As confirming and to some extent supplementing what is said in these letters, we have various statements in the letters of the two Spanish Ambassadors about the voyage in the following year (see later); they both say that the newly discovered country lay not more than four hundred Spanish leagues distant.
In Maurice Toby's Bristol chronicle of 1565, we read of the year 1497:
"This year, on St. John the Baptist's day, the land of America was found by the merchants of Bristowe in a shippe of Bristowe called the 'Mathew,' the which said shippe departed from the port of Bristowe the second day of May, and came home again the 6th of August next following."[297]
Of course this chronicle was written long after the voyage took place; but it is extremely probable that it was taken from older sources; for it agrees in every way (both as to the length of the voyage and the time of the return) with the contemporary statements of the Italian Ministers, with whose letters the author of the chronicle cannot possibly have been acquainted. I can, therefore, see no reason why this statement should not be correct. But the most important authorities are the letters referred to.
[Sidenote: Cabot's western course in 1497]
If we compare all this we shall get a fairly complete idea of the voyage of 1497. After sailing round the south of Ireland, probably in the middle of May according to our calendar, Cabot would at first have held a somewhat northerly course. If this is correct, he may have done so for several reasons: unfavourable winds, which in May are prevalent from the south-west; the idea that great-circle sailing would prove the shortest way;[298] fear of encroaching on the waters of the Spaniards and Portuguese to the south; finally, perhaps, an idea that the course to Asia was shorter in northern latitudes (?). But we cannot tell what reasons decided him, nor whether he steered very far to the north at all; for it must be remembered that in speaking to a foreign Minister he may have had good reason for making his course appear somewhat northerly, lest it might be said that the lands he had arrived at were those discovered by the Spaniards. In any case, it was not long before he made for the west as rapidly as possible towards his goal, and we cannot, therefore, suppose that he went very far north. And it is expressly stated in Soncino's first letter that the lands lay to the west of England, and in the letters of the Spanish Ambassadors in the following year we read that, after having seen the direction taken by Cabot, they thought that the land he had found was that belonging to Spain, or was "at the end of that land." This again does not point to any northerly course.