named will fit out some ships
and will besides give him all the convicts, and they will go to that
country to make a colony, by means of which they hope to establish in
London a greater storehouse of spices than there is in Alexandria, and
the chief men of the enterprise are of Bristol, great sailors, who,
now that they know where to go, say that it is not a voyage of more
than fifteen days, nor do they ever have storms after they get away
from Hibernia. I have also talked with a Burgundian, a comrade of
Master John's, who confirms everything, and wishes to return thither
because the Admiral (for so Master John already entitles himself) has
given him an island; and he has given another one to a barber of his
from Castiglione, of Genoa, and both of them regard themselves as
Counts, nor does my Lord the Admiral esteem himself anything less than
a prince. I think that with this expedition will go several poor
Italian monks, who have all been promised bishoprics. And as I have
become a friend of the Admiral's, if I wished to go thither, I should
get an Archbishopric. But I have thought that the benefices which your
Excellency has in store for me are a surer thing."

To those who, in the teeth of contemporary evidence, prefer the claims
of Sebastian, the following extracts may be offered; the first from
Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, who wrote in the early sixteenth century, the
second from Ramusio. Martyr writes:

"These north seas have been searched by one Sebastian Cabot, a
Venetian born, whom, being yet but in matter an infant, his parents
carried with them into England, having occasion to resort thither for
trade of merchandises, as is the manner of the Venetians to leave no
part of the world unsearched to obtain riches. He therefore furnished
two ships in England at his own charges; and, first, with 300 men,
directed his course so far towards the North Pole, that even in the
month of July he found monstrous heaps of ice swimming in the sea, and
in manner continual daylight, yet saw he the land in that tract free
from ice, which had been molten by heat of the sun. Thus, seeing such
heaps of ice before him, he was enforced to turn his sails and follow
the west, so coasting still by the shore he was thereby brought so far
into the south, by reason of the land bending so much southward, that
it was there almost equal in latitude with the sea called Fretum
Herculeum [Straits of Gibraltar], having the North Pole elevate in
manne