a landfall on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, which is
so varied in its character as to correspond with almost any conditions
likely to be found in a landfall on the American coast; but inasmuch as,
from other reasons, it will, I think, appear that the landfall was at
Cape Breton, it will be a shorter process to prove by a positive argument
where it was than to show by a negative argument where it was not.

I might here borrow the quaint phrase of Herodotus and say, "Now I have
done speaking of" John Cabot. He has, beyond doubt, discovered the
eastern coast of this our Canada, and he has organized a second
expedition, and he has sailed in command. Forthwith, upon such sailing,
he vanishes utterly, and his second son, Sebastian, both of his brothers
having in some unknown way also vanished, emerges, and from henceforth
becomes the whole Cabot family. It behooves us, therefore, if we wish to
grasp the whole subject, to inquire what manner of man he was.

Sebastian Cabot was born in Venice, and, when still very young, was
taken to England with the rest of his family by his father. He was then,
however, old enough to have learned the humanities and the properties of
the sphere, and to this latter knowledge he became so addicted that he,
early in life, formed fixed ideas. He is probably entitled to the merit
of having urged the practical application of the truths that the shortest
course from point to point upon the globe lies upon a great circle, and
also that the great circle uniting Western Europe with Cathay passes over
the north pole. This fixed idea of the younger Cabot pervaded all his
life and shows in all his reported conversations. He adhered to it with
the pertinacity of a Columbus, and, in his later life after his return
to England, his efforts, which in youth were directed to a northwest
passage, went out toward a northeast passage to Cathay. John Cabot's
genius was more practical, as the second letter of Raimondo di Soncino
shows. His intention was to occupy on the second voyage the landfall
he had made and then push on to the east (west, as we call it now) and
south. The diversion of that expedition to the coast of Labrador would
indicate that the death of the elder Cabot and the assumption of command
by his son occurred early in the voyage. Sebastian Cabot seems to have
been not so much a great sailor as a great nautical theorizer. Gomara
says he discovered nothing for Spain; and beyond doubt his expeditio