and the merchants of Bristol three or four small vessels, loaded with coarse cloth, caps, and other small goods.  The doubt respecting the precise date of this voyage seems to receive the most satisfactory solution from the following contemporary testimony of Alderman Fabian, who says, in his Chronicle of England and France, that Cabot sailed in the beginning of May, in the mayoralty of John Tate, that is, in 1497, and returned in the subsequent mayoralty of William Purchase, bringing with him three sauvages from Newfoundland.  This fixes the date of this voyage:  the course he steered, and the limits of his voyage, are however liable to uncertainty.  He himself informs us, that he reached only 56 deg. north latitude, and that the coast of America, at that part, winded to the east:  but there is no coast of North America that answers to this description.  According to other accounts, he reached 67-1/2 deg. north latitude; but this is the coast of Greenland, and not the coast of Labrador, as these accounts call it.  It is most probable that he did not reach farther than Newfoundland, which he certainly discovered.  To this island he at first gave the names of Prima Vista and Baccaloas; and it is worthy of notice, that a cape of Newfoundland still retains the name of Bona Vista, and there is a small island still called Bacalao, not far from hence.

From this land he sailed to the south-west till he reached the latitude of Gibraltar, and the longitude of Cuba; if these circumstances be correct, he must have sailed nearly as far as Chesapeak Bay:  want of provisions now obliged him to return to England.

Portugal, jealous of the discoveries which Spain had made in the new world, resolved to undertake similar enterprizes, with the double hope of discovering some new part of America, and a new route to India.  Influenced by these motives, Certireal, a man of birth and family, sailed from Lisbon in 1500 or 1501:  he arrived at Conception Bay, in Newfoundland, explored the east coast of that island, and afterwards discovered the river St. Lawrence.  To the next country which he discovered, he gave the name of Labrador, because, from its latitude and appearance, it seemed to him better fitted for culture than his other discoveries in this part of America.  This country he coasted till he came to a strait, which he called the Strait of Anian.  Through this strait he imagined a passage would be found to India, but not being able to explore it himself, he returned to Portugal, to communicate the important and interesting information.  He soon afterwards went out on a second voyage, to prosecute his discoveries in this strait; but in this he perished.  The same voyage was undertaken by another brother, but he also perished.  As the situation of the Strait of Anian was very imperfectly described, it was long sought for in vain on both sides of America; it is now generally supposed to have been Hudson’s Strait, at the entrance of Hudson’s Bay.