ontact with the land, and its very peculiar
shape. In coasting along, it would appear as an island, for the isthmus
is very narrow, and St. Pierre and Miquelon would be clearly seen as
islands on the right. As for the bearings of the coast, it will appear by
a comparison with Champlain's large map that they are compass bearings,
for they are the same on both.

I have dwelt at length upon the map of La Cosa, because, for our northern
coasts, it is in effect John Cabot's map. After the return of the second
expedition, the English made a few voyages, but soon fell back into the
old rut of their Iceland trade. The expedition was beyond question a
commercial failure, and therefore, like the practical people they are,
they neglected that new continent which was destined to become the chief
theatre for the expansion of their race. Their fishermen were for many
years to be found in small numbers only on the coast, and, as before,
their supply of codfish was drawn from Iceland, where they could sell
goods in exchange.

Meantime the Bretons and Normans, and the Basques of France and Spain,
and the Portuguese grasped that which England practically abandoned. That
landfall which Cabot gave her in 1497 cost much blood and treasure to win
back in 1758. The French fishermen were on the coast as early as 1504,
and the names on La Cosa's map were displaced by French names still
surviving on the south coast and on what is called the "French shore" of
Newfoundland. Robert Thorne in 1527--and no doubt others unrecorded--in
vain urged upon the English government to vindicate its right. According
to the papal bulls and the treaty of Tordesillas, the new lands were
Portuguese east of a meridian three hundred seventy leagues west of
the Cape de Verd Islands and Spanish to the west of it. Baccalaos and
Labrador were considered to be Portuguese; and, upon the maps, when any
mention is made of English discoveries they are accordingly relegated to
Greenland or the far north of Labrador. The whole claim of England went
by abandonment and default. The Portuguese, as the Rev. Dr. Patterson has
shown, named all the east coast of Newfoundland, and their traces are
even yet found on the coasts of Nova Scotia and of Cape Breton.

Therefore it is that the maps we have now to refer to are not so much
Spanish as Portuguese. They will tell us nothing of the English, nor of
Cabot, but we shall be able to follow his island of St. John--the only
one of his na