But It Would
Appear That The Almighty Still Reserves This Great Enterprise Of
Discovering The Route To Cathay By The North-West To Some Great Prince,
Which Were The Easiest And Shortest Passage By Which To Bring The
Spiceries Of India To Europe.
Surely this enterprise would be me most
glorious and most important that can possibly he imagined, and would
immortalize him who succeeded in its accomplishment far beyond any of
those warlike exploits by which the Christian nations of Europe are
perpetually harassed.
[Footnote 8: Hakluyt, III. 28.]
SECTION IV. Notices respecting the voyage of Sebastian Cabot to the
northwest, from Peter Martyr ab Algeria[9].
These northern seas have been searched by Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian,
who was carried when very young to England by his parents, who, after
the manner of the Venetians, left no part of the world unsearched to
obtain riches. Having fitted out two ships in England at his own
expence, with three hundred men, he first directed his course so near
the north pole, that on the 11th of July he found monstrous heaps of ice
swimming in the sea, and a continual day, so that the land was free from
ice, having been thawed by the perpetual influence of the sun. By reason
of this ice he was compelled to turn southwards along the western land,
till he came unto the latitude of the Straits of Gibraltar[10]. In the
course of this north-west voyage he got so far to the west as to have
the island of Cuba on his left hand, having reached to the same
longitude[11]. While sailing along the coast of this great land, which
he called Baccalaos[12], he found a similar current of the sea towards
the west[13] as had been observed by the Spaniards in their more
southerly navigations, but more softly and gently than had been
experienced by the Spaniards.
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