As Peru is mentioned, it might doubtless appear as though a voyage to South America were in question; but we often see that the western countries beyond the sea were spoken of as a continuous possession (cf. Robert Thorne's letter, above, p. 334), and it may therefore refer to the same alleged expedition as is spoken of by Ramusio; for both Ramusio and Eden have evidently the same statements from Sebastian Cabot, and the latter can hardly have spoken of two expeditions which were both unsuccessful merely because his companions failed him.
If this is correct, the voyage took place in the eighth year of Henry VIII.'s reign, i.e., April 16, 1516, to April 15, 1517[336]; but, as Harrisse contends, it is very doubtful whether the voyage was made at all. It is true that a poem of Henry VIII.'s time also speaks of an English expedition which may have taken place at this time, and which failed on account of the cowardice of the crew. Robert Thorne, too, as we have seen (p. 335), tells of a voyage made by his father and Hugh Eliot, on which the sailors would not "follow their pilot's mind." It may, indeed, have occurred on several voyages that the crews refused to proceed farther, and for that matter these statements need not refer to the same voyage; but at the same time it is by no means incredible that Sebastian Cabot may have heard of such an expedition, and, when it was more appropriate than the ice, used it as an explanation of his not having discovered the north-west passage to China. We know that Sebastian Cabot was in the service of Spain (and appointed "Pilot Major") in 1515, and that he was occupied with plans of a voyage to the north-west for the King of Spain; for Peter Martyr writes of him in that year that he was impatiently looking forward to March 1516, when he had been promised a fleet with which to complete his discoveries [cf. Winship, 1900, p. 71]. As Ferdinand of Aragon died on January 23, 1516, nothing came of this voyage, and as we hear nothing of Sebastian Cabot before February 5, 1518, when he was appointed Pilot Major by Charles V., it is not impossible that in the meantime he may have been in England, and have taken part in an English expedition; but no record of his having come to England is extant, and it would hardly agree with the protest against him of the Drapers' Company a few years later.