That much may be said without detracting from the credit due him: he had been cast in the mold of greatness. Before Columbus set out, John Cabot had been expressing the same beliefs and theories as his never-to-be-forgotten countryman and had been striving hard for support in putting them to the test. He had ventured out on the most perilous of voyages in a cockleshell of a ship and with the most meager of crews. He possessed, it is clear, the fullest share of knowledge and courage and resolution. He had mastered the crises of the crossing and had accomplished his purpose before turning homeward. He was entitled to strut a little, to carry his head high, to play the role of destiny’s favorite.
It is probable that he had audience with the King before the letters patent for the first voyage were issued, although there is no record of such. That the Great Admiral was granted a hearing after returning in triumph can be taken for granted; and it is likely that more hearings followed. It is known that both the King and the explorer were in London during the early part of August and that the old city fairly seethed with excitement. On August 10 the King recognized Cabot’s merit by making him a present from the royal purse of ten pounds!
Henry had been King for twelve years only but he had already begun the systematic sequestration of funds in secret places which yielded on his death the sum of £1,800,000, a truly fabulous estate for those days. Already he was entering into the conspiracy of extortion which his various crafty ministers (most particularly Empson and Dudley, who had succeeded Morton, he of the Infallible Fork) were carrying out. He frequently consulted Empson’s Book of Accounts and wrote suggestions on the “margent” for new and tricky methods. It is a measure of the man that out of his amazing hoard he could spare no more than ten pounds for this brave and skillful mariner who had brought to him the prospect of an empire as great as that of Spain.
Henry VII was, however, a man of many contradictions. With his parsimony went a love of ostentation and display. He liked to robe himself with all the grandeur of an eastern potentate, in silk and satin and rich velours, his broad padded coats embroidered with thread of gold and weighed down with precious stones, with massive gold chains around his neck and pearls as big as popcorn on his garters. He maintained a rather brilliant court and he kept a good table, which meant there was an earthy side to him; so good a table, in fact, that Ruy Gonzales de Puebla, the Spanish Ambassador, who was meagerly maintained by that other royal miser, Ferdinand of Spain, dined continuously at the royal board. He encouraged the New Learning and gave passive support at least to Colet and Grocyn at Oxford. He was a steady patron of a commoner named Caxton who was printing books from type for the first time in England. The first king to mint pounds and shillings, which had previously been nothing more than coins of account, he saw to it that his own unmistakable likeness in truly royal raiment was stamped upon them.
Henry was steering the ship of state through waters roiled by hate and conspiracy and imposture, and his success is proof of his capacity for judging men shrewdly. Looking down his quite long Welsh nose with his crafty gray Norman eyes, he must have sized up the Genoese captain, “he that founde the new isle,” as a likely instrument for the further extension of his power and wealth. The ten pounds were followed sometime later by the grant of an annuity of twenty pounds sterling. But Henry was not committing himself to this great extravagance. The annuity was to be paid out of the customs of the port of Bristol, and he was not prepared, one may be sure, to countenance any diminution of the sums which reached him annually from that source. The responsibility was laid on the shipowners and merchants of Bristol, and most particularly on the shoulders of one Richard ap Meryk, who held the post of collector, the same relatively obscure official for whom the absurd claim was made later that the new continent of America had been named in his honor.
The King no doubt had many talks with John Cabot, for his enthusiasm showed a steady rise in intensity. New letters patent were issued by which Cabot could take any six ships from any of the ports of England, paying for them (out of his own pockets or the money chests of his Bristol backers) no more than the amount the owners could expect if their vessels had been confiscated for royal use, which would be a pretty thin price. The right was given also to the Great Admiral to take from the prisons of England all the malefactors he could use in the new venture. The King was to get his commission on any and all profits. Henry went this far in lending his support: he would advance loans from the royal purse to those who fitted out ships for the expedition. It is on record that he loaned on this basis twenty pounds to one Lanslot Thirkill of London and thirty pounds to Thomas, brother of Lanslot.
The winter was spent in preparations which rose to a fever point. Not only did the shipping interests of the country show a willingness to invest, but the desire to participate manifested itself in other ways. Men from all levels of society expressed the desire to be taken along. The merchants of London were eager to share in the trading end of the great adventure and sent to Cabot stores of goods to be used in barter with the inhabitants of the newly discovered land—cloth, caps, laces, points (the leather thongs with which men trussed up their leggings and trousers, the forerunners of the suspender, a most doubtful item of exchange with bare-skinned Indians), and many other items and trifles which were thought likely to attract the heathen eye.
The second expedition, which carried three hundred men and so must have consisted of many ships, sailed from Bristol early in May of the following year, 1498. The bold little ships had their holds well stocked with provisions, and with them went not only the hopes of those who had invested their money in the venture and the ardent expectations of all who had received promises of great estates and island domains from the lavish leader, but the support of every Englishman from the acquisitive King to the humblest denizens of hovel and spital-house.
3
The second expedition proved a failure because it started with a faulty objective. Cabot expected to find open water to the north of the new continent which would provide a route around the world. The ships arrived first at Newfoundland, which the leader called the Isle of Baccalaos because the natives used that name for the fish abounding in the waters thereabouts. Later it was learned that the Basque people used the same word for codfish, and this raised the suggestion that Basque ships had preceded Cabot in reaching this part of the world. From Newfoundland the fleet turned north in pursuit of that mirage, the Northwest Passage. They found themselves soon in seas filled with icebergs. This was disconcerting, but nothing could shake their conviction that they must sail ever northward.
Sebastian Cabot, the second son of the commander, was with his father, and it is from a later document, based entirely on his recollections, that the story of the expedition is drawn. Although the season was now well advanced, the majestic icebergs rode the seas in such numbers that there was constant danger of collision. The shores were bare and inhospitable, becoming less and less like the rich lands of Cathay which they sought. At one point, which was believed later to have been Port of Castles, the commander was convinced that he had discovered the mythical Island of the Seven Cities, and there was much excitement as a result. He had mistaken the high basaltic cliffs for the turrets of castles. He persisted in his error sufficiently to report the occurrence later, but it is clear that at the time no effort was made to get closer to where, presumably, the descendants of the seven bishops still lived.
The weather became so cold and uncertain that the northward probe had to be abandoned. Sick at heart and still convinced that the route around the world lay in the north, they finally gave up the quest and turned back.
A determined effort was made then to find some source of wealth in the lands lying south of Newfoundland. The fleet took a southwesterly slant which carried them to Cape Breton and Nova Scotia. Sebastian Cabot, who later achieved a high reputation as a cartographer and maritime authority generally, seems to have possessed the highly unscientific habit of exaggeration. His report of the last part of the journey leaves the i
mpression that the ships from Bristol sailed as far south as the Carolinas, but this obviously was impossible, for they were back in England before the end of the summer. They had found nothing new, they had not seen a single inhabitant, their reports depicted the new continent as bare and grim and, above everything else, silent. They brought back nothing to compensate for the expense of the expedition save cargoes of fish.
On Cabot’s return England seemed momentarily to lose interest in North America. This strange land had nothing to offer, no silks, no gold, no precious stones. It had no castles save the glistening towers of ice which floated in the sea. The investors had wasted their money and their ships in an unprofitable venture. Lanslot Thirkill and Thomas of that ilk still had loans from the King to pay off, at a good interest, no doubt. The benefactors of Cabot’s freehanded generosity could whistle for their grants of land. The priests who were to have been made bishops returned to much humbler shares in the activities of Mother Church.
Nothing more is known of John Cabot. It is probable that he died within a relatively short time, for there is no record of the payment of the pension beyond the first two installments. His descent into oblivion was rapid and complete. His son Sebastian lived to a ripe old age and held important posts under the rulers of Spain. His boastfulness as to the part he had played in the explorations of his father made him the central figure in bitter controversies centuries after his death; into which it would be unprofitable to enter here.
England had lost a great opportunity. Nothing was done to colonize the lands which Cabot had found, although the fisheries of Newfoundland were developed by enterprising captains from Bristol, St. Malo, and the Basque and Portuguese ports. While Spain was achieving world leadership through the wealth which followed her vigorous conquest of the continent Columbus had discovered, the Tudor monarchs made only ineffectual efforts to follow up the discoveries of Cabot.
Small things have often swayed the course of history. If an arrow shot into the sky had not lodged in Harold’s eye, the Normans might conceivably have been defeated at Hastings. Two centuries after Cabot’s death a merry little tune, whistled and sung to seditious words and called Lillibulero, would play quite a part in ousting a bad king from the throne of England. Perhaps to the list this may be added: that the grant of ten pounds by a parsimonious king to the man who had found a continent may have put a damper on individual enterprise in following up his exploit and so resulted in the temporary loss of this great land which later would be called Canada.
CHAPTER II
Before and after Cabot
1
ALTHOUGH John Cabot had supplemented the discoveries of Columbus by proving the existence of a continent in the North, he was not the first European to set foot on what is now called North America. The Norsemen had discovered Iceland and Greenland long before men of their own race took possession of Normandy, and certainly many centuries before men began to discuss seriously the possibility that the earth was round like the stars in the sky. The rugged men from the North established permanent settlements on both islands. In the year 986 a Viking captain named Bjarne Herjutfson was sailing for Greenland and became lost in foggy weather. He was driven far off his course and came to a land which he knew was not Greenland because it was covered with tall green trees and was very pleasant and warm. Bjarne was so anxious to reach his objective that he made no effort to learn about these strange new shores. After he arrived he told the story of what he had seen and in time it was carried back to Norway. The feeling took hold of the Viking people that some effort should be made to investigate.
In the year 1000, accordingly, a bold young sea captain named Leif, a son of Eric the Red, who had already made his home in Greenland, decided to take the task on his shoulders. He reached Greenland and bought from the less enterprising Bjarne the ship in which the latter had made his voyage, believing, no doubt, that it would bring him luck. With a crew of thirty-five he ventured into the warmer seas which lay to the south and west.
Leif made three landings. The first was on a coast which was cold and flat and snowbound. This he named Helluland and it was, without a doubt, somewhere on the coast of Labrador. After a further venture of several days’ duration into the southward they came to a land of much fairer promise. Here there were tall trees and the air was mild and there were beaches of fine sand. Leif called this country Markland. It might have been Cape Breton or Nova Scotia, although it is hard to believe that the ship could have missed Newfoundland on the way. Finally they came to a delightful coast which seemed to the weary crew like the Valhalla where they all aspired to go after death. It was a land, to quote from the Norse saga, where even the dew on the grass had a sweet taste and the salmon were the largest ever to delight the eyes of men. There were vines along the beaches carrying great crops of grapes, and so they called this gentle country Vinland. They wintered there in great comfort and content and returned to Greenland in the spring.
The Norse settlers in the far North were very much excited by the reports Leif and his men brought back with them. In the course of the next few years other parties set out to cover the same course and some of them succeeded in locating Vinland. Leif’s brother Thorwald was one of the first and he spent two winters in that land of warmth and plenty. It was Thorwald who located the first natives. They were men with copper-colored skins, of great physical strength and savage disposition. These red men were armed with bows and arrows and they had boats made of the skins of animals in which they got around with amazing dispatch. Thorwald was killed in a brush with them and he was buried, in accordance with his wish, under the green sod close to the shore and within hearing of the slow-breaking combers.
A determined effort to settle Vinland permanently was made a few years later, in 1007 to be exact. A young Norseman named Thorfinn organized a fleet of ships and set out with a considerable company. There were one hundred and sixty men in the party as well as a number of women. They took a herd of cattle with them and they built houses and cleared land for cultivation, after which they turned the cattle out to pasture on the thin outcropping of vegetation along the beaches. Thorfinn’s wife had accompanied him, and a son was born to them who was given the name of Snorre and who enjoyed, therefore, the honor of being the first white child born on the continent of North America.
The natives were becoming openly hostile to the efforts of these white-skinned intruders to settle down permanently in their hunting and fishing grounds, and the period during which Thorfinn and his companions remained in Vinland was one long and bloody struggle with the resentful redskins. So many of the Vikings were killed that finally they gave up the effort to remain and returned reluctantly to a grim and iron existence on Greenland’s icy mountains.
Just where Vinland was has never been settled to the complete satisfaction of scholars, although it has been conveniently assumed that it was one of the islands lying south of Rhode Island and Cape Cod. Much of the evidence points that way, although grapes could have been found farther north. The remnants of a stone mill, which has been labeled the Newport Tower, have been found on the southern coast of New England and there are clear indications that it was the work of Scandinavians.
There is one point of evidence which inclines some scholars to a belief that the northern part of Newfoundland was as far south as the wandering Norsemen reached. In the Flateyjarbók, which is the chief authority for the stories of Norse exploration, it is stated that on the shortest day at Vinland the sun remained above the horizon from seven-thirty in the morning until four-thirty in the afternoon. However, the word used to designate the closing hour of daylight is “eykarstad,” and there has been much dispute as to whether this particular word means four-thirty or three-thirty. If the latter is the accurate definition, the shortest day was no more than eight hours long, and that would place Vinland close to Latitude 50. In other words, it must have been somewhere on southern Labrador or the northernmost portion of Newfoundland.
The latest contribution to the contro
versy has been the finding of mooring holes in rocks on Cape Cod. Now the mooring hole is a device used by the Vikings, and the Vikings only, a hole in the granite boulders of the fiords into which an iron rod would be slipped to keep a vessel fast to shore. This find has been acclaimed by many scholars as proof that Vinland was Cape Cod. It seems a reasonable assumption.
The fact is thoroughly well established, therefore, that the Norsemen found North America and paid many visits to it. Quite recent discoveries hint at more determined efforts on their part to investigate the new continent. There is the Kensington Stone in Minnesota which is covered with runes from the fourteenth century—quite recently relics have been discovered which are unquestionably of Norse origin—heavy battle-axes, swords, spears, a fire-steel of the late Dark Ages. Did the hardy Norsemen, at some date much later than the Vinland adventures, strike far inland and reach the valley of the Red River? It is a fascinating subject for speculation, but until more evidence conies to light it can be nothing more than that.
2
The efforts of the English to follow up the discoveries of Cabot included an expedition sent out in 1501 by the merchants of Bristol. It was headed by three Englishmen, named Ward, Ashhurst, and Thomas, and three Portuguese. Nothing is known about what they accomplished, but it is recorded that Henry VII gave them five pounds on their return. In 1522 there was a different king in England, Henry VIII, and in his forthright way he made it clear to the merchants of London that he expected them to do something about North America. The bluff young king was already spending with a lavish hand the magnificent fortune his father had saved so slowly and carefully, but he had no thought of applying any of it to the proposed expedition. He told the heads of the London guilds that he would be content with nothing less than a fleet of five ships, well manned and provisioned. The merchants were not seafaring men; they were vintners and mercers and goldsmiths, and averse to anything but the management of their countinghouses. They had no stomach for adventure, and it was only in response to the King’s hectoring that they finally equipped two of the smallest ships they could find, named the Samson and the Mary of Guildford. The unlucky Samson, caught in a mid-Atlantic storm, went down with all on board, but the Mary weathered the blow and conducted a reconnaisance of the American coast which ended off the island of Puerto Rico. Here she encountered a welcome from the Spanish in the form of a salvo of cannon fire. The Mary very sensibly turned about and sailed for home.
The White and the Gold Page 2
