at memorable voyage which
opened the vast regions of the west to civilized man, the maritime
states of Europe manifested a desire to share with Spain, the glory,
the wealth, and the dominion to be acquired in the new world. By no
one of these states, was this desire carried into action more promptly
than by England, Henry VII. had received communications from Columbus,
during the tedious and uncertain negotiations of that great man, at
the dilatory court of Ferdinand, which prepared him for the important
discoveries afterwards made, and inclined him to countenance the
propositions of his own subjects for engaging in similar adventures.
On the 5th of March 1495, he granted a commission to John Cabot, an
enterprising Venetian who had settled in Bristol, and to his three
sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sanctius, empowering them, or either of
them, to sail under the banner of England, towards the east, north, or
west, in order to discover countries unoccupied by any Christian
state, and to take possession of them in his name.

[Sidenote: His voyage to America.]

It does not appear that the expedition contemplated at the date of
this commission was prosecuted immediately; but in May 1496, Cabot,
with his second son, Sebastian, sailed from Bristol in a small
squadron, consisting of one ship furnished by the King, and four barks
fitted out by merchants of that city; and, steering almost due west,
discovered the islands of Newfoundland and St. Johns, and, soon
afterward, reached the continent of North America, along which he
sailed from the fifty-sixth to the thirty-eighth degree of north
latitude, in the vain hope of discovering a passage into the Pacific.

Thus, according to the English historians, was first discovered that
immense continent which stretches from the gulf of Mexico as far north
as has yet been explored; and to this voyage, the English trace their
title to the country they afterwards acquired by settlement, and by
arms.

France, which has since contested with Britain the possession of a
considerable portion of this important territory, has also advanced
claims to its discovery; but they seem not to be well founded.

[Sidenote: The scheme of making settlements relinquished.]

The ardour which had been excited in the bosom of Henry for making
acquisitions in the new world, expired with this first effort. Cabot,
on his return, found that monarch entirely disinclined to the farther
prosecution of a scheme in whi