INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

Commission of Cabot....His voyage to America....Claims of the French to the discovery of North America....All further views of discovery, or settlement, relinquished by Henry VII....Renewed by Elizabeth....Letters patent granted to sir Humphrey Gilbert.... His voyages and death....Letters patent granted to sir Walter Raleigh....Voyage of sir Richard Grenville....Colonists carried back to England by Drake....Grenville arrives with other colonists....They are left on Roanoke island, and destroyed by the Indians.... Arrival of captain John White.... White dispatched to England for succour....Raleigh assigns his patent to sir Thomas Smith and company....Patent to sir Thomas Gates and others....Code of laws drawn up for the proposed colony by king James.

THE discovery of America by Columbus, (October 1492) gave a new impulse, and, in some degree, a new direction to that bold spirit of adventure which characterized the hardy age in which he lived.

The accounts given by that daring and skilful navigator of the countries he had visited, and the still more flattering reports respecting them which were circulated by the companions of his voyage, while they made their deepest impression on Spain, inspired very generally throughout Europe the desire of sharing with that nation, the glory,

the wealth, and the dominion, to be acquired in the new world.

To accident the English historians attribute the failure of their sovereign to engage this distinguished man in his service. While Christopher Columbus proceeded to solicit, in person, at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, those aids which were indispensably necessary to the prosecution of the grand schemes he had projected, his brother Bartholomew was dispatched to Henry VII. of England, for the purpose of engaging that cautious but sagacious monarch, to protect his enterprise.

On his passage, Bartholomew was unfortunately captured by pirates. After a long detention, he at length reached England, where his propositions were so favourably received by the sovereign of that nation, as to excite the opinion, that he would probably have acquired to himself and to his country, the honour and advantage of having first patronized this ever memorable voyage, had not the delays experienced by Bartholomew suspended the decision of Henry, until America was discovered under the auspices of Spain."

The impression, however, which Henry had received, prepared him in some measure for the important discoveries which were made, and inclined him to countenance the propositions which, soon after the return of Columbus, (1495) were made by his own subjects, for engaging in adventures similar to that which had already been so successful.

a Robertson.... Chalmer.

But England, whose ships now cover every ocean, and whose fleets triumph in every sea, did not then furnish a single individual well enough acquainted with navigation, to be trusted with the direction of such an expedition. The chief command of the armament destined to explore these unknown regions, was given to Giovanni Gaboto (John Cabot) a Venetian adventurer who had settled in Bristol. To him, and to his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sanctius, a commission was issued on the fifth of March 1496, less than two years after the return of Columbus from America, empowering them, or either of them, and their, and each of their heirs and deputies, to sail under the banner of England, towards the east, north, or west; in order to discover countries then unknown to all christian people. terms of this commission strongly marked the genius and character of the monarch who gave it. The Cabots were indeed empowered to take possession of the countries they should discover, in the name of the king of England, and to carry on an exclusive trade with the inhabitants; but these discoveries were to be made at their own expense, and their commerce was to be charged with a fifth part of the clear profit on every voy. age, payable to the crown."

The

The expedition contemplated at the date of this commission appears not then to have been made;

b Robertson.... Chalmer.

but, in May 1498, Cabot with his second son Sebastian, embarked at Bristol, on board a ship furnished by the king, which was accompanied by four barks fitted out by merchants of that city.

The opinion of Columbus, that a shorter passage to the East Indies was to be opened by holding a western course, and that the islands he had discovered were contiguous to the great continent of India, was then generally received. Cabot, therefore, who was in quest, not so much of establishments, as of the rich commerce of the east, deemed it probable that, by steering to the northwest, he might reach India by a shorter course than that which Columbus had taken. After sailing for some weeks due west, he discovered a large island which was called by him Prima Vista, and by his sailors Newfoundland; and, in a few days, he descried a smaller isle, to which he gave the name of St. John. Continuing his course westward, he soon reached the continent of North America, and sailed along it from the fifty-sixth to the thirty-eighth degree of north latitude, from the coast of Labrador to that of Virginia. He was not a little chagrined at being unable further to prosecute his commercial views, and to discover some inlet which might open a passage to the west. It does not appear that he landed any where, during this extensive run; and he returned to England without attempting either settlement or conquest.

c Robertson.

Thus, according to the English historians, was first discovered that immense continent which stretches from the gulf of Mexico to the north pole; and as far back as to this discovery, the English traced their title to the country they afterwards acquired, partly by settlement, and partly by arms.

The French, who have since contested with Great Britain the possession of a considerable portion of this important territory, have also their claims to its discovery, although they seem not to be well founded.

L'Escarbot, who visited America in 1606, avers that the language then spoken on the eastern parts of the coast of Newfoundland, and the great bank, was half Biscayan; from which fact it was correctly inferred, that the fishermen from the western coasts of France, had, for a long time, navigated those seas.

As no certain account had been preserved of the first enterprise made by those people, it was argued that they must have been in the habit of undertaking such voyages, before that of Sebastian Cabot in 1498. With equal probability might a date be given them anterior to that of Columbus. However insufficient this evidence may be deemed to support the claim of original discovery, it seems well authenticated, that as early as 1504 the Biscayans, the Bretons, and the Normans, frequented the great bank of Newfoundland, the coasts of the adjacent continent, and the whole gulf of St. Lawrence, for the pur