Elizabethan Sea Dogs | Page 2

'pay-fighting Swiss' or Hessian
mercenaries. Columbus entered the Spanish service under Ferdinand
and Isabella just as Cabot entered the English service under Henry VII.
Giovanni--Zuan--John: it was all in a good day's work.
Cabot settled in Bristol, where the still existing guild of
Merchant-Venturers was even then two centuries old. Columbus,
writing of his visit to Iceland, says, 'the English, especially those of
Bristol, go there with their merchandise.' Iceland was then what
Newfoundland became, the best of distant fishing grounds. It marked
one end of the line of English sea-borne commerce. The Levant marked
the other. The Baltic formed an important branch. Thus English trade

already stretched out over all the main lines. Long before Cabot's
arrival a merchant prince of Bristol, named Canyng, who employed a
hundred artificers and eight hundred seamen, was trading to Iceland, to
the Baltic, and, most of all, to the Mediterranean. The trade with Italian
ports stood in high favor among English merchants and was
encouraged by the King; for in 1485, the first year of the Tudor dynasty,
an English consul took office at Pisa and England made a treaty of
reciprocity with Tuscany.
Henry VII, first of the energetic Tudors and grandfather of Queen
Elizabeth, was a thrifty and practical man. Some years before the event
about to be recorded in these pages Columbus had sent him a trusted
brother with maps, globes, and quotations from Plato to prove the
existence of lands to the west. Henry had troubles of his own in
England. So he turned a deaf ear and lost a New World. But after
Columbus had found America, and the Pope had divided all heathen
countries between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, Henry decided to
see what he could do.
* * * * *
Anglo-American history begins on the 5th of March, 1496, when the
Cabots, father and three sons, received the following patent from the
King:
Henrie, by the grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord of
Irelande, to all, to whom these presentes shall come, Greeting--Be it
knowen, that We have given and granted, and by these presentes do
give and grant for Us and Our Heyres, to our well beloved John
Gabote, citizen of Venice, to Lewes, Sebastian, and Santius, sonnes of
the sayde John, and to the heires of them and every of them, and their
deputies, full and free authoritie, leave, and Power, to sayle to all
Partes, Countreys, and Seas, of the East, of the West, and of the North,
under our banners and ensignes, with five shippes, of what burden or
quantitie soever they bee: and as many mariners or men as they will
have with them in the saide shippes, upon their owne proper costes and
charges, to seeke out, discover, and finde, whatsoever Iles, Countreyes,
Regions, or Provinces, of the Heathennes and Infidelles, whatsoever

they bee, and in what part of the worlde soever they bee, whiche before
this time have been unknowen to all Christians. We have granted to
them also, and to every of them, the heires of them, and every of them,
and their deputies, and have given them licence to set up Our banners
and ensignes in every village, towne, castel, yle, or maine lande, of
them newly founde. And that the aforesaide John and his sonnes, or
their heires and assignes, may subdue, occupie, and possesse, all such
townes, cities, castels, and yles, of them founde, which they can subdue,
occupie, and possesse, as our vassailes and lieutenantes, getting unto
Us the rule, title, and jurisdiction of the same villages, townes, castels,
and firme lande so founde.
The patent then goes on to provide for a royalty to His Majesty of
one-fifth of the net profits, to exempt the patentees from custom duty,
to exclude competition, and to exhort good subjects of the Crown to
help the Cabots in every possible way. This first of all English
documents connected with America ends with these words: Witnesse
our Selfe at Westminster, the Fifth day of March, in the XI yeere of our
reigne. HENRY R.
* * * * *
To sayle to all Partes of the East, of the West, and of the North. The
pointed omission of the word South made it clear that Henry had no
intention of infringing Spanish rights of discovery. Spanish claims,
however, were based on the Pope's division of all the heathen world
and were by no means bounded by any rights of discovery already
acquired.
Cabot left Bristol in the spring of 1497, a year after the date of his
patent, not with the 'five shippes' the King had authorized, but in the
little Matthew, with a crew of only eighteen men, nearly all Englishmen
accustomed to the North Atlantic. The Matthew made Cape