In 1496 a patent was granted to John Cabot and his sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius.  This patent is interesting as the earliest surviving document which connects England with the New World.  It gave the patentees full authority to sail with five ships under the royal ensign, and to set up the royal banner on any newly found land, as the vassals and lieutenants of the king.  They were bound on their return to sail to Bristol and to pay a royalty of one-fifth upon all clear gain.  The direction of the voyage, the cargo and size of the ships, and the mode of dealing with the natives, are all left to the discretion of the commander.

Of the details of the voyage itself, so full of interest for every Englishman, we have but the scantiest knowledge.  In this respect the fame of Sebastian Cabot has fared far worse than that of the great discoverer with whom alone he may be compared.  We can trace Columbus through every stage of his enterprise.  We seem to stand by the side of the great admiral in his difficulties, his fears, his hopes, his victory.  We can almost fancy that we are sharing in his triumph when at last he sails on that mission whose end he saw but in a glass darkly, victorious over the intrigues of courtiers, the avarice of princes, and the blindness of mere worldly wisdom.  Our hearts once more sink as the cowardice of his followers threatens to undo all, and the prize that had seemed won is again in danger.  We feel all the intensity of suspense as night after night land is promised and the morning brings it not.  When at length the goal is reached, we can almost trick ourselves with the belief that we have a part in that glory, and are of that generation by whom and for whom that mighty work was wrought.

No such halo of romantic splendor surrounds the first voyage of Sebastian Cabot.  A meager extract from an old Bristol record:  “In the year 1497, June 24, on St. John’s Day, was Newfoundland found by Bristol men in a ship called the Matthew”—­a few dry statements such as might be found in the note-book of any intelligent sea captain—­these are all the traces of the first English voyage which reached the New World.  We read in an account, probably published under the eye of Cabot himself, that on June 24, at five o’clock in the morning, he discovered that land which no man before that time had attempted, and named it Prima Vista.  An adjacent island was called St. John, in commemoration of the day.  A few statements about the habits of the natives and the character of the soil and the fisheries make up the whole story.  We may, perhaps, infer that Cabot meant this as a report on the fitness of the place for trade and fishing, knowing that these were the points which would excite most interest in England.  One entry from the privy purse expenses of Henry VII, “10L to hym that found the new isle,” is the only other record that remains to us.  Columbus was received in solemn state by the sovereigns of Aragon and Castile, and was welcomed by a crowd greater than the streets of Barcelona could hold.  Cabot was paid L10.  The dramatic splendor of the one reception, the prosaic mercantile character of the other, represent the different tempers in which Spain and England approached the task of American discovery.