"But of what use is a King's patent," said Hugh Thorne of Bristol, "if
the harbors be locked?"
The Italian merchant glanced up from his papers and smiled, which was
all the answer the Englishman seemed to expect, for he stormed on, "Here
have we better fleeces than Spain, better wheat than France, finer
cattle than the Netherlands, the tin of Cornwall, the flax of Kent and
Durham, and our people starve or live rudely because of the fettering of
our trade."
"'T is a sad misfortune," said the merchant. "In a world so great as
this there is surely room for all to work and all to get reward for
their labor. But so long as the English merchant guilds wear away their
time and substance in fighting one another I fear 't will be no better."
Thorne flung his cloak about him with an impatient gesture. "That's
true," he answered, "the Spaniards hold by Spain, and all the Hanse
merchants by one another, but our English go every man for himself and
the devil take the hindmost. I speak freely to you, friend, because you
have cast in your lot with us West Country folk and are content to be
called John Cabot."
The other smiled again, his quick childlike smile, and went with his
guest to the door. When he entered again his small private room a
dark-eyed boy of five was crawling out from under the table.
"Dad," he inquired solemnly, "vat is a locked harbor?"
John Cabot laughed and swung his little son to his shoulder. "That is a
great question for a little brain," he said fondly. "But see thee here;
suppose I put thee in the chest and shut the lid and turn the key; thou
art locked in and canst not get out--so! But now I put thee out of door
and set the bandog to guard it; thou art locked out though the door be
wide open, seest thou? And when I forbid thee to pick up the plums that
fall on the grass from the Frenchman's damson tree, they are as safe as
if I locked them in the dresser here, are they not? So 't is when the
King forbids his people to send their goods to some harbor; it is the
same as if a great chain were stretched across that harbor with a great
lock upon it. Now run and play with Ludovico and Santo, Sebastiano mio,
and be glad thou art free of a pleasant garden."
But Sebastian still hung back, his dark head rubbing softly against his
father's shoulder. "When I am a great merchant," he announced, "the King
will let me send my ships all over the world."
John Cabot stroked the wavy dark hair with a lingering, tender touch.
"God grant thee thy wish, little one," he said. And Sebastian, with a
shout in answer to a call from the sunny out-of-door world, scampered
away.
John Cabot, who had been born in Genoa, married while a merchant in
Venice, and had now lived for many years in Bristol, felt sometimes that
the life of a trader was like that of a player at dice. And the dice
were often loaded.
He was a good navigator, or he would not have been a true son of the
Genoese house of Caboto--Giovanni Caboto translated meant John the
Captain, and in a city full of sea-captains a man must know more than a
little of the sea to win that title. He had made a place for himself in
Venice as Zuan Gaboto, and now he was a known and respected man in the
second greatest seaport of England, with a house in the quarter of
Bristol known as "Cathay," the only part of the city where foreigners
were allowed to live. It had its nickname from the fact that the foreign
trade of Bristol was largely with the Orient.
English trade in those days was hampered by a multitude of restrictions.
There were monopolies, there were laws forbidding the export of this and
that, or the making of goods by any one outside certain guilds, there
were arrangements favoring foreign traders who had got their foothold
during the War of the Roses,--when kings needed money from any source
that would promise it. The Hanse merchants at the Steelyard alone
controlled the markets of more than a hundred towns. Their grim stone
buildings rose like a fort commanding London Bridge, and they paid less
both in duties and customs than English merchants did. They employed no
English ships, and could underbuy and undersell the English manufacturer
and the English trader. Their men were all bachelors, with no families
to found or houses to keep up in England. The farmer might get half
price for his wool and pay more than one price for whatever he was
obliged to buy. There was plenty of private exasperation, but no open
fighting, against this ruling of the London markets by Hamburg, Lübeck,
Antwerp and Cologne. Cabot's clear head and wide experience plainly
showed him the enormous waste of such a system, but he did not see how
to unlock the harbors. Neither, at present, did the King, whose shrewd
brain was at work on the problem.
Henry Tudor had the thrift of a youth spent in poverty, and the turn for
finance inherited from Welsh ancestors, but his kingdom was not rich,
and his throne not over-secure. He was prejudiced against doing anything
rash, both by nature and by the very limited income of the crown. He had
given an audience to Bartholomew Columbus while the older brother was
still haunting the court of Castile with his unfulfilled plans, and had
gone so far as to tell the Genoese captain to bring his brother
Christopher to England that he might talk with him. Had it not been for
Queen Isabella's impulsive decision England instead of Spain might have
made the lucky throw in the great game of discovery. But by the time
Bartholomew could get the message to his brother the matter had been
settled and the expedition was already taking shape. Henry VII. always
kept one foot on the ground, and until he could see some other way to
bring wealth into the royal treasury he let the monopolies go on.
In 1495 he took a chance. He gave to John Cabot and his sons a license
to search "for islands, provinces or regions in the eastern, western or
northern seas; and, as vassals of the King, to occupy the territories
that might be found, with an exclusive right to their commerce, on
paying the King a fifth part of the profits."
It will be noted that this license did not say anything about the
southern ocean. Already troops of Spanish cavaliers were pouring into
the seaports, eager to make discoveries by the road of Columbus, and
Spain would regard as unfriendly any attempt to send English ships in
that direction. Whatever could be got from the Spanish territories
Henry would try another way of getting. The year before he had arranged
to have Prince Arthur, the heir to his throne, marry the fourth daughter
of the King of Aragon, Catherine, then a little Princess of eleven.
Prince Arthur died while still a boy, and Catherine became the first
wife of Henry, afterward Henry VIII. With a Spanish Princess as queen of
England, there might be an alliance between the two countries. That
would be better than quarreling with Spain over discoveries which were
at best uncertain. If Cabot really found anything valuable in the
northern seas the move might turn out to be a good one. It would make
England a more powerful member of the Spanish alliance, without taking
anything which Spain appeared to value.
In May, 1497, properly furnished with provisions and a few such things
as might show what England had to barter, the little _Matthew_ sailed
from Bristol under the command of John Cabot with his nineteen-year-old
son Sebastian and a crew of eighteen--nearly all Englishmen, used to the
North Atlantic. The King's permission was for five ships, but the wise
Cabot had heard something of the hardships of the first expeditions to
Hispaniola, and preferred to keep within his means, and sail with men
whom he could trust.
But on this voyage they found locked harbors not closed by the order of
any King but by natural causes,--harbors without inhabitants or means of
supporting life, and so far north as to be blocked by ice for half the
year. They sailed seven hundred leagues west and came at last to a rocky
wooded coast. Now in all the books of travel in Asia, mention had been
made of an immense territory ruled by the Grand Cham of Tartary, whose
hordes had nearly overrun Eastern Europe in times not so very long ago.
The adventures of Marco Polo the Venetian, in a great book sent to Cabot
by his wife's father, had been the fairy-tale of Sebastian and his
brothers from the time they were old enough to understand a story. In
this book it was written how Marco Polo and his companions passed
through utterly uninhabited wilds in the Great Khan's empire, and
afterward came to a region of barbarians, who robbed and killed
travelers. These fierce people lived on the fruits and game of the
forest, cultivating no fields; they dressed in the skins of wild animals
and used salt for money. Could this be the place? If so it behooved the
little party of explorers to be careful. As yet, nobody dreamed that any
mainland discovered by sailing westward from northern Europe could be
anything but Asia.
Cautiously they sailed along the rugged shore, but not a human being was
to be seen. It was the twenty-fourth of June, when by all accounts the
people of any civilized country should be coasting along from port to
port fishing or engaged in traffic. The sun blazed hot and clear, but
the inquisitive noses of the crew scented no cinnamon, cloves or ginger
in the air. All of these, according to Marco Polo, were in the
wilderness he crossed, and also great rivers. On crossing one of these
rivers he had found himself in a populous country with castles and
cities. Were there no people on this desolate shore--or were they lying
in wait for the voyagers to land, that they might seize and kill them
and plunder the ship?
One thing was certain, the air of this strange place made them all more
thirsty than they ever had been in England, and their water-supply had
given out. Sebastian and a crew of the younger men tumbled into a
boat, cross-bow and cutlass at hand, and went ashore to fill the
barrels, while John Cabot kept an anxious eye on the land. Sebastian
himself rather relished the adventure.
They found a stream of delicious water,--pure, cold and clear as a
fountain of Eden. Among the rocks they found creeping vines with rather
tasteless, bright red berries, in the woods little evergreen herbs with
leaves like laurel and scarlet spicy berries, dark green mossy vines
with white berries--but no spice-trees. The forest in fact was rather
like Norway, according to Ralph Erlandsson, who was a native of
Stavanger. Sebastian, who was ahead, presently came upon signs of human
life. A sapling, bent down and held by a rude contrivance of deerhide
thong and stakes, was attached to a noose so ingeniously hidden that the
young leader nearly stepped into it. He took it off the tree and looked
about him. A minute later, from one side and to the rear, a startled
exclamation came from Robert Thorne of Bristol, who had stepped on a
similar snare and been jerked off his feet. This was quite enough. The
party retreated to the ship. On the way back they saw trees that had
been cut not very long since, and Sebastian picked up a wooden needle
such as fishermen used in making nets, yet not like any English tool of
that sort.
[Illustration: "A SAPLING, BENT DOWN, WAS ATTACHED TO A NOOSE
INGENIOUSLY HIDDEN."--_Page_ 87]
They saw nothing more of the kind, although they sailed some three
hundred leagues along the coast, nor did they see any sort of tilled
land. This certainly could not be Cipangu or Cathay with their seaports
and gilded temples. Whatever else it was, it was a land of wild people,
savage hunters. John Cabot left on a bold headland where it could not
fail to be seen, a great cross, with the flag of England and the
Venetian banner bearing the lion of Saint Mark.
There was wild excitement in Bristol when it was known that the little
_Matthew_ had come safely into port, after three months' voyaging in
unknown seas. August of that year found the two Cabots at Westminster
with their story and their handful of forest trophies, and the excited
and suspicious Spanish Ambassador was framing a protest to the King and
a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella.
Henry VII. fingered the wooden needle, pulled the rawhide thong
meditatively through his fingers, and ate a little handful of the
wintergreen berries and young leaves. Their pungent flavor wrinkled his
long nose. This was certainly not any spice that came from the Indies.
"This country you found," he remarked at last, "is not much like New
Spain."
"Nay, Sire," answered John Cabot simply.
"And I understand,"--the King put the collection of curiosities back
into the wallet that had held them, "that this represents one fifth at
least of the gains of the voyage."
Cabot bowed. As a matter of fact there had been no profits.
"My lord,"--the King handed the wallet over to the uneasy Ambassador,
who had been invited to the conference, "you have heard what our good
Captain says. If, as you say, Spain claims this landfall, we willingly
make over to you our--ahem!--share of the emolument." And the Spaniard,
looking rather foolish, saw nothing better to do than to bow his thanks
and retire from the presence.
The King turned again to the Cabots.
"Nevertheless," he went on meditatively, "we will not be neglectful of
you. In another year, if it is still your desire to engage in this work,
you may have--" a pause--"ten ships armed as you see fit, and manned
with whatever prisoners are not confined for--high treason. Fish, I
think you said, abound in those waters? Bacalao--er--that is cod, is it
not? Now it seems to me that our men of Bristol can go a-fishing on
those banks without interference from the Hanse merchants, and we shall
be less dependent on--foreign aid, for the victualing of our tables. And
there may be some way to Asia through these Northern seas--in which case
our brother of Spain may not be so nice in his scruples about trespass.
The Spice Islands are not his but Portugal's. And for your present
reward,--" the King reached for his lean purse and waggled his gaunt
foot in its loose worn red shoe "this, and the title of Admiral of your
new-found land."
He dropped some gold pieces into the hand of John Cabot. In the accounts
of his treasurer for that year may be seen this item:
"10th August, donation of £10 to him that found the new isle."
In May of the next year another voyage was undertaken by Sebastian, John
Cabot having died. This time there was a small fleet from Bristol with
some three hundred men. Sebastian sailed so far north as to be stopped
by seas full of icebergs, then turning southward discovered the island
of Newfoundland, landed further south on the mainland, and went as far
toward the Spanish possessions as the great bay called Chesapeake.
Meanwhile shoals of little fishing boats, from Bristol, Brittany,
Lisbon, Rye, and the Vizcayan ports on the north of Spain, crept across
the gray seas to fish for cod. They held no patent and carried no guns,
but they made a floating city off the Grand Banks for a brief season,
settling their own disputes. The people at home found salt fish good
cheap and wholesome. When Sebastian told the Bristol folk that the fish
were so thick in these new seas that he could hardly get his ships
through, they would not believe it. But when Robert Thorne and a dozen
others had seen the little caplin, the fish which the cod feeds upon,
swimming inshore by the acre, crowded by the cod behind them, and by
seal, shark and dogfish hunting the cod, when cod were caught and salted
down and shown in Bristol, four and five feet long, then Bristol
swallowed both story and cargo and blessed the name of Cabot.
Sebastian Cabot shook the dust of Bristol off his restless feet more
than once in the years that followed. Within five years after his voyage
to the Arctic regions he was cruising about the Caribbean. In 1517 he
was at the entrance of the great bay on the north coast of Labrador. In
1524 he was in the service of Spain, and coasting along the eastern
shores of South America ascended the great river which De Solis had
named Rio de la Plata, came within sight of the mountains of Peru. But
for orders from Spain, where Pizarro had secured the governorship of
that land, Cabot might have been its conqueror. In 1548, after some
years spent in Spain as pilot major, he came back to England, where he
was appointed to the position of superintendent of naval affairs. It was
his work to examine and license pilots, and make charts and maps, and
some ten years later he died, having founded the company of Merchant
Adventurers in 1553. This company was entitled to build and send out
ships for discovery and trade in parts unknown. By uniting merchant
traders in one body, governed by definite rules, and backed by their
combined capital, it broke the monopoly of the Hanseatic League and
finally drove the Hanse merchants out of England. Sebastian Cabot was
its first governor, holding the office until he died, and has rightly
been called the father of free trade. He had unlocked the harbors of the
world to his adopted country, England.