IV.

THE OLD ENGLISH SEAMEN.

ROBABLY no single class of men ever made a greater

PRO

change in the fortunes of mankind than was brought about by the great English seamen of the sixteenth century. Some of them were slave-traders, others were smugglers, almost all were lawless men in a lawless age; but the result of their daring expeditions was to alter the destiny of the American continent, and therefore the career of the human race.

In the year 1500, Spain, with Portugal, was the undisputed master of the New World. At the present time neither Spain. nor Portugal owns a foot of land upon the main continent of North or South America. The destiny of the whole Western world has been changed; and throughout almost all the northern half of it the language, the institutions, the habits have been utterly transformed. At the time when Europe was first stirred by the gold and the glory brought from the newly discovered America, it was only Spain, and in a small degree Portugal, that reaped the harvest. These were then the two great maritime and colonizing powers of Europe; and two bulls from Pope Alexander VI., in 1593, had permitted them to divide between them any newly discovered portions of the globe. Under this authority Portugal was finally permitted. to keep Brazil-which had been first colonized by Portuguese -while Spain claimed all the rest of the continent. To this day the results of that mutual distribution are plainly to be seen

in South America. Brazil speaks Portuguese, while almost all the rest of South America, with Mexico, speaks Spanish. But beyond Mexico, through all the vast length and breadth of North America, English is the prevailing and official language. Throughout that region, instead of the Latin race, the Germanic prevails; instead of the Roman Catholic faith, the Protestant preponderates. There has not been in the history of the world a profounder change in the current of human events. The most remarkable circumstance of all is, that this change was substantially made in a single century (the sixteenth), and was made mainly through a single class of men—the old English seamen. They it was who broke the power of Spain, and changed the future destinies of America.

Other nations doubtless co-operated. Italy, especially, contained the great intellectual and cultivated race in that age, and furnished both Spain and Portugal again and again with ships, mathematical instruments, captains, crews, and even bankers' credits. Spain sent across the Atlantic ocean Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, both Italians; France sent Verrazzano, an Italian; England sent Cabot, an Italian by citizenship and probably by birth and blood. For centuries the descendants of the Northmen confined their voyages to the shores of Western Europe; they knew less even of the Mediterranean than their Viking ancestors; but London had Italian merchants, and Bristol had Italian sailors, and it is to these that we owe the pioneer explorations of the Cabots. We must begin with these, for on these rested, in the first place, all the claims of England to the North American coast.

There is a great contrast between the ample knowledge that we have about the career of Columbus and the scanty and contradictory information left to us in regard to the Cabots. There is scarcely a fact about them or their voyages which is known with complete accuracy. We do not know past question their nationality or their birthdays, or the dates of their

voyages; nor do we always know by which of the family those expeditions were made. John Cabot was long regarded as a Genoese who came to England to reside; yet it has been thought possible that he was an Englishman who was merely naturalized in Venice in 1476. Sebastian Cabot is now pretty well known to have been born in Venice, yet some contemporary authorities describe

him as a native of Bristol. He received a patent from the King in 1496-he and his father and brothersto make discoveries; but the only engraved map bearing his name claims that he had already found North America two years before that date. "John Cabot, a Venetian, and Sebastian Cabot, his son, discovered this region, formerly unknown, in the year 1494, on the 24th day of June, at the fifth hour." This date appears

both in the Latin and Spanish inscriptions on the unique copy of this map in the National Library at Paris; the map itself having been engraved in 1544, but only having come to light in 1843. Its authenticity has been fully discussed by M. D'Avezac, who believes in it, and by Dr. J. G. Kohl and Mr. Charles Deane, who reject it. Mr. R. H. Major, of the British Museum, has made the ingenious suggestion that the date, which is in Roman letters, was originally written by Cabot thus, MCCCCXCVII., and that the V, being carelessly written, passed for II, so that the transcriber wrote 1494 instead

in South America. Brazil speaks Portuguese, while almost all the rest of South America, with Mexico, speaks Spanish. But beyond Mexico, through all the vast length and breadth of North America, English is the prevailing and official language. Throughout that region, instead of the Latin race, the Germanic prevails; instead of the Roman Catholic faith, the Protestant preponderates. There has not been in the history of the world a profounder change in the current of human events. The most remarkable circumstance of all is, that this change was substantially made in a single century (the sixteenth), and was made mainly through a single class of men—the old English seamen. They it was who broke the power of Spain, and changed the future destinies of America.

Other nations doubtless co-operated. Italy, especially, contained the great intellectual and cultivated race in that age, and furnished both Spain and Portugal again and again with ships, mathematical instruments, captains, crews, and even bankers' credits. Spain sent across the Atlantic ocean Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, both Italians; France sent Verrazzano, an Italian; England sent Cabot, an Italian by citizenship and probably by birth and blood. For centuries the descendants of the Northmen confined their voyages to the shores of Western Europe; they knew less even of the Mediterranean than their Viking ancestors; but London had Italian merchants, and Bristol had Italian sailors, and it is to these that we owe the pioneer explorations of the Cabots. We must begin with these, for on these rested, in the first place, all the claims of England to the North American coast.

There is a great contrast between the ample knowledge that we have about the career of Columbus and the scanty and contradictory information left to us in regard to the Cabots. There is scarcely a fact about them or their voyages which is known with complete accuracy. We do not know past question their nationality or their birthdays, or the dates of their

voyages; nor do we always know by which of the family those expeditions were made. John Cabot was long regarded as a Genoese who came to England to reside; yet it has been thought possible that he was an Englishman who was merely naturalized in Venice in 1476. Sebastian Cabot is now pretty well known to have been born in Venice, yet some contemporary authorities describe

him as a native of Bristol. He received a patent from the King in 1496-he and his father and brothersto make discoveries; but the only engraved map bearing his name claims that he had already found North America two years before that date. "John Cabot, a Venetian, and Sebastian Cabot, his son, discovered this region, formerly unknown, in the year 1494, on the 24th day of June, at the fifth hour." This date appears

both in the Latin and Spanish inscriptions on the unique copy of this map in the National Library at Paris; the map itself having been engraved in 1544, but only having come to light in 1843. Its authenticity has been fully discussed by M. D'Avezac, who believes in it, and by Dr. J. G. Kohl and Mr. Charles Deane, who reject it. Mr. R. H. Major, of the British Museum, has made the ingenious suggestion that the date, which is in Roman letters, was originally written by Cabot thus, MCCCCXCVII., and that the V, being carelessly written, passed for II, so that the transcriber wrote 1494 instead