The Passage To India By
The Cape Of Good Hope, Had Been Granted Exclusively By The Pope To The
Portuguese; And Henry VIII.
Then a good catholic, wished to evade this
exclusive privilege by endeavouring to discover a new route.
It was well
observed by one of the kings of France, in reference to the Pope having
granted all the East to the Portuguese, and all the West to the Spaniards,
"I wish my brothers of Spain and Portugal would shew me the testament of
our father Adam, by which they claim such ample inheritance." The
supposition that Cabot had perished on his voyage from Porto Rico to
England was unfounded. He was alive there in 1549, in which year Edward VI.
granted a yearly pension for life to him and his assigns, of L.166, 13s.
4d. to be paid quarterly, in consideration of the good and acceptable
service done and to be done by him[17].
We have been induced to insert this long digression in this place, because
no journals remain of the voyages to which they relate. The other early
voyages of the English to the New World, were all for the purpose of
discovering a N.W. passage by sea to India, or for colonizing the
provinces of North America, and will fail to be particularly noticed in
other divisions of our work.
[1] Novus Orbis, p. 111.
[2] Vol. I. 262, and Vol. V. 479.
[3] Nov. Orb. 87.
[4] Mod. Geogr. III. 8.
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