r, they sailed in that year or in the next year is a question. The
first record of a discovery is in the account-book of the privy purse of
Henry VII, in the words, "August 10th, 1497. To him who discovered
the new island, ten pounds." This is clearly not a claim on which the
discovery of the mainland can be based.

A manuscript known as the Cotton Manuscript says that John Cabot had
sailed, but had not returned, at the moment when the manuscript was
written. This period was "the thirteenth year of Henry VII." The
thirteenth year of Henry began on the twenty-second of August, 1497,
and ended in 1498. On the third of February, 1498, Henry VII granted
permission to Cabot to take six English ships "to the lands and islands
recently found by the said Cabot, in the name of the king and by his
orders." Strictly speaking, this would mean that the mainland had then
been discovered; but it is impossible to establish the claim of England
on these terms.

What is, however, more to the point, is a letter from Pasqualigo, a
Venetian merchant, who says, writing to Venice, on the twenty-third of
August, 1497, that Cabot had discovered the mainland at seven hundred
leagues to the west, and had sailed along it for a coast of three
hundred leagues. He says the voyage was three months in length. It was
made, then, between May and August, 1497. The evidence of this letter
seems to show that the mainland of North America was really first
discovered by Cabot. The discussion, however, does not in the least
detract from the merit due to Columbus for the great discovery. Whether
he saw an island or whether he saw the mainland, was a mere matter of
what has been called landfall by the seamen. It is admitted on all hands
that he was the leader in all these enterprises, and that it was on his
success in the first voyage that all such enterprises followed.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Christopher Columbus from
his own Letters and Journals, by Edward Everett Hale

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF COLUMBUS ***

***** This file should be named 1492.txt or 1492.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/9/1492/

Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States c