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AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.

JOHN CABOT AND THE STODY OF SOURCES.

GJIOEGE PARKER WINSHIP, A. M.

(From the Aimnal B«port of the Amerioan Hlatorio»l Assoeiation for 1807, pages 81M1.)

WASHINGTON:

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.
1898.

' 7ri:'^*>,' *''',"•■ '"*-V'7'; » 'S",!^"

AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.

JOHN CABOT AND THK STUDY OF SOURCES.

GEORGE PAKKEIJ WFNSITIP, A. M.

(KnuM fl,.. Animal Report of fl,.. Am..ri,an HiHioriml Association f,.r 18i.7, pages 35-41.)

WASHINGTOX:

OOVERXMKNT PRINTIN<! OPFICR.
1 .-'. !) S .

IV.-JOHN CABOT AND THE STUDY OF SOURCES.

By GEORGE PARKER WINSHIP, A. M.
rjiOVIUKXC'E, R. I. ' '

JOHN CABOT AND THE STUDY OF SOURCES.

By GEOK(iE Pakkeu Winsiiip.

The North Ainerioan cojitiuent was discovered by Jolm
Cabot, who had a son Sebastian, before the 10th of Anf,nist
1497. lu the foUowing spring, of 1498, Join. Cabot was autlior-
ized to continue his explorations on behalf of Kngland, and
there are reasons for believing that an expedition to the new
western world was undertaken under his direction. What are
the sources of our information in regard to the details of tliese
two voyages?

The earliest printed reference to the discovery made by
Cabot was published half a century after the date of the
voyage. Some yeais earlier, in 1510, Peter Martyr published
an account of a voyage by a Cabot, and this account was
reprinted, circuhited widely, and was freciueutly copied. Other
accounts, giving various details of a voyage by Cabot to the
north and west, were published by Kamusio, an Italian corre-
spondent of Sebastian Cabot; by Richard Eden, who knew the
younger Cabot intimately; by Gomara, Oalvano, Oviedo, and
by others who were not only contemporary with Sebastian
Cabot, but who lived in the same places and moved in the same
professional circles with him. During the second half of tliis
sixteenth century the Englisli chroniclers, Grafton, Holiushed
Fabyao and Stow, Uakluyt and Herrera published accounts
of the Cabot voyage, several of which contain statements that
do not occur elsewhere. All of these writers were well
acquainted with men who had been associated with the
younger Cabot. The books which they published are the
authority for a large part of what has been written about
the periods of which they treat.

The statements in these printed books often diflfer materially
from one another. Not one of the writers describes more than

88 AMKRICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.

a siu};!.- voyaj-o by (^ubot to th« nortl.west, and tho (les.Tip.
ti.H.s «ivei. i.n, often ...utually iinpossibh'. Not ..no ol th.M.i
n-ports that Sebastian ever spoke of any voya^*' ukuU; by hi8
father. Henee it has been .le.lnce.l that Sebastian was a
braiTKart an.l a liar, who i^-rsistently strove to s,.enre tor hnn-
sell the eredit of his father's aehii'venients. An.l theret.ne,
to eon.ph'te the ar-ntnent, it is stated that Sebastian never
a..hieve.l anythinfj of i.nportanee by himself, an.l that ho was
not ('..nipetent to a.-.'.)niplish anythinij;.

The .lireet e..nne.ti..n with th.' Cab..ts eeases after K.OO.
For the next tw.. hnn.lred years their .lis.-overy is Ire.iuently
mentioned by suceeeding v..yagers, by hist..rians, and by ser-
u,oni/er«. O.cash.nally ..ne of th.^se v.'ntnr.-d to draw s.)ine
iulcren.-e from th.- .M.nfusion ..f the ea.li.-r wri ers, but th.'
impression which this .-onfusion made upon students and the
nublie was fairly state.l by Uurke in 17o7, when he wrote:
"We (Knglish) d^'iive our rights in .^.raerica from the dis.-ov-
«ry by Sebastian Calmt, * * » but the particulars are lu.t
k.H.wn distinctly en.mgh to eucourage me to enter into the
details of his v.iyage."

The confused tangle which had gr.)wn out of the earlier
printed narratives has been cleared away by the tin.ling .»t
manuscript sour.-es, re.-.)vered from the storelu.uses ot docu-
n.entary n.aterial. The tirst <.f these sources was n^ue known
bv Kicbard Ui.ldle, a IMttsburg lawyer, wh.. printed in 18.JI
a d..cumeut which proved that there had been two Cabot voy-
Moes of discovery. A few years later l{awd..n lirown found lu
t'^ice a letter written from London in 1497, which describes
the etVe.-t produced by the return of Cabot in August ot that
year. Uawdon Brown in Italy, and Bergenr.)th in Spain, car-
ried on the search tor hist..ric manuscript material, and by
1870 a half do/.en letters and otlicial reports had been lound
dited in Ul)7 and 1498, in which Cabot is mentioned, and
which repeat some of the current gossip about bis voyages
nd his future plans. Besides the public and !>•-. e a-hives
and record ollices, search was made m manus.^npt etter b..oks,
ivy purse and other account books, files of court and munic-
pal records, and similar sources of historical int..rmat on
F om these have been recovered a good many relerences to
Ihe two Cabotsin Italy, England, and Spain l^^r he mo
nirt these give little m.)re than a uame and a date, but this s
enougb to establish the whereabouts of the Cabots at specihc

JOHN CAUUT AND THE STUDY OF SOURCES.

1>«

riods, !iii<l ofteiitinu's this deteriiiinos the trustworthiiieas of

otlier more geiuTiil accounts of their doings. Taken together,
tliey I'nrnish a hody of evidence sonietinies very sinniticant,
eapable of bointf ust'd in the forniiition of un estimate of the
tdianicter of tlie younger Cabot.

.hist as a single document found in tlie liondoii record ollljie
in isao luoved that tliere was no lon;;er any need of crowdinj;
all tlie events of theCabotian story into tlie course of a single
voyage, so the finding of an old map in the library of a Bava-
rian curate in I8i.5 gave us a direct statement, apparently
nuide by Sebastian Cabot himself in l."»44, crediting his father
witii the discovery of Nortli America. Similarly, within a few
months, some memoranda of the customs collectors in old Bris-
tol have been found among the Westminster muniments, which
are said to prove that -lohu Cabot was in England in the
autumn of 115)8 or 14!)i>. Before the discovery of this manu-
script no mention of tho existence of John Cabot after the
departure of the expedition in the spring of U1)S had been
known. Hence it had been inferred by nearly every writer
upon the Cabots that the father died before that expedition
returned, so that all the glory of that voyage descended upon
his son. If John C-abot was alive iu England in 14!M), a
considerable portion of all that has been written about the
(Jabots loses its value as a statement of truth, but its value
is correspondingly increased to the student of how history is
made.

iMr. Biddle found the explanation of the printed accounts iu
the 'nanuscrii»t sour(;es, lie was also the lirst to interpret t hese
sources of Cabotian history; to erect inferential structures out
of the presumptions whicdi might be drawn from these sources.
As it seems to nie, the most important piution of the whole
body of Cabot literature is that which reveals the mental proc-
esses by which the eulogists aiul the detractors of Sebastian
Cabot have reached their conclusions. Almost equally inter-
esting are the arguments and the secondary infeiences by
which every writer who has trusted to the professed authori-
ties has been diawn deeper and deei)er into the toils which
await the writer of historical essays and historical addresses.

Kamusio in Venice printed his recollections of what he had
once heard at a house-party in Verona, where a chance
acquaintance told of a conversation with Sebastian Cal)ot
many years before iu Seville. Kamusio's narration does not

AMERICAN HISTOKICAL ASSOCIATION.

mention John Cabot; hence, argues one authority, Sebastian
was guilty of unfilial falseliood. Henry VIl gave John Cabot a
charter in Jklarch, 1490, and seventeen months later John Cabot
returned to London. Bristol ships traded to leeland, and
theretbre, says an Oxford investigator, Cabot spent the winter
of 141)0-97 in Iceland. Somewhere it is stated that the Cabot
landfall was -,0° north latitude. Hence a right reverend bishop
declares his belief that Cabot first saw the soil of North Amer-
ica at Cai)e St. John, across which runs the line of 50° north,
according to the i)ertected instruments of 1897.

And much more of the same sort of aigument from the honest
essays of men, each of whom fairly deserves the serious respect
and consideration of fellow-students— nuich more of eciual iu-
terest to us who believe that an historian ought, lirst of all, to
possess common sei.se and some appreciation of how men and
women are likely to act and think.

I want to plead for the study of the Cabot question, not by
you, college teachers, whose historical training and developed
instincts miglit be so much more usefully employed, but by
the scores of young men and women who come to you, anxious
to study history, lilled with enthusiasm for the subject and
confldent of their graduated ability to understand what older
men and women have done avA are doing. I Avish that every
would be. historian could begin his ])rofessional training by
preparing for an examination on what has been known and
what might be known about John and Sebastian Cabot. The
history written afterwards would be marked less often than
now by blind quotation from the "Sources," and le^s by illog-
ical conclusions maintained by baseless iufereuces aud unwar-
ranted assumptions.

NOTES.

The Ainericau History Leaflet No. IX, Now York, Lovell, May 1893,
(10 cents), contains an English translation of the important sourct'S of
ill formation regariling the Calwt voyage of 1197. These were reprinted,
edited hy I'rofessor Chauning of Harvard, from the llakhivt Society vol-
nme. "The Jonrnal of Columhns and Documents relating to the Voyages of
John Cab.'.t .md Caspar Cortereal." edited by Sir Clements Markhaui, Eon-
don 181KJ. The narratives and documents printed by llakluyt in 15!li» arc
reprinted in Old South Leaflet No. 37, Huston, Old South Church, 1895
(5 cents), with a note by the editor, Mr. Edwin D. Mead.

l\)r the student of the methods of histori<al investigation an invaluabl(«
text-book is Mr. Henry Harrisse's '•.lolin Cabot the Discoverer of North

JOHN CABOT AND THE STUDY OF SOURCES. 41

America, and Sebastian liis Son," Loudon, 15. F. Stevens, 1896. This work
is "a laboratory manual, in whicb the stutbuit fluds n-vealed each step of
the processes through which the material of history has been forced in
order that it might bo made to render up the truth which was contained
within it." Mr. Harrisse printed iu his " Jean et Sebastien Cabot," Paris.
Leroux, 1882, the original texts— Italian, Spanish, Latin, and English— of
the important sources referring to the Cabots. A comparison of these two
volumes gives a most suggestive illustrati(m of the processes by which an
insight into the significance of historical data is developed.

The chapter by Charles Deane, iu Winsor, "Narrative and Critical His-
tory of America," Hostou, Houghton ^Milllin, 1884, III. 1-58, contains a com-
prehensive survey of the Cabot sources and the secondary authorities.
This was supplemented by Mr. Winsor in a paper, " Cabot Controversies,"
Cambridge 18'J(), read before the :Mas8achu8etts Historical Association in
November 18U6, and printed in its I'roceedings, second series, XI. 156-1(5!).
A Cabot bibliography, by G. P. Winship, London, H. N. Stevens, 189f,
vill contain connucnts upon the contents and the value of the books which
may be used to advantage by students of the Cabot (lucstious.