t's own reports, and are extracted from documents dated previous to
the return of the second expedition, and therefore are, of necessity,
free from admixture with extraneous incidents. Antonio Galvano, an
experienced Portuguese sailor and cosmographer, writing in 1563, like the
others, knows of one voyage only, which he fixes in 1496. He interweaves,
like them, in his narrative many circumstances of the second voyage, but
it is important to note that from some independent source is given the
landfall at 45 deg., the latitude very nearly of Cape Breton, on the island
of Cape Breton. Another point is also recorded in the letters that, on
the return voyage, Cabot passed two islands to the right, which the
shortness of his provisions prevented him from examining. This note
should not be considered identical with the statement recorded by Soncino
in his first letter, for this last writer evidently means to indicate the
land which Cabot found and examined; he says that Cabot discovered two
large and fertile islands, but the two islands of Pasqualigo were passed
without examination. They were probably the islands of St. Pierre and
Miquelon; but that John Cabot had no idea of a northward voyage at that
time in his mind would appear from his intention to sail farther to
the east on his next voyage until he reached the longitude of Cipango.
Moreover, the reward recorded in the King's privy-purse accounts "to hym
that founde the new ile," and the wording, thrice repeated, of the second
letters-patent, "the land and isles of late found by the said John,"
indicate that it was not at that time known whether the mainland of
Cathay had been reached, or, as in the discoveries of Columbus, islands
upon the coast of Asia.

From the preceding narrative, based solely upon documents written within
twelve months of the event--which documents are records of statements
taken from the lips of John Cabot, the chief actor, at the very time of
his return from the first voyage--it will, I trust, appear that in 1497,
at a time of year when the ice was not clear from the coasts of Labrador,
he discovered a part of America in a temperate climate, and that this
was done without the name of Sebastian Cabot once coming to the surface,
excepting when it appears in the patent of 1496, together with the names
of Lewis and Sancio, his brothers. While the circumstances recorded
are incompatible with a landfall at Labrador, they do not exclude the
possibility of