We hear of a voyage to the north-west said to have been undertaken by Sebastian Cabot from Peter Martyr (in his Decades, 1516), from the Venetian Minister to Spain, Contarini, especially in a report to the Venetian Senate in 1536, from Ramusio (1550-1554 and 1556), from Gomara (1553), and from Antonio Galvano (1563).[329]
We may expect the most trustworthy of these authorities to be Peter Martyr, who was the oldest, and who knew Sebastian Cabot personally; but certain main features of the voyage are to some extent common to all the accounts. If we compare these, the voyage is said to have taken place somewhat in the following manner: the expedition, consisting of two ships with three hundred men,[330] was according to Peter Martyr fitted out at Sebastian's own cost, but according to Ramusio it was sent out by the King. They sailed so far to the north (according to Gomara, even in the direction of Iceland) that in the month of July they found enormous masses of ice floating on the sea; daylight was almost continuous, and the land was in places free of ice which had melted away. According to the various accounts Cabot is said to have reached 55°, 56°, 58°, or 60°.[331]
According to Galvano they first "sighted land in 45° N. lat. and then sailed straight to the north until they came to 60° N. lat., where the day is eighteen hours long [sic], and the night is very clear and light. There they found the air cold and great islands of ice [icebergs ?] but no bottom with soundings of seventy, eighty, or one hundred fathoms,[332] but they found much ice which terrified them."
When, according to Peter Martyr, their hopes of making their way to the west in these northern latitudes were thus annihilated by the ice, they sailed back to the south and south-west along the North American coast, as far as the latitude of Gibraltar, 36° (according to Peter Martyr), or to 38° (according to Gomara and Galvano), while according to Ramusio's anonymous informant they sailed as far as Florida.[333] From thence the expedition returned to England.
With regard to the date of this voyage, we are told in the continuation of Peter Martyr's Decades [Dec. vii], written in 1524 (published 1530), that "Bacchalaos [i.e., Newfoundland, or the northern east coast of America] was discovered from England by Cabot sixteen years ago." According to this the voyage took place in 1508. In Contarini's report of 1536 [cf. Winship, 1900, p. 36] it is said of Sebastian Cabot's voyage that on his return he "found the King dead, and his son cared little for such an enterprise." As Henry VII. died on April 21, 1509, it would be during the autumn of that year that Cabot returned; but then he must have sailed before April, which is unlikely, at any rate if it is a question of a voyage up into the ice to the north or north-west, such as is described. That he should have sailed in the previous year and not returned until after the King's death is still more improbable.