English-speaking race, with their vast energies and wealth. But for the Cabots Spain might have monopolized discovery in North as well as in South America."

Eschewing the "trade of merchandise," Sebastian Cabot appears to have devoted himself entirely to nautical science; attaining such eminence that, on the death of Columbus, the King of Spain engaged his services as Cartographer, at a salary of 30,000 maravedas, intending to send him on another voyage. Before the design could be carried out, Ferdinand died, and Sebastian returned to England.

Under the auspices of Henry VIII., he is said to have again crossed the Atlantic, seeking a passage to India through Hudson's Bay. The attempt failed, and after surveying the bay, and studying the variations of the magnetic needle, Cabot returned.

A few years later he was again in the service of Spain, engaged under the young Emperor, Charles V., as Pilot-major, at a largely increased salary. This post he retained during the greater part of Charles' reign. It was while holding it that he made to Contarini those dishonest offers of information and those misleading statements concerning his birth, which have proved so prolific in controversy to his biographers.

In 1526, Cabot commanded a Spanish expedition to Brazil, which although he penetrated some distance into the interior, ended disastrously, and resulted in his being imprisoned for a year on the charge of "mismanagement and excesses."

The first count of the indictment may have been true. Very probably the great cartographer was not skilled in the management of men. As Oviedo, the Spanish historian, sapiently remarked, "it is not the same thing to command and govern people as to point a quadrant or an astrolabe"; but the "excesses" charged against him were far more likely to have been committed by the Portugese, who had sent out a rival expedition, and to whose malicious intrigues and jealous interference the disasters of the Spaniards were mainly due. Untruthful and covetous of honours and gold, Sebastian has been proved; but that he was also kindly, gentle, and humane, there is no doubt; while his mode of treating the natives may be gathered from his "Instructions" for the ordering of a similar expedition in later years.

While in the employ of Spain, Cabot made his "Mappamundi," or Map of the World. This famous map, which not only presented his own and his father's discoveries, but those of Spain and Portugal down to his own time, was drawn on parchment and illuminated with gold and colours. The original was sold on the death of the President of the Council of the Indies in 1575, and has never since been heard of. Several engravings of it were made, only one of which is now known; that in the Galerie de Géographie, Paris.

Soon after Henry VIII. death, the Council of the young King, Edward, induced Cabot to return to England, and, according to Strype, he settled in Bristol, 1548.

Charles V., through his ambassador, commanded his return; but the Privy Council replied that "he refused to go either into Spain or to the Emperor, and that, being of that mind, and the King's subject, no reason or equity would that he should be forced against his will."

Charles immediately stopped his pension, but Edward replaced it by one of 250 marks, and Cabot continued in the service of England until his death, exercising a kind of general supervision over the maritime affairs of the Kingdom, and adding to his store of charts and "discourses."

Original

In 1551, a general stagnation of trade pervaded England, and the London merchants consulted Cabot, who had just succeeded in breaking the monopoly of the German "Merchants of the Steelyard," as to what steps could be taken