s, toward the north pole, in the direction of Iceland,
to the cape of Labrador, at 58 deg. north latitude. On the first voyage no
ice was reported; on the second the leading features were bergs and floes
of ice and long days of arctic summer. On the first voyage Cabot saw no
man; on the second he found people clothed with "beastes skynnes." During
the whole of the first voyage John Cabot was the commander; on the second
voyage he sailed in command, but who brought the expedition home and when
it returned are not recorded. It is not known how or when John Cabot
died; and, although the letters-patent for the second voyage were
addressed to him alone, his son Sebastian during forty-five years took
the whole credit in every subsequent mention of the discovery of America,
without any allusion to his father. This antithesis may throw light upon
the suppression of his father's name in all the statements attributed to
or made by Sebastian Cabot. He may always have had the second voyage in
his mind. His father may have died on the voyage. He was marvellously
reticent about his father. The only mention which occurs is on the map
seen by Hakluyt, and on the map of 1544, supposed, somewhat rashly, to be
a transcript of it. There the discovery is attributed to John Cabot and
to Sebastian his son, and that has reference to the first voyage. From
these considerations it would appear that those who place the landfall
at Labrador are right; but it is the landfall of the second voyage--the
voyage Sebastian was always talking about--not the landfall of John Cabot
in 1497.

If Sebastian Cabot had not been so much wrapped up in his own vainglory,
we might have had a full record of the eventful voyage which revealed to
Europe the shores of our Canadian dominion first of all the lands on the
continents of the western hemisphere. Fortunately, however, there resided
in London at that time a most intelligent Italian, Raimondo di Soncino,
envoy of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, one of those despots of the
Renaissance who almost atoned for their treachery and cruelty by their
thirst for knowledge and love of arts. Him Soncino kept informed of
all matters going on at London, and especially concerning matters of
cosmography, to which the Duke was much devoted. From his letters we are
enabled to retrace the momentous voyage of the little Matthew of Bristol
across the western ocean--not the sunny region of steady trade-winds, by
whose favoring inf