9 Henry VII. cap. 7 gates.

** 19 Henry VII. cap. 8.

*** 10 Henry VII. cap. 18.

**** 12 Henry VII. cap. 6.

It was by accident only that the king had not a considerable share in
those great naval discoveries, by which the present age was so much
distinguished. Columbus, after meeting with many repulses from the
courts of Portugal and Spain sent his brother Bartholomew to London, in
order to explain his projects to Henry, and crave his protection for
the execution of them. The king invited him over to England; but
his brother, being taken by pirates, was detained in his voyage; and
Columbus, meanwhile, having obtained the countenance of Isabella, was
supplied with a small fleet, and happily executed his enterprise. Henry
was not discouraged by this disappointment: he fitted out Sebastian
Cabot, a Venetian, settled in Bristol, and sent him westwards in 1498,
in search of new countries. Cabot discovered the main land of America
towards the sixtieth degree of northern latitude: he sailed southwards
along the coast, and discovered Newfoundland and other countries; but
returned to England without making any conquest or settlement. Elliot
and other merchants in Bristol made a like attempt in 1502.[*] The king
expended fourteen thousand pounds in building one ship, called the Great
Harry.[**] She was, properly speaking, the first ship in the English
navy. Before this period, when the prince wanted a fleet, he had no
other expedient than hiring or pressing ships from the merchants.

* Rymer, vol. xiii. p. 37.

** Stowe, p. 484.

But though this improvement of navigation, and the discovery of both the
Indies, was the most memorable incident that happened during this or
any other period, it was not the only great event by which the age was
distinguished. In 1453, Constantinople was taken by the Turks; and the
Greeks, among whom some remains of learning were still preserved, being
scattered by these barbarians, took shelter in Italy, and imported,
together with their admirable language, a tincture of their science, and
of their refined taste in poetry and eloquence About the same time, the
purity of the Latin tongue was revived, the study of antiquity became
fashionable, and the esteem for literature gradually propagated itself
throughout every nation in Europe. The art of printing, invented about
that time, extremely facilitated the progress of all these improvements:
the invention of gunpowder c