minute organisms with which the Arctic current abounds, and which constitute the food of the immense number of fish in those waters and the attraction which draws them there. (See Appendix B, Living Slime). The Arctic current there and off Newfoundland is the great feeding ground for whales and also for the small fish upon which the cod feed, The fishermen are now pushing their operations further north on the Labrador coasts as the cod begin to be less plentiful in the bays of Newfoundland, and in a few years may follow the fish as far as Cape Chidley, where the fishing season is very much later, but the cod fishing until recently was solely east and south of Newfoundland. Again, in dwelling upon the amazing quantity of codfish as a crucial indication of the true landfall, Mr. Harrisse has 2 | ar Se 10 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA conclusively disproved his main thesis; for the codfish do not arrive at Cape Chidley, until August 15th, five days after John Cabot is known to have been in London. In fact, the codfish do riot approach any part , of Northern Labrador before July 20th. In Appendix G is given a table of the movement of the fish along the coast, extracted from Prof. Hind’s evidence before the Fishery Commission of the Treaty of Washington, This disposes of the whole of Labrador as a probable landfall. Such errors as these are palpable to most Canadians, but they mis- lead other people ; and even some of our own people, reading in the cur- sory manner now in vogue, do not notice them, but accept Mr, Tarrisse’s conclusions without stopping to examine the foundations on which they are built. In pointing them out, [ have incidentally indicated the reasons i which compel me to reject Labrador as the landfall of 1497. As to Newfoundland and Bonavista, Mr, Harrisse does not even mention, still less discuss them, so far, in his opinion, are they out of the question ; and 4 the same may be said of an the students, excepting Judge Prowse and Bishop Howley, who since Biddle have been examining the subject in any SEU a Sa pe oe peater ET a ea Rage ae detailed way. I shall not again go over the ground of the monograph of 1894. ‘ Since thst was written 1 have not found anything to shake the conclusions then adopted, and the positive arguments in favour of Cape Breton are i therein fully set forth. Those conclusions were not to any considerable extent novel, Very little which is new could, at this late period of the discussion, be added, sceing that the subject has been the battlefield of fifty years of controversy. The voluminous references" indicated the materials upon which the conclusions were founded, In the “ Trans- actions” of this society Professor Ganong" had shown that the large island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence drawn on the old maps could not have been Prince Edward Island, and Mr. Joseph Pope, in his Jacques Carticr (published 1890), had followed him. Dr, Patterson had published, in the same “Transactions” (1890), a valuable monograph upon the Portuguese discoveries on the northeast coast of America, and Dr, Bourinot in 1892 had treated of the Cabot voyages in his monograph on Cape Breton. The European, as well as the American authorities who argued for a landfall on the island of Cape Breton placed it at Cape North, excepting only Mr. Harrisse, who, in his first book, Jean et Sébastien Cabot, decided | for Cape Percy ; and, it) Mr. Harrisse had adhered to that opinion, there H would have been little practical difference between his conclusions and those of the writer, but in his later books he transferred the landfall to Labrador, and, lastly, to the absolutely impossible Cape Chidley, All the writers i who have hitherto advocated the claims of Cape Breton have done so i under the influence of the map of 1544; and those who have argued for Labrador appear to me to have been unduly influenced by statements concerning the voyages of 1498 found in Peter Martyr, Ramusio, Gomara and others who wrote long subsequently to the date of the discovery. 4 2 4 4 < ; : UA at ih eS Dita ALSO ON gh dS ah Se eat etl PPE Siem we To aE Rene OR ORR TS ve ab nown part table Lind’s \@ton. y mis- e cur: VISSe’S ey ure 4ASONS As to r, still - and se and in any 1894. usions on are lerable of the ield of ed the Trans- » large t have Cartier ,in the uguese in 1892 Breton. 1 for a cepting decided n, there id those Jbrador, writers done so rued for tements Gomara ery. 4 t Datars vce es A eT Castel a Sits Ka OR ie ASS AALS OA a tn a ie CAAN are xa cious: [s. B. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 11 The contour of the island of Cape Breton on the map of 1544 is exceedingly inaccurate ; in fact it is not shown to be an island ; but the prima vista marked on it is yet at its easternmost point as Mr. Harrisse correctly noticed in his first book (see Appendix C, Cape North), The writer, in advocating Cape Breton rather than Cape Percy, was guided by the fact that Cape Breton is not only the easternmost point, but is a name which appears on all the old maps and is found in all the old writers from 1514 down to the present day. Excepting Cape Race there is no name so persistent and, when it is considered how tenaciously names given in early days cling to localities, even under the changing corrup- tions of widely different languages, '' it will appear that the oldest and the only invariably persistent name on the coast is far more likely to be the landfall, seeing that it also conforms to all other conditions and that so many other circumstances point to it. The distance in a direct line between Cape Breton and Cape Percy is only fifteen miles, and, though Cape Breton extends further to the east. there is not much to choose be- tween them, were it not thet Cape Percy is a new and recent name and that the ancient name must indicate the ancient landmark. But the conclusive argument in the writer’s mind was from actual obser vation, that in sailing into the Gulf either the high land of Newfoundland will be seen on the right or the high land of' ¢ ‘ape Enfumé on the left before Cape North will be seen at all. It is like sailing into an acute angle, either one side or the other will be seen before the apex. While pointing out a few of the writers from whom I have derived the most assistance I should especially repeat my obligations to Mr. Clements R. Markham’s introduction to the volume of the Hakluyt Society for 1893, and, quite recently, an article by the same writer in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1892 has fallen into my hands. These seem to me to be the most fruitful contributions to the elucidation of this vexed question. Mr.Markham concurs with M. D’Avezac in dwell- ing on the cardinal importance of the map of Juan de La Cosa in the con- troversy ; for in that most precious of all sartographical relics we have bey nd reasonable doubt, as Markham observes, a transcript of Joha Cabot's own map. A reference to the monograph of 1894 will show how strongly my argument Icans upon that contemporary av .hority. While thus again acknowledging some of the sources from whence my conclusions have mainly been gathered, I would also remark that all who have reviewed or noticed my monograph of 1894 have overlooked one or two points init which I take the opportunity of again emphasizing, and I do so because it is really in these wherein my method of investiga- tion differs from that of every predecessor. I did not, and do not now, as some persons assume, build my conclusions on the so-called Cabot map of 164. I arrived at my conclusions in a way which, strange though it be, was not in this question followed before, I adopted the principle, so } 12 * ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA q familiar in New Testament criticism, of’ first studying the contemporary } documents solely, and apart from all comments and later documents and, ; in that way, what was before o»scure became clear. I then took the : map of La Cosa (Appendix D, L:» Cosa’s map), and made it the pivot of 3 my studies, and thus I happened to notice first the bearing of the name { Cavo descubierto. Having, therefore, built my foundation upon these i contemporary documents, I was ready to accept from any other quarter i confirmatory evidence ; from the map of 1544 as well as from any other map. I think it essential to point this out; because, in my view, if there i be any merit or any originality in the monograph of 184, it is in these 4 particulars chiefly that it must reside. 4 Before closing my paper I would like to dwell for a moment upon a : singular misconception which has arisen in the minds of some of our ; French fellow-countrymen, and which has found expression in news- } papers under the heading of ‘Cartier versus Cabot’; as if these studies ‘ and conclusions in the least degree derogated from Cartier’s fame as the 3 discoverer of Canada. The monograph of 1894 did the very reverse; for it set out to demonstrate the falsity of the theory that Cabot had entered the gulf. It proved by the maps that, until Cartier sailed into the gulf, it was not known at all; and that the so-called Cabot map of 1544 em- bodied Cartier’s discoveries ; and, moreover, that, whatever the fishermen may have known, previous to that time Newfoundland was supposed by the cartographers and geographers to be a part of the main continent. Thus it vindicated for Cartier what many other writers had been under- mining, and it aimed to correct those false views of history which, to the detriment of Cartier’s fame, were insidiously creeping into the text-books. But while to Cartier must be awarded the discovery of the Gulf and River St. Lawrence, he did not discover any portion of the sea coast of America. No writer claims that for him. That Cabot discovered the northe:st coast is as much beyond question as any historical fact can be. That is not open to dispute, though whether the landfall was at Cape Breton, Labrador or Newfoundland may be yet a fair ground for discus- sion. Cabot’s discovery is not an English and French question ; for it is impossible for any writer to be more French than Champlain, Charle- voix, Ferland and Laverdiére. They assign to John Cabot the discovery of Labrador in 1497. Who can, in our community, be more French than D’ Avezac—the learned and profound scholar of the Geographical Society of Paris ?—yet he maintained that Cabot’s Island of St. John was Prince Edward Island. Le Canada Francais is surely a French publication— ) and Canadian as well,—and yet the Abbé Beaudoin, in October, 1888, maintained in much detail the thesis that Prince Edward Island was dis- i h PER th DEC PS it IE AEDS Wt Gideon te covered by Cabot in 1497, and named St. John by him, If so, Cabot, @ and not Cartier, was the discoverer of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and of B Canada in a sense that no member of this society has ever held. These uy. nd, the , of me E8C ‘ter her ere 1ese yn a our 2WS- dies the for ered rulf, -em- ‘men d by vent. nder- b the Bich Wie Sc RR A Soli Ha | } 4 [s. E. DAWSON ] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 13 are all French authorities. We may dispute their theses, but not their nationality ; and I wish particularly to insist on the fact that D’Avezac— a Frenchman to the innermost core—accepts in the fullest degree the authenticity of the so-called Cabot map of 1544, which I, as well as many others who have written upon the subject, could not accept to the same extent. Again, Cartier did not discover Cape Breton, nor Newfoundland, nor Labrador. They were discovered thirty-five years before he came on the coast. He came to a coast mapped and named. He first touched at Bonavista and although he named a few places not (Appendix EK, Jacques Cartier) on the maps, he found the coast named on his course as far, at least, as Old Fort Bay on the Canadian Labrador. The Strait of’ Belle- Isle was then, and for 200 years after, known as La Grande Baie; and Old Fort Bay (Msquimaux Bay on some maps) was a port frequented by French and Basque fishermen, It was known to Jacques Cartier, as well as to all sailors of that day, as Brest, and after he had touched there on his first voyage inwards he says himself that on proceeding further inwards, he found at Shecatica a vessel from LaRochelle looking for the port of Brest, her destined harbour, which she had oversailed in the night. Cartier expresses no surprise at meeting her as if it were anything un- common. Then again Cartier did not discover Cape Breton, for, as early as 1504, Bretons, and Basques, and Portuguese fishermen began to swarm all along these shores. On his first voyage Carter sailed in and out by Belle-Isle. On his second he sailed in by Belle-Isle but he sailed out by St. Paul's and when he arrived at St. Pierre Miquelon he simply remarks that he found many fishing vessels there. These are Cartier’s own statements and surely he must be permitted to know more about the matter than any one else, nor can we doubt either his nationality or his patriotism. foundland and Cape Breton, and no person ever asserted that Cartier dis- covered any one of them. The fact is patent that the whole east coast of North America was well known long before Cartier. Putting aside all the work of the Corte Reals and other Portuguese mariners, Verrazano sailed along it in 1524 and the mappe monde of Hieronimus de Verrazano of 1529 still exists in the Museo Borgiano at Rome. That map shows the whole coast with a closed line. There is no Gulf of St. Lawrence, but there is the cape of Cape Breton, named and in its right place. Then there was Estevan Gomez in 1525—beyond all doubt he sailed along the coast and saw Cape Breton and he followed along the coast of the islaud and saw Cape Enfumé, with its smoke like mists rising, as now, up the face of the cliffs, a sight never to be mistaken for anything else ; and he crossed the strait, supposing it to be a bay, from St. Paul to Cape Ray, and sailed along the south shore of Newfoundland homewards. All these Three localities of first discovery are alone before us, Labrador, New- ! SS Os at as BE AEA Sg \ 14 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA things and many more Cartier could not help knowing. He had probably been out on the coast before or he would not have been chosen as captain, If then, any one, a member of' this society or not, should claim Cape Breton as the landfall of John Cabot, let it not be thought to derogate from the merit of Jacques Cartier but rather to establish it. SUMMARY. As the commemoration of John Cabot’s achievement is a subject now present in the public mind and, inasmuch as the monograph to which this paper is a sequel was published two years ago and in the first or quarto series of Transactions of this Society, it may not be amiss to recapitulate shortly the various lines of reasoning which led the writer to advocate the Cape Breton landfall. These lines are convergent and are not dependent one upon another, so that the refutation of one will not involve a rejection of the result. Each argument is good pro tanto and when a number of independent lines of thought lead to one result the correctness of that result attains to a very high degree of probability. The question is the landfall of the first of two voyages admitted to have been made in 1497 and 1498 ; and three localities have been put for- ward as entitled to the distinction of being the place where (putting aside the Northmen) Europeans first landed on this continent, ‘These are (1) some point on the Labrador coast, and specially Cape Chidley ; (2) Bona- vista, on the coast of Newfoundland; and (3) Cape North, or Cape Breton, on Cape Breton Island, It was shown that a separate study of the contemporary documents revealed the fact that the first voyage was on a western course and to a landfall in a pleasant and temperate climate; and a separate study of the later documents proved that they were concerned only with a voyage on a northern and northwestern course, by way of Iceland, to a region of ice and continual daylight. The striking contrasts between the two voyages were set forthin detail, and it was shown that Labrador corresponded with the conditions of the second voyage alone. The landfall of the first voyage had been described on December 18th, 1497, from the lips of John Cabot himself by a distinguished Italian envoy in a letter to his master, the Duke of Milan, as follows: “They say “that there the land is excellent and the climate temperate, suggesting “ that brasil and silk grow there.” This excluded Labrador (see Appen- dix A) from the question. Furthermore, upon these representations a large expedition sailed in the following year, 1498, with a view to trade and settlement, and reached a region of frost and ice. It was argued that any one who had once seen the coast of Labrador would not have taken an expedition of 300 men there to settle and trade on the coast. Labrador being excluded, La Cosa’s map (see Appendix D) was taken and its easternmost named point was shown to be our Cape Race. Xi daecedoves Ui etreae it Wa voce Saat bly | as aim t to now hich st or ss to rriter t and » will tanto result bility. ted to it for- r aside re (1) Bona- Cape ments dtoa of the 1we on of ice oyages yonded ‘ember Italian ey say resting ! ppen- tions a o trade argued t have )) was > Race. [s. B. DAWSON ] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 18 That point was shown to be the key of the question, and pains were taken to make it clear to anyone who has been upon the coast, or who would attentively study a chart of the North Atlantic in connection with Ua Cosa’s map. In that way it became evident that the coast named and marked out by English flags could be none other than the south coast of Newfoundland and the adjacent coast to the southwest. Attention was then called to the fact that the coast line north of Cape Race (that is the east coast of Newfoundland) had neither name nor flag—that the coast line there was drawn with a firm line and was totally different from the remarkably indented eastern outline of New- foundland discovered by Corte Real and shown upon the Portuguese maps continuously from the year 1501, that the line could not be the line of a discovered ‘coast and nothing in North America corresponded to it. It was explained by a theory, not original with the writer, that the lines of unvisited territory were taken from Toscanelli’s map of Asia on which Columbus had sailed ; for at that time America was not known save as the western coast of Asia and La Cosa’s map was a mapa mundi, or a representation of all the geographical knowledge of the time. In this way Bonavista and the whole east coast of Newfoundland was excluded as well as Labrador. Dealing then with La Cosa’s map as one of the south coast of New- foundland, the methods of the old map-makers were inquired into, and in an appendix, a long extract from the works of Samuel de Champlain was given, setting forth the whole subject in detail and showing that the old cartographers invariably drew their charts upon a magnetic meridian, Champlain bad illustrated his thesis by two maps of these very same regions ; one upon a true meridian, as we draw maps now, and one upon au magnetic meridian, as drawn then for the use of sailors. Sketches from these two maps were given, confined to the coast-line in question, and it was shown that the bearing of Cape Breton from Cape Race was west, as on La Cosa’s map, but west-southwest on maps like ours, as in truth it is. The question of the magnetic variation was also considered, and the fact that it had been first observed by Columbus, only five years before, when sailing on a parallel where the variation was slight. Attention was directed to the fact that in the latitudes of Cabot’s course the vari- ation was very much greater and, at a point in mid-ocean, increased ‘apidly, and also that a steady and strong currert (the Arctic current) set to the south, with a high probability of thick weather ; all of which would ten” .o throw a sailor, feeling his way over an unknown sea, to the south in any westerly course, Studying La Cosa’s map, it was noticed that the line of names on the coast commenced with Cape Race (Cavo de Ynglaterra) and terminated with Cavo Descubierto. The latter vame itself, it was argued, indicated 16 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA the landfall —it was the prima terra vista—there was no other meaning to the name than the discovered cape; and as this map of La Cosa’s was, beyond reasonable doubt, based on John Cabot’s own map which Pedro de Ayala the Spanish ambassador had from him and promised, in July, 1498, to send to King Ferdinand, we have here John Cabot indicating his own landfall in a Spanish translation, The so-called “Sebastian Cabot map” of 1544 then became of’ inter- est, for it placed the prima tierra vista on the northeasiernmost point of Cape Breton, and, in the printed legend, this point was further identified by an island called St. John, It was then shown, by the whole sequence of maps, that Cape Breton was a persistent and continuous name on the maps from the earliest times and that it was always attended by an island of St. John, which island was always on the Atlantic coast in clo.e proximity. The island itself’ was shown to be on Pedro Reinel’s map of 1505, and it was of a unique triangular shape, corresponding to that of’ Scatari Island, near Cape Breton, These were the main lines of reasoning, and they were reinforced in very many ways and illustrated by tracings. Much space was also given to answers to possible objections and demonstrations of the untenability of conflicting theories. ‘To go over these again would be to rewrite the monograph, In closing this paper it is necessary to state that the Royal Society of Canada has very properly not committed itself to an Opinion upon the place of the landfall in deciding to commemorate Cabot’s great achieve- The position of the society is laid down in the report, and will be ment. The opinion advocated found at length in the published Proceedings. is, no doubt, held by many of the members, but it is open to others to hold to any landfall they may think more probable; and it is not likely that there will be absolute uniformity of opinion upon this point, any more than there is upon the identity of the island, Guanahani, which was the landfall of the great admiral.” f : ! 4 SER ENS (Olde 4 t : : n 4 4 3 3 5 a ning Was, edrvo July, y his nter- nt of litied ence 1 the sland Clase ap of at of ced in given bility e the ociety mn the hieve- will be ocated others is not n this whan, | A Sel aitd Sieh ite DER AS ak a eR Lee a el a a BS A a data aca cna slg eae ca ae a so AE ah eaten peice Retin atid ignieaiee aN REO APPENDIX A. THe ATLANTIC COAST or LABRADOR, John Cabot, within five months after his return from his first voyage, and before he had started on the second, stated that the land he had dis- covered was excellent and the climate temperate such as gave promise of producing silk and dye-woods. The following catena of authorities will show that Labrador could not have been the coast which was the subject of John Cabot’s eulogy. the evidence the fact must be taken into account that ice and icebergs were novelties to sailor iences were limited to the seas then known and that will enter the Labrador ice pack without anxiety ; would a sight so unaccustomed haye IMpress¢ Yet in none of’ the contemporary documents is there any or any mention which suggests it; but when we take up the later accounts, derived from Sebastian Cabot. we tind special stress laid upon the gigantic “ pieces of ice found swimming in the sea,” as of’ something new and unusual, In weighing ‘'s Whose exper- no one, even now, how much more then «| the sailors of those days! allusion to ice Lest it may be conjectured that some ¢ to modify the physical conditions of Lab of the earliest sailors are included. the milder regions of southern Lab “excellent soil,” woods : hange in climate has occurred ‘ador, extracts from the reports Jacques Cartier’s experience was in rador. This is his opinion of the , . Cal , ov) , , ig * oille r reported by Cabot as Siving promise of silk and dye- JACQUES CARTIER’S Firs Voyaag, 1534. Frou AK uy’. “If the soile were as good as the ‘“commoditee ; but it is not to be Ob g harboroughes ‘ure, it were a great called the new land, but rather stones and wilde cragges, and a place fit for wilde beastes, for in all the North “Island I did not see a cart-load of' good earth; yet went I on shoare in “many places, and in the Island of White Sand there is nothing else but “mosse and small thornes, scattered here and there, withered and dry. “To be short, I believe that this was the land that God allotted to Caine,” The candid sailor expresses himself strongly. It is not. « soile,” and should not be called “land,” but rather « stones and wilde cragges,”’ Captain Luke Fox’s experiences of Cape Chidley in 1631 are as fol- lows: He made the ‘ape on June 22nd, “ which to do I stood over as ‘“ neere as I could for ice that was at least six leagues off.” He was try- ing to enter Hudson's Strait, but he never thought of anchoring, as Mr, Harrisse thinks pilots always did in those days, and perhaps they did in southern seas. He adopted the usual course, “ We made fast to a piece “ot ice.” Fox found the strait blocked, but pushed into the ice, and drifted with it in the ebb and flow of the tide. He got clear about July 3rd, and on the 8th he weathered out a gale by again making fast to a piece of ice. In the same year, 1631, Captain James was attempting at the same time to enter the strait. He sighted Cape Chidley on June 24th, while fast beset in the ice, “not being able to see an acre of sea from top- “mast head.” It was not until the 20th of July that he got into a little open water, and beg: The experiences of Davis and Baffin Yy Were similar, an to make way westward. and Frobisher around Cape Chidle Sec. II., 1896, 2, a a i eae z 18 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA Further down the coast the Moravian Brethren have had settlements for 120 years. There are now five, at intervals along the coast, where they carry on missions to the Eskimo, These are some of their experi- ences, extracted from their published reports : [In 1770 their vessel arrived on July 24th ; in 1771 the date of arrival was August 9th. “ During the latter part of the voyage they were often ‘ob lived to run into bays, between numberless ish ids and sunken rocks, ‘and being surrounded at times by vast mountains of ice and ice-tields, “ threatening momentary destruction to the vessel.’ In 1816, “on 9 uch- “ing the drift ice, on the 16th of July, Captain Fraser found it to extend ‘to a distance of full 200 miles from the coast, and after attempting in * vain to tind a passage through it, first to Hopedale, then to Nain, and * Jastly to Okak, he found himself by degrees completely enclosed by the ‘ice On August 30th of the same year * the whole coast was entirely ‘ choked up by the ice.” The following year the vessel got into the ice on July 7th, and on July 14th they saw “land sixty miles south of Hope- dale, but could not penetrate the pack, and had to make fast to an ice- tield until the I8th, but soon after had to make fast to another field. Then a fearful storm came on, and they drifted helpless in the pack. They arrived on August 9th. Inthe year 1819 the “ Harmony” could not reach Okal until August 20th, * the coast was everywhere choked up with ice.’ In 1826 the ice extended 400 miles from the land, In 1832 the vessel reached the ice on July 6th and got through to Hopedale on July 24th after some thrilling experiences. In 1836 the “ Harmony” encountered the ice on June 24th, and it was August 4th when she reached Hopedale, where the captain learned that the ice had moved away only two days before. These are a few of many experiences reported, and it should be remembered that the vessels of the mission are built to encounter ice and manned by crews familiar with ice navigation. It is stated by experi- enced pilots who, for thirty years have “navigated that coast, that if a vessel can get through the ice-pack and reach “ the inside track,” as they call it, that is the open belt of water between the land and ice, it is possible on that part of the coast south of Cape Harrison to get along ibout the 20th June. Beyond Cape Harrison on northern the shore : crossing’ Labrador navigation is not possible until July 20th. It is in the drifting ice that the Moravian ships were delayed, and the same cause would have prevented the little “ Matthew” from making a land- fall at Labrador. Professor Packard in his Journal of Two Summer Cruises to the Labrador Coast, velates that on July 4th they were blocked for days, ice- bound in Square Harbour, not far from the Strait of Belle Isle. THe says, “ we could easily wall ashore over the floe-ice ; some of the floes were ‘higher than our vessel’s rail, it being next to impossible to force our boat “through the too narrow leads between the cakes.” They got out of “ t! oir ice prison on July 15th. Sailing further up the coast in the inner track he Says that the ice belt was a few miles aw ay * thick enough to walk upon.’ The ice had been running down the coast from 22nd June to August 22nd to their personal know led ,aund it began earlier and con- tinued later, and from the hills behind ‘Hopedale they could see the ice- belt ten miles out to sea but bergs were visible all along the coast. The ice-field was eighty-five miles wide. Dr. Grenfell of the Labrador Mission i ibe ati tia ecole absiceicerehi bees cae hnesi Ee ATT SINC om baat) lements he where ° experi f arrival re often aT rocks, ve-tields, mn vreach- o extend npung in Nain, and xd by the s entirely to the ice of Hope- to an ice- ther field. the pack, til August 26 the ice ed the ice iter some od the ice Hopedale, Vv two di Lys should be ater ice and by trae t. that if Me” as hey : ice, it 18 get along n “northern in crossing 1 the same ing a land- uises to the ior days, 1Ce- le Isle. He he floes were sree our boat r got out of in the inner k enough to 2nd June to jer and con- see the ice- Leoast. The fador Mission as Set eee cis ap aS RNS Dor Fate 9 ee ty tet st oe Soak inns cinklnet ca. cies dA ET te bat ae nk an [s. B. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF .ilE CABOTS 19 describes the coast in his ‘* V ikings of To-day” as follows, the “ Encyclopedia Britannica ’ "he adopts the opinion given; ‘Sterile aad forbidding it lies among fogs and icebergs, famous “only besides for dogs and cod, ‘God made this country last’ says an 6 ol! navigator,” ‘As il MT By quoting ent abode for civilized man, says the * Eneyelopwedia ss Butennies ' La. ador is on the whole one of the most uninviting spots “on the face of the earth. The Atlantic coast is the edge of a vast i “ solitude of rocky hills, split and blasted by frost and beaten by waves, ‘Headlands grim and naked, tower over the waters—often fantastic and “ picturesque in shape, while ‘miles and miles of rocky precipices or tame “ monotonous slopes alternate with stony valleys, winding away among “the blue hills of the interior.” On July 1th Dr. Grenfell crossed the Strait of Belle Isle. Ie thus describes it: “As we rounded Cape Bauld a most magnificent “crimson light lit up the whole horizon, Against it stoed out many “ stately icebergs, rising weird and ghostly from che decp purple of the “sea, One of immense height looked like some g' gantic cathedral, As “we brought the hills and steep cliffs of Labrador into view we found ‘there was still much snow in the gulfs and crevices, while it was “ necessary auvefully to thread our way among the numbe 1S of icebergs “ which up ts this very week had | been b'seking the straits.’ The following is from the “Newfoundland and Labrador Pilot,” published by the British Admiralty (Cape St. Lewis to Cape Chidley), page 381: “The northeast coust of Labrador is extremely barren and rug- “ged. 7% The hills fall steeply to the sea, often in cliffs with ragged, “rocky points, the exception being the strand on each side of Cape ee the only sandy beach of any extent on the whole coast as . for as Nain.’ ‘The climate on the outer coast is rigorous in the extreme, so that * vegetables are only raised with great difficulty and rarely reach matur- “ity. Frost may occur at any time of the year, and snow was experi- “enced in the neighbourhood of Indian Harbour in July, August and “ September of 1875. * * * Large patches of snow, five or six feet “ deep, were lying in the valleys along the whole coast in the middle of July, 1575, and some of them had not disappeared when the first large “ fall of snow occurred in September,” Field ice remains in the vicinity of Greedy Harbour until about “ the middle of July, soon after which the fishing fleet are enabled to sail “northward. * * * Icebergs may be encountered all the year round, “ but are most numerous from June till August.” The strength of this argument is not atfected by the fact that New- foundland and Dundee sealers go into the ice in spring after seals. They are fitted for it and strengthened specially, and for many years have been propelled by steam. The seals are killed on the ice, and where there is no ice there are no seals. Cabot knew none of those things. never have seen an iceberg or sailed among ice, “unfitted for such work. If He could and his little vessel was Labrador had been his landfall he would necessarily have made novel and startling experiences and could not have failed to record them. Such experiences were encountered and recorded on the second voyage. It is simply incredible that if John Cabot had ever seen the coast of Labrador he would have taken out an expedition 20 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA of three hundred souls and steered tothe north and northwest with them, It was because he knew nothing of the Labrador ice-pack that he steered to make a northwest passage. What they found then is recorded in Peter Martyr and Gomara. The following description of the coast is from Mr. A. P. Low's report to the Director of the Geological Survey, 1896 : “ Along the Atlantic coast the land rises abruptly inland, almost * every where to altitudes varying from 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet, from the “ Straits of Belle Isle to the vicinity of Nain. To the northward of Nain “ the coast range is much higher, and in the neighbourhood of Nachvak “ Bay, ranges of shi wp, unglaciated mountains rise abruptly from the : “sea, to heights varying from 2,500 feet to 4,000 feet ; while farther “north they are reported to culminate in peaks of 6,000 feet, a few miles “inland. With aslight decrease in height, this range continues north- * ward, to the barren islands at Cape C hudleigh.’ This is not such a coast as a sailor would care to anchor alongside of, if indeed such places have anchorages ; but Admiral Bayfield’s ‘descrip- tion of the swell on the Labrador coast completes the picture. It is taken from “ Hatton and Harvey’s Newfoundland,” p. 384: ‘T never saw anything more grand and wildly beautiful than the ** tremendous swell which often comes in without wind, rolling slowly ‘but irresistibly in from the sea, as if moved by some unseen power, “ rearing itself up like a wall of water as it appro: aches the scraggy sides “ of the islands, moving on faster and faster as it nears the shore, until at “ last it bursts with fury over islets thirty feet high, or sends up foam “and spray, sparkling in the sunbeams, fifty feet up the sides of the p.e- “ cipices. I can compare the roar of the surf in a calm night to nothing “ less than the falls of Niagara.” Summer is indeed, as Mr. Harrisse says, “ brief but lovely “—-lovely, when the field ice is gone, with the deep purple of the sea and with the rose and violet sheen of the stately bergs and with the black beetling precipices and the foam of the breakers combing over the rocky islets— a stern and soleinn loveliness, yet tender at rare moments in its delicate tints of colour; but John Cabot was a practical person. not in search of pictorial effects. Ie said the soil was good and the climate tem erate, and gave promise of the growth of sillk and brazil-wood. 4 APPENDIX B. ‘LIVING SLIME.” It is probably Professor Hind who originated this somewhat dis- agreeably graphic phrase. It has been taken up by succeeding writers to express the tee ming microscopic life of the Arctic current, and Mr. Har- risse has tripped over it. He can hardly be blamed, for the metaphor is a little strong, The following passage from “ Hatton and Harvey's New- foundland” explains it thoroughly (p. 352) : «Phe icy current flowing | from the Arctic seas is in many places ‘a ‘* living mass, a vast ocean of living slime,’ and this slime, which accom- ‘panies the icebergs and floes, accumulates on the banks of northern “ Labrador, and renders the existence possible there of all those forms of ‘marine life—from the diatom to the minute crustacean, from the min- Sissel tiie Se aint cS a ih a al erent abt “2 te them. teered led in report almost ym the {Nain iwehvak mm the farther y miles north- side of, lescrip- s taken van the slowly power, ey sides until at up foam the p-e- nothing ~-lovely, vith the beetling y islets— delicate search of m perate, what dis- writers to |My. Har- etaphor is vey's New- places °a ich accom- f northern se forms of m the min- BY : i | ARASH oi nes ce bein P Necininl Bruce [s. B. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 21 “ute crustacean to the prawn and crab, together with the molluscous “ animals and starfish in vast profusion which contribute to the support of the great schools of cod which also tind their home there, The same current which brings the slime and multitudes of minute crustaceans also carries on its bosom innumerable cod ova, and distributes them far “and wide.” There is no need to go to Cape Chidley for abundance of cod, for the fishermen of Labrador have not yet extended their operations so far north. The Arctic current sweeps down along the east coast of New- foundland and along the coasts of Nova Scotia and New England. Tie Americans have fished out their waters, and the myriads of fish which swarm into every bay round Newfoundland show signs of diminution, but the old writers speak of the cod on these coasts as being so numer- ous as almost to stop the vessels. For three hundred years the cod-fishery on the banks of Newfoundland has been the annual resort of the fisher- men not only of the colonies but of western Europe, and no signs of exhaustion are yet apparent. The simple fact is that the Tabrador tish- eries are newer ground, and the Newfoundlanders are e. 1g up the coast, and have got at present as far as Nain. Moreover. . .nd this is conclusive—the cod do not reach Cape Chidley until August. nw iT) . - ‘ APPENDIX C. Carr Norra on toe Map or 1544. An inspection of the 1544 map will show how correctly Mr. Harrisse read the meaning of the Prima Vista in his first book ; for th two points at the north cannot be Cape St. Lawrence and Cape North on a map so small in scale, but are Cape North and Cape Breton. The reai fact is that Cape Si Lawrence and Cape North are only seven geographical miles apart, and the indentation which separates them is not more than two and a half miles deep, so that they were long taken as one headland. The whole question is exhaustively discussed by Dr. Bourinot in Appen- dix VII. of his monograph on Cape Breton, It is one of great difficulty, anu it would introduce new subject matter to go over ground which Bourinot, Ganong, Pope and Bishop Howley have discussed at length. It is sufficient here to say that the Cap Loraine of Cartier must be the Cap Loran of Champlain’s map of 1612 and Cap St. Laurens of his map of 1632, and also the Cap de Nort of Denys in 1672. The wnole island of Cape Breton was 72 called the island of “Sainct Laurens” before and up to Champlain’s time, although the name of the long known Cape Breton was then being extended ove: the island. Cham- plain says the island isin the “shape of a tri- angle:” that is, one point to the north—Cape St. Lawrence, one to the northeast—Cape Bre- ton, and one to the southwest at the Strait of Canso, Denys’s map is given in Dr. Bourinot’s “Cape Breton,” and he, like Champlain, makes one headland at the north, but calls it “Le Cap de Nort.” cee The annexed traving, reduced from a re- cent map, will show the triangular shape of the island. Exterior outline of Cape Breton Island. 22 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA Theévet is not a writer to be trusted implicitly, but he throws some light upon the subject, and he says he had his information from Cartier in person, He locates Cap Lorraine very precisely by saying that. be- tween it and Newfoundland is a pretty large island, about four leagues in circumference, evidently referring to St. Paul’s Island, This corroborates the view that the old writers counted but one headland at the north, The bearing of all this upon the present question is that the map of 1544, in its distorted shape of the land, shows two points to the north, the most easterly of which is Cape Breton, not Cape North, and that the ‘astern point is marked as the Prima Vista, so that the map of 1544 is i not antagonistic to the theory of the landfall at the easternmost point of ‘ the Ac adian land. | Sipe. ee ee ds ee ea ; | y / ee lee al ! on 3 4 | n ) ae no ae) Yo 4 | roy 2 ev \) Ss Yo \\ ‘ VX “A 1S < i | ‘ nih © S Kee | a - oi \ I a Be. | JB oe i Laos ok | : \ é » ie _ j » ¢ E. a \ 4 | | a Ke, Ee | a ee” it as Pe i OM | q | \ ‘| | ees. as 3 ' L 5 | \ | op eae eer eee ere \ & | \J . —_ f| | > O° i Pe Se Ls Notegy i | S 3 | | ¥ | \ q | NJ eT NE LL I Sea | : Tracing from a photograph of the Original Map of 1544. 4 The preceding cut is an exact tracing from one of twelve full-sized | photographs of the map of 1544, made at the instance of the late Dr. Deane. It is in the Lenox libr ary at New York. This may be con- : d sidered for the present purpose as equivalent to the map itself. The out- 4 line is carefully traced, and all the lettering has been purposely omitted, 4 1 excepting the words prima tierra vista, as confusing the present issue ; i reference to the facsimile in the pre ‘vious paper may be made, 4 besides, a or to the facsimiles in many other F because it was found that the facsimiles had often been copied, one trom another, and little differences existed, It would unduly strain the argu- 4 attach too much importance to the little projections at the ex- 4 books. This tracing has “been made ment to i treme northeast end of the land; but, so far as they go, they indicate a broken coast-line, with deep indentations, such as exist on the coast ; between Cape Breton and Cape North. The map will be seen at once to P be very imperfect. The Bay of Fundy is not shown, and the island of , some Jartier at be- rues in rates sh. nap of th, the at the L544 is oint of ‘ull-sized late Dr. be con- The out- omitted, nt issue ; be made, en made me Toni he argu- t the ex- dicate a he coast t once to island of nah hn ca RS RO pc ca eg pes eG a NCSA ee REED [s. B. DAWSON | THE VOYAGES OF TILE CABOTS 23 _ Cape Breton is not separated. The coast-line is continuous from the prima vista far to the southwest. The following is a cut of the outline of a recent map of the same portion of the coast, reduced by photography to bring it as near as possible to the same scale as the map of 1544, J ‘ Sete goes foi ee ON eee! / ton, Pe aa Outline of the Acadian Coast. APPENDIX D. JuAN DE LA Cosa’s Map. So much importance has been given in the present paper, as well as in the monograph to which it forms a sequel, to the map of’ La Cosa that it is desirable to collect the chief notices of the map and its author and present them in a condensed form. Juan de La Cosa was born about the year 1460, at Santofa (Puerto de Santa Maria) a seaport in the north of Spain, eighteen miles east of the better known Santander, and near to the border of the Basque provinces—a part of Spain noted for its hardy and daring sailors and, at that time, the centre of the whaling fleet then extending their voyages farther and farther into the hidden mysteries of the western ocean, The natural career of a Spaniard born on that coast at that period was upon the ocean, and La Cosa made voyages along the west coast of Africa in the tracks of the Portuguese discoverers, as well as to Flanders and the north of Europe. In this way he became the captain and owner of a good vessel, the “Santa Maria,” of 100 tons burden, When Columbus was preparing his expedition for the discovery of the new world he found, at Palos, the vessel of La Cosa and chartered it, hoisting upon it his own flag as admiral, for it was the largest of’ his three ships, and engaging its owner to go with him as master. The ship was lost on the island of Hispaniola “and Columbus in his private journal throws blame on La Cosa but, as the ship was La Cosa’s property, he can scarcely have had any object in wrecking it and the admiral was, beyond doubt, a little je: ulous of those who might be supposed to share the credit of his achievements. Dr. Justin Winsor, in his life of Columbus, may be consulted on this point, and itis not necessary here to enter into the minor defects of a man so great as Columbus. It is sufficient to say that, whatever he wrote in his private diary, he made no public complaint and that the Spanish sovereigns re-imbursed La Cosa for the vessel he had lost and if any blame had attached to him that certainly would not have been done. On the contrary, so highly was his skill as a navigator rated that Columbus urged him to go with him in 1494 on his second voyage 24 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA and gave him command of the “ Nifla,”’ with the additional rank of mas- ter chart-maker. It is very remarkable that Columbus adhered until his death to the opinion that Cuba was a promontory of Asia, but La ‘Cosa on his map portrayed it as an island. On this second voyage La Cosa with the other masters and pilots of the expedition was compelled by Columbus to sign a solemn notarial declaration that Cuba was part of the main continent, an unusual proceeding and one suggestive of the existence of doubt. La Cosa returned to Spain in 1496, and for a short time resumed his former life as a sailor and shipowner. In 1499, Alonzo Ojeda obtained permission to fit out an expedition of discovery, and he at once secured La Cosa as chief pilot. Amerigo Vespucci was on this expedition as chief cosmographer and Herrera claims for La Cosa the honour of being, rather than Vespucci, the true coca hd of the mainland of America, which discovery he says was sally made on this expedition, although it is now known that the panies discovered the coast of Vener tela in August, 1498, on his third voyage. By a grim irony of fate the new world has received its name not from Columbus, nor from Cabot, nor from Ta Cosa, nor even from any professional sailor or veritable discoverer, but from Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine merchant and contractor, who became an amateur sailor in middle life under the stimulus of the achievements of the great navigators whom he associated with during his residence in Seville. The expedition of Ojeda returned to Spain in 1500, and in the autumn of that year La Cosa made, for their Catholic Majesties of Castile and Aragon, the map now so celebrated. In the following year (1501) he sailed again to America with a trading ex pedition, having been engaged, as Herrera says. as “being the ‘best pilot in existence for “those seas, and one who had been trained by the admiral.” On the return voyage many ships of the fleet were lost, but he escaped ship- wreck, In 1504 he sailed as captain-general of four ships sent by royal orders to America, and, after many adventures, returned to Spain in 1506, where the gov ernment employed him in matters of geography and navigation, and in 1507 Ferdinand summoned him to court at Burgos, together with Juan Diez Solis, Vincente Pinzon and Amerigo Vespucci, to a council, at which new expeditions were decided on. Pinzon and Solis sailed first, and, later on, in 1507, La Cosa sailed; but before sailing he made what was called the padron, or standard chart, for the marine wsapartment at Seville, on which all discoveries were entered as they weve reported. From this expedition he returned in 1508. In 1509 he sailed on his seventh and last expedition, with the rank of lieutenant for the king. It was a disastrous attempt to settle a colony on the mainland, and La Cosa was killed by Indians on the coast of Venezuela. His reputation as a navigator, cosmographer and map-maker stood second only to that of the great admir: ul. He was a favourite of the Spanish monarchs, and the ‘Spanish historians often mention him as a great pilot. Peter Martyr says his charts were esteemed before all others, and Tas Casas calls him the best of pilots. Fonseca, bishop of Burgos, who had been president of the marine board of tr ade (Casa de Contra. tacion), had one of his maps—spoken of by Peter Martyr, in 1514, as very beautiful. The more sanguine would fain think that this is the same map, but there is no proot P either way. Oost ane tea step Ory BSE ye Senin Tne ee! tell ae. ao j 2 : 4 y % 5 : i mas- until it a e La yelled rt of f the short dition 1eTi gO arrera > true s was it’ the third name from nerigo nateur | great itumn le and (1501) y been ce for Jn the 1 ship- orders where gation, or with neil, at id first, le what ment at sported. he rank . colony coast of er stood » of the im as a 1 others, Burgos, Contra- 1514, as is is the ni : ka : o | f 4 i 2 # | 4 4 imac elses SM Et arte sierra ASA RSS DERE ASEM ie Wie / 4 ‘ {s. EB. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 25 La Cosa’s map had no influence upon the cartography of the time. It was, like other maps, jealously guarded in the royal library, or in the archives of the marine board and of the council of the Indies, and disap- peared for a long time, until it turned up in Paris, having probably been carried away among the plunder of the French troops. It was bought by the Baron von Walkenaer, ambassador of Holland, who freely com- municated it to scholars, and to Humboldt among others. Walkenaer died in 1853, and the Spanish government secured it, at the sale of’ his library, as a national treasure. All the maps of Columbus have disap- peared, and this is a contemporary map of his discoveries, also made by one of his chief companions. The map is on parchment, and is mounted on a skin of Russia leather, and preserved under glass and in a costly oak frame in the naval museum at Madrid. It is a marine chart, and in the interior countries it is adorned with figures which express the current beliefs of the time. It isa graphic summary of all the geographical knowledge of the age, for it is a mapa mundi, mappe monde, or world map. The continent of Asia is shown a little beyond the Ganges, on the right, and on the lett is the new world, taken to be the eastern coast-line of Asia. There can be very little doubt but that La Cosa had before him the map of the first voyage made by John Cabot, which Pedro de Ayala sent to the King of Spain, The coast-line to the south, where it meets the Spanish dis- coveries, was either drawn from information brought by the return of the second Cabot expedition, or, as might well happen, is an Asiatic coast-line drawn from Toscanelli’s map and founded on Marco Polo’s information and that of other travellers. There are no Asiatic names upon it, however. On that unknown part of the coast which Columbus and others were then searching, in order to find an opening through to the west, La Cosa has drawn a picture of St. Christopher carrying the Infant Jesus on his shoulders across the sea, Fancy has imagined a por- trait of the admiral in the face of the saint, but it is probably merely an adaptation of the beautiful legend to give expression to the religious zeal of the modern Christopher. Facsimiles of the American portion of this important map have been published by Humboldt, Jomard, Harrisse, Winsor, Markham, Kohl, and other scholars. The tracing given in the writer’s monog raph of 1594, and now reproduced, was reduced from a facsimile published at Madrid in 1892, in commemoration of the fourth centenary of the dis- covery by Columbus. It is of the full size of the original and in all the brilliant colours and with all the quaint designs and illustrations which make it so interesting to students, It was produced by lithography under the care of Signor Canovas Vallejo and Professor Traynor of Madrid. The descriptive book is by Antonio Vascano, whose name on the tracing sketch in the monograph of 1894 is alone given, although it would have been more proper to have given precedence to the two other names. The importance of this map in the present controversy cannot be overrated, The Cavo de Ynglaterra cannot be taken for any other than that characteristic headland of northeast America, which for almost four hundred years has appeared on the maps under one name in the various forms of Cape Raz, Rase, Razzo, or Race, a name derived from the Latin rasus—smooth shaven or flat. That the name is expressive and ap- propriate will be seen from the following engraving from a photograph 26 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA taken for the Department of Marine of Canada, which has the care and maintenance of the lighthouse upon this historic landmark of the high- way between the old and the new worlds Cape Race, from the Ocean. APPENDIX E., JACQUES CARTIER AND HIS DIscovERIEs. Some apology is required for alluding to facts so elementary as these, inasmuch as they are obvious to all students, and they have been elucidated in minute detail by a band of French Canadian scholars whose contributions to the history of this continent have won respectful attention in the old world as well as in the new. No such question as “Cartier vs. Cabot” was raised in the Royal Society of Canada, the first section of which includes many French writers whose researches have thrown light on the obscurer portions of our history and who are adepts in such inquiries as these. It became advisable to notice the cry of “Cartier vs. Cabot” put forth by some correspondents of newspapers, not for the sake of the society, but for the sake of the general public. Cape Breton is a part of the province of Nova Scotia which did not, until 1867, become part of the Dominion of Canada, It was never Canada before that date, and it is therefore misleading to call Cabot the discoverer of Canada as it would be misleading to speak of Ponce de Leon as the discoverer of the United States. The persons who felt called upon to rush to the defence of Jacques Cartier, abdut whom nobody was thinking, did not stop to consider the logical result of their inconsiderate zeal. For if it be true, as Humboldt and his followers maintain, that Cabot struck the coast of Labrador and followed it down in the way they think indicated by La Cosa’s map—if it id h- ry as been v hose ectful on as , the irches | who notice ndents yf the Seotia la. It to call ak of acques ler the mboldt lor and p—if it [s. E. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF TILE CABOTS 27 be true that the named coastline on that map is the southern coast of Labrador, then it is also true that, in the strictest sense of the words, John Cabot was the discoverer of Canada, and Cartier followed along a coast where the English flag had been planted thirty-seven years before. The coast of southern Labrador was an integral part of old French Canada; it was claimed up to latitude 55° N.. and concessions were made by the Government at Quebee and were occupied and worked, beyond the Strait of Belle Isle, as fishing stations, under licenses from the French Crown and, to the present day, the coast of Labrador as fir east ws Blane Sablon forms part of the province of Quebec. ‘To a simple student of history the landfall is a matter of indifference, saving as a fact to be ascertained, but those who have imported national feeling into the matter and who, without due consideration, are defending the renown of Jacques Cartier, which no one has impugned, are, in pressing their arguments for Labrador, unconsciously betraying the very cause they fancy themselves to be supporting, The Transactions of this society contain many original and very valuable papers upon Jacques Cartier'’s voyages. In relation to the present discussion it has only to be noted that Cartier did not commence to give names to the places he visited until he had passed Brest ; a port in the Strait of Belle Isle well known to fishermen, He left his ships there for awhile and explored taurther westward in his boats and it was then he met the ship from Rochelle. He says: “ Kstans en ce fleuve nous advisasmes une grande Nave qui estoit de “la Rochelle, laquelle avoit la nuict precedante passé outre le port de ‘ Brest, ot ils pensoyent aller pour pescher, mais les mariniers en sgavoy- ‘ent ot estait le lieu. Nous nous accostames d’eux, et nous mismes ensemble en un autre port, qui est plus vers Ouest,” * * *% It should be observed here that Brest was undoubtedly within the present limits of the province of Quebec. and yet it was a place trequent- ed by French fishermen ; fromthat point Cartier’s discoveries commence ; all farther west was new. In like manner when, on his second voyage, he returned home south of Newfoundland he speaks of Cape Lorraine, the north point of Cape Breton. He remained for some days at St. Pierre Miquelon where he found some French fishing vessels. Cartier’s simple and unassuming narrative convinces every reader that all the country inside, from rt maux Bay on the Canadian Labrador round to Cape North in Cape Breton, was explored first by him, and all the coast outside of these two points, that is outside the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was well known before him. a © APPENDIX F. LituraicaL Mersop or TrRactna DiscovVERIES ALONG A COAST. This ingenious method, suggested first by Mr. Harrisse, will not woes out satisfactorily in practice. Beyond question, when a discovery wa made on any important festival it was frequently named in commemo- ‘ation of the day ; but, although usually religious men, these early explorers were sailors and not ecclesiastics with the Brevi lary consiantly in their hands. They had sweethearts and wives, like the sailors of our day, and remembered them in the same human way. Thus Cartier ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA ‘ 28 named one of the islands he found in the Strait of Belle Isle, St, Kathe- 4 rine. That was on the 27th of May ; but April 30 is the day of St. 4 Katherine of Alexandria. - Katherine of Siena and November 25 that of St. Neither day will suit the liturgical theory, and the conclusion is irre- sistible that Cartier was thinking of his wife Katherine des Granges, who was probably named after the earlier saint and martyr of Alexandria, as St. Katherine of Siena was not canonized until 1461. She had not in the north the veneration ske had in Italy. Judge Prowse, in reviewing my monogyaph on the Cabots, thinks that this liturgical test upsets ny theory that Cabot sailed, as shown by La Cosa’s map, from west to east along the coast of Newfoundland. He says ‘the author ignores the fact that the old pilots in naming the coast « followed the calendar, The position of Cape St. Jorge (April 23) and “@, St. Lucia (December 13), west of St. Nicholas (December 6) show “ conelusively that the navigator whose voyage La Cosa’s map records H «“ sailed from east to west.” I venture to think that the very dates Judge Prowse quotes explode conclusively the whole liturgical theory ; for it is very certain that before } the year 1500 neither on December 6, or December 13, in the depth of winter could there have been any vessels on that coast, nor would any vessel be likely to have been there as early in the spring as April 23 ; and, again, any navigator along the coast would have made a quicker passage between Cape St. Jorge and Cape St. Lucia than from April 23 to December 13, whichever way he sailed. A APPENDIX G. The following table is taken from a statement prepared by Professor Henry Youle Hind, M.A., and laid before the Commission on the Fishery Clauses of the Treaty of Washington, which met at Halifax in 1877. 2AN DATE OF ARRIVAL OF Cop IN NORTH- TABLE SHOWING THE APPROXIMATE MI LABRADOR. i EASTERN NEWFOUNLAND, SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN a a es MEAN DATE OF LocALITY. | ARRIVAL. se rneereee eer eenee | NEWFOUNDLAND. Ist June. > O 47°30 Conception Bay 10th =“ a | 48°20 Bonavista Bay .....--- +0552 sere i deied gave Ahonen eine ah Sa | 48°30 Notre Dame Bay ....s.cscees cenerecece essere nceereees ...| 20th“ | 50° | Cape St. John to Par. Tt | 20th “* 45°80 |. Wiilte Hays. c. acs o ts vaccum satae tas uengtetoryrerettesnn tones’ | 10th =‘ 51° | Cape Rouge Harbour........ -+--ssssercrecteresse 10th ‘‘ 51°30 Cape Bauld to Cape Onion......00 veers tee etet te nets enst 20th =‘ Over four degrees of latitude. X : [s. E. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 29 Bs. TABLE SHOWING THE APPROXIMATE MEAN Darr OF ARRIVAL OF Cop IN NorvTH- 1e- a , ‘ . A Si a EASTERN NEWFOUNDLAND, SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN LABRADOR.—Continued. iT e ith, 4 = —— : = re- i Sarees MEAN DATE OF i Lat. LOCALITY, | ARRIVAL, as ~ = —————— | ———___—__— the re) SOUTHERN LABRADOR, ks 52°0 | Chateau Bay... .....ciessstssrieeeves dihsipen nasty ceca visas | 20th June. by BB°24 | Batteaux...... ccc cece ccc cscs ccnccavtuseucucevcuvcvevenncs | 12th July. He ; | ie ast 54°26 | Indian Harbour........... 0 .........5. ip tn Nea detoatese ..| th * and 54°66 | Cape Harrison...............ceccccccecsscccceecccecccvevecee| 18th 1OW i F rds Over three degrees of latitude. ode NORTHERN LABRADOR. fore BOLE PAI B ccd teeruincate ogtalsowa? euiee etiote anata hah On Muake dh edhe duties 20th July. of wen eo 54°57 | Kypokok.... 0. ccc cece cee ven eaees bo anatmagniies 20th =‘ any und, 55°27 | Hopedale............0. cece cece eee ee soache sicher Macnee tis tyut 20th * nce i cg e ae 55°30 | Double Island Harbour... .................00005. Said fences 22nd ( 55°52 | Ukkasiksalik.....0 0.0.0... ec ccc cece ee ceneeneucueeenes 28th * 56°33 | Nain............... soca ecasaea ecutive ween aie Seoahecdih achat Bal Renae TS eae 2th * BY fa U0 I ©) °¢) - <p an B gCR 2th * 6890)! Hebron si ¢ ora e satis hah eRe ees Kataidle dianRinae Ba ake pawn. aie t 15th August. | | 4Ssor 58°46 | Lampson............... sep highs Matias ela trend eves dare eet nort wea oars | 15th “ : | 1eY ' y Over three and a half degrees of latitude. baer! ae re as A ES Sarin: Cape Chidley is still further north—in lat. 60° 30’. It is not included in the table, being too far north to have any practical bearing on the question before the Commissioners. \TE OF Ala e . ‘ .| 30 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA NOTES. 1, Communication to the Montreal Gazetfle, July 80th, 1895, 2, In his notes to the admirable edition of Champlain's Voyages, published in Quebec, 6 vols,, dto, 1870. 3. Histoire du Canada. 2 vols., 8vo. Quebec, L&61, 1. Trans. Roy. Soc, of Canada, Vol, for 1801, 5. See Hakluyt, American Voyages passim, and later throughout all the nego tiations of the 17th and Isth centuries. This point has ceased to be of any practical value now, and is often overlooked. 6. The early maps show this beyond all ecavil. The Cantino map, 1501, the Canerio map of the same date, the King map, 1502-8, the map of Salvat de Palestrina, 1503-4, the Portuguese portolanos of 1502-4, and, above all, Reinel's map, 1505, and all the later maps, prove this. It can scarcely be seriously disputed, for the names still cling to the coast disguised under English distortions. 7. John Cabot, the Discoverer of North Amevica, and Sebastian, his Son. London, 1S06, &. Gordon, Report on Hudson’s Bay Expedition of 1886, Ottawa, See Monograph Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 1894, where this confusion between the two voyages is unravelled and explained. 10, That Ce bot was in London by Aug, 10th, 1497, is proved by an entry in the King’s Peivy Purse accounts, showing that a gratuity of £10 was given to the man ‘who first sighted land, Cabot landed at Bristol on his return, and in that are some days must be allowed for the news t* travel to London. 11. Some critics complained that these references ¥ not put at the foot of each page. The object of the plan adopted then and now is to enable the hasty reader to grasp the argument quickly, without distracting his attention by the more detailed information required by those interested in the study of these questions, 12, Trans. Roy. Soe. Canada. Vol. vii., for 1889, 13, Dr, Bourinot’s monograph was also published separately, but in a limited edition, and is now out of print. lt. Vide Patterson on Portuguese discoveries, cited ante. Frey Luis, now Cape Freels ; Cabo d’Espera, now Cape Spear; Baya Fondo, now Bay of Fundy ; Cabo Razo, now Cape Race, and others ; to which list may be added Ro;nousi or Rognosco, whence Cartier took his departure home on his second voy We, now called Renews, id. The landfall of Columbus is not absolutely settled to the satisfaction of «ll. Watling’s Island has the weight of authority now, and is generally accepted, but Capt. Fox, of the U.S. Navy, argues for Samana ina very elaborate monograph, Navarrete and others argue for Grand Turk’s Island, Varn- hagen for Marignana, and Irving, Humboldt and others for Cat Island. These points are not far apart, but Labrador and Cape Breton are so widely distinguished from each other that there should not be much difficulty. nego f any werio ‘trina, / map, puted, ns. yndon, en the IXKing's ie man in that yf each » hasty tion by budy of limited w Cape Fundy ; o,nousi voy wwe, 1 of all. ecepted, laborate d, Varn- Island. o widely Ity.