as forced to return to the southwards by the immense quantities
of ice which he encountered in the northern part of his voyage[14].

Sebastian Cabot, on his return to England, found matters in a state which
did not promise him any farther advantages as a mariner, on which he went
into Spain, where he was employed by Ferdinand and Isabella, in whose
service he explored the eastern coast of South America, and discovered the
_Rio Plata_, up which he sailed above 360 miles, finding it to flow
through a fine country, everywhere inhabited by great numbers of people,
who flocked from all parts to admire his ships. After making many other
voyages, which are not specified, he settled in Seville, where he employed
himself in making sea charts, and had the appointment of pilot-major, all
pilots for the West Indian Seas having to pass his examination, and to
have his license[15]. He thought fit, however, to return into England, and
was employed by Henry VIII. In the service of that sovereign he made a
voyage to the coast of Brazil in 1516, under the superior command of Sir
Thomas Pert, vice-admiral of England, of which the following imperfect
account is preserved by Haklyut.

"That learned and industrious writer Richard Eden, in an epistle to the
Duke of Northumberland, prefixed to a work which he translated from
Munster in 1553, called _A treatise of the New India_, makes mention of a
voyage of discovery made from England by Sir Thomas Pert and Sebastian
Cabota, about the eighth year of Henry VIII. The want of courage in Sir
Thomas Pert occasioned this expedition to fail of its intended effect;
otherwise it might have happened that the rich treasury called _Perularia_,
now in Seville, in which the infinite riches which come from the new-found
country of Peru, would long since have been in the Tower of London to the
great honour of the king, and the vast increase of the wealth of this
realm. Gonsalvo de Oviedo, a famous Spanish writer, alludes to this voyage,
in his General and Natural History of the West Indies, as thus quoted by
Ramusio. In the year 1517, an English corsair, under pretence of a voyage
of discovery, came with a great ship to the coast of Brazil, whence he
crossed over to the island of Hispaniola, and arrived near the mouth of
the harbour of St Domingo, where he sent his boat to demand leave of entry
for the purpose of traffic. But Francis de Tapia, the governor of the
castle, caused some ordnance to be fired from t