A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 6 | Page 5

service of
Ferdinand and Isabella, who furnished him with ships at their expence,
in which he went to discover the coast of Brazil, where he found a
prodigiously large river, now called the Rio de la Plata, or Silver River,
up which he sailed above 120 leagues, finding every where a good
country, inhabited by prodigious numbers of people, who flocked from
every quarter to view the ships with wonder and admiration. Into this
great river a prodigious number of other rivers discharged their waters.
After this he made many other voyages; and waxing old, rested at home
discharging the office of chief pilot, and leaving the prosecution of
discovery to many young and active pilots of good experience.
SECTION III.
_Notice concerning Sebastian Cabot by Ramusio, in the Preface to the
third Volume of his Navigations._[8]
In the latter part of this volume are contained certain relations of
Giovani de Varanzana of Florence, of a certain celebrated French
navigator, and of two voyages by Jacques Cartier a Breton, who sailed
to the land in 50° north latitude, called New France; it not being yet
known whether that land join with the continent of Florida and New
Spain, or whether they are separated by the sea into distinct islands, so
as to allow of a passage by sea to Cathay and India. This latter was the
opinion of Sebastian Cabota, our countryman, a man of rare knowledge
and experience in navigation, who wrote to me many years ago, that he
had sailed along and beyond this land of New France in the
employment of Henry VII. of England. He informed me that, having
sailed a long way to the north-west, beyond these lands, to the lat. of
67-1/2° N. and finding the sea on the 11th of June entirely open and
without impediment, he fully expected to have passed on that way to
Cathay in the east; and would certainly have succeeded, but was
constrained by a mutiny of the master and mariners to return
homewards. But it would appear that the Almighty still reserves this
great enterprise of discovering the route to Cathay by the north-west to
some great prince, which were the easiest and shortest passage by
which to bring the spiceries of India to Europe. Surely this enterprise

would be me most glorious and most important that can possibly he
imagined, and would immortalize him who succeeded in its
accomplishment far beyond any of those warlike exploits by which the
Christian nations of Europe are perpetually harassed.
[Footnote 8: Hakluyt, III. 28.]
SECTION IV. _Notices respecting the voyage of Sebastian Cabot to
the northwest, from Peter Martyr ab Algeria_[9].
These northern seas have been searched by Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian,
who was carried when very young to England by his parents, who, after
the manner of the Venetians, left no part of the world unsearched to
obtain riches. Having fitted out two ships in England at his own
expence, with three hundred men, he first directed his course so near
the north pole, that on the 11th of July he found monstrous heaps of ice
swimming in the sea, and a continual day, so that the land was free
from ice, having been thawed by the perpetual influence of the sun. By
reason of this ice he was compelled to turn southwards along the
western land, till he came unto the latitude of the Straits of
Gibraltar[10]. In the course of this north-west voyage he got so far to
the west as to have the island of Cuba on his left hand, having reached
to the same longitude[11]. While sailing along the coast of this great
land, which he called _Baccalaos_[12], he found a similar current of
the sea towards the west[13] as had been observed by the Spaniards in
their more southerly navigations, but more softly and gently than had
been experienced by the Spaniards. Hence it may be certainly
concluded that in both places, though hitherto unknown, there must be
certain great open spaces by which the waters thus continually pass
from the east to the west; which waters I suppose to be continually
driven round the globe by the constant motion and impulse of the
heavens, and not to be alternately swallowed and cast up again by the
breathing of Demogorgon, as some have imagined on purpose to
explain the ebb and flow of the sea. Sebastian Cabot himself named
these lands Baccalaos, because he found in the seas thereabout such
multitudes of certain large fishes like tunnies, called baccalaos by the
natives, that they sometimes stayed his ships. He found also the people
of these regions clothed in the skins of beasts, yet not without the use
of reason. He says also that there are great numbers of bears in those
countries, which feed