's
discovery of Vinland. But Columbus's theories were based on better
evidence, such as the discovery on the coasts of the Azores
archipelago, Madeira, and Portugal of strange seeds, tree trunks,
objects of human workmanship, and even (it is said) the bodies of
drowned savages--Amerindians--which had somehow drifted across, borne
by the current of the Gulf Stream, and escaping the notice of the
sharks.

Whilst Columbus was bestirring himself to find Asia across the
Atlantic, a sea pilot, JOHN CABOT (Zuan Cabota)--Genoese by birth, but
a naturalized subject of Venice--came to England and offered himself
to King Henry VII as a discoverer of new lands across the ocean. At
first he was employed at Copenhagen to settle fishery quarrels about
Iceland, and probably Cabota, or Cabot, visited Iceland in King
Henry's service, and there heard of the Icelandic colonies on the
other side of the Atlantic, only recently abandoned.

In 1496 King Henry VII provided money to cover some of the expense of
a voyage of discovery to search for the rumoured island across the
ocean. The people of Bristol were ordered to assist John Cabot, and by
them he was furnished with a small sailing ship, the _Matthew_, and a
crew of fifteen mariners. Cabot, with his two sons, Luis and Sancio,
sailed for Ireland and the unknown West in May, 1497, and, after a sea
voyage quite as wonderful as that of Columbus, reached the coast of
Cape Breton Island (or "the New Isle", as it was first named[6]) on
June 24, 1497. They found "the land excellent, and the climate
temperate". The sea was so full of fish along these coasts that the
mariners opined (truly) that henceforth Bristol need not trouble about
the Iceland trade. Here along this "new isle" were the predestined
fisheries of Britain.[7]

[Footnote 6: Cape Breton was not then, or for nearly two hundred years
afterwards, known to be an island. It was thought to be part of the
"island" (peninsula) of what we now call Nova Scotia, and the whole of
this region which advances so prominently into the Atlantic was
believed to be at first the great unknown "New Island" of Irish and
English legends--legends based on the Norse discoveries of the
eleventh century. Cape Breton was thus named by the Breton seaman who
came thither soon after the Cabot expeditions to fish for cod. This
large island is separated from Nova Scotia by the Gut of Canso, a
strait no broader than a river.]

[Footnote 7: Dr. S.E. DAWSON (_The