Toward the Setting Sun

by David Boyle

  On May 20 the Matthew left from the quay and made its way out into the Bristol Channel, avoiding the Turkish pirates that lurked just beyond and pressing on between the two coasts and out to sea. He docked in Bantry Bay in Ireland a few days later to take on extra crew, rather as Columbus had on the Canary Islands, before passing the last glimpse of Cape Clear on the southern tip of Ireland. When it was out of sight, Cabot turned north for some days on the familiar route to Iceland known to the Bristol merchants, then once again turned west and into the unknown.

  Cabot’s course kept the North Star firmly on the right of the ship and at a constant height to stay on the same latitude. Columbus had found the compass could be erratic in the Atlantic, as it shifted from true north to magnetic north. This time, whatever tactics Cabot used with the crew—perhaps faking the charts as Columbus had done—the crew and the ocean remained calm. On June 21 the Matthew ran into its first serious gale and the tiny ship once more found itself flattened against the enormous waves. But by dawn the next day the sea was calm again.

  The day after that some birds were sighted, an unambiguous sign that they were near land. Elyot and Thorne gazed over the side in astonishment at the number of cod, which were thick in the sea wherever they looked. That night, there was the unmistakable odor of fir trees. At five A.M. on June 24, St. John the Baptist’s day, there was land ahead and in great excitement the crew watched as they approached it. But this was unmistakably an island, and only the mainland would mean success for this voyage. Cabot named it St. John and moved on. Only a few hours afterward, more land was on the horizon. As they moved closer, everyone on board was craning to make it out. There were clearly enormous forests there and a beach where a landing could be made.

  Rival historians have battled for centuries about whether the land that Cabot named Prima Terra Vista (first land seen) was Cape Bonavista or Cape Breton, whether it was in Newfoundland, somewhere in modern Canada, or in Maine, or even farther south. The Canadian consensus is that he landed somewhere in what is now Newfoundland, though the name itself was previously applied to almost anywhere along that coast. Critics point to the fact that there was no mention of fog, which he must have encountered if he landed on Newfoundland in June. Any glance at an atlas implies that Newfoundland—with its ambiguity about whether it is an island or promontory—is the more likely landmass Cabot first encountered, probably near Cape Bonavista. But for most of the past century, a slim majority of historians have leaned toward a landing on Cape Breton Island on the northern tip of Nova Scotia, partly because the scenery seems more like it was described by contemporaries and partly because the other circumstances make better sense that way.

  They edged the Matthew closer to the shore and launched the small landing boat they carried with them for this purpose. It is hard to imagine anyone but Cabot leaping first over the side and into the shallows. Those with him carried three banners and a telescope. Once the Matthew’s passengers and most of the crew had gathered on the beach, they walked nervously a little way inland, to a high point and clearing from where they could see their battered ship, bobbing in the bay. Cabot supervised raising a large cross and the banners of England, Venice, and the pope. This was the mainland, he said, and not just any old mainland, but the country of the Grand Khan, the foothills of the Far East, with its gold and spices. The decision to call it Prima Terra Vista was Cabot’s.

  The banners fluttered and Cabot stood with his closest friends, one from Genoa and the other from Burgundy, and the two Bristol merchants who accompanied him, and surveyed the scene. The soil seemed suitable for brazilwood and silkworms, but there was no doubt that the path from the beach was a track that had been made by humans. One sailor shouted: he had found a snare and an old campfire; another had found what looked very much like an arrow and a needle. They looked up at the enormous trees, tall enough for the masts of ships, and peered into the dense undergrowth. They had to assume they were being watched. After a quick discussion, they agreed to make their way back to the boat, fill their water bottles in the stream, and explore the coastline. It would be tragic to have found the Indies and not live to report it. So it was that the first “discovery” of mainland America was cut short because it was in fact already inhabited.

  II

  “Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell From heav’n, for ev’n in heav’n his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold.”

  JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost

  Having stowed the oars and the boat back aboard the Matthew, and bid a reluctant farewell to Prima Terra Vista, Cabot’s team debated how to proceed: If Cabot’s enterprise was going to be achievable, and they had not just found any mainland, but a mainland that could be followed south all the way to China, then their first priority was to sail south to make sure such a voyage was possible, before they returned with greater resources to finish the journey. There is still debate about which way Cabot went next, because the only written evidence is ambiguous, but since he badly needed to confirm his basic proposition, it is likely that he actually turned southwest, along the North American coast, in the direction of where he believed China to be.

  Over the next two weeks, the Matthew sailed quietly down the coast of Nova Scotia. The merchants and Cabot’s friends watched carefully, along with the rest of the crew, for any signs that this was a continent: large animals, for example, or the mouths of enormous rivers. They saw clear signs of cultivated fields, an extraordinary forest like nothing those on board had ever seen before, and, on one occasion, saw two forms running on the beach, but were too far away to make out if these were men or animals.

  Deciding whether they had found the mainland was precisely the problem Columbus had faced sailing along the south coast of Cuba. How far would you have to sail to be sure? Cabot, though, was luckier than his rival. He had, in fact, found the mainland—he was just mistaken as to which one it was. The proof that he needed was probably going to be, as it eventually was in Latin America, the mouth of a river so vast that only a continent could have produced it. The documents suggest that the Matthew sailed three hundred leagues—about a thousand nautical miles—in those weeks. In the days that followed, Cabot hugged the shore southward, around Cape Sable, into the Bay of Fundy, satisfying himself that this was not a passage into another sea, and to the mouth of either the St. John River or St. Croix River, near the present border between Canada and the United States. Realizing that such large outflows of freshwater implied this was indeed the mainland, he was able to turn north again and retrace the journey. He then struck out across what is now the Cabot Strait to Newfoundland, going counterclockwise around the coast, perhaps as far as Cape Bonavista, maybe even Cape Bauld, staggered by the profusion of cod, which would one day make these waters famous.

  The mood on board was exuberant, but not so much that the crew was prepared to take any unnecessary risks. The priority for Cabot, Thorne, and Elyot was above all to get back with the news, and stake their claim. There would be no more landings with all their attendant difficulties to ship and men. Staring obsessively at the charts as they drew them, they agreed what must have happened. The Trinity and those other adventurers over the previous seventeen years may indeed have found hy-Brasil, but they may, in fact, and in all fairness to them, have also found a promontory, and mistaken it for an island. On the return journey northward, they passed two islands they had missed before. On an impulse, Cabot gave one to each of his friends, the Burgundian and the Genoese barber. It is worth pointing out the contrast with Columbus, who named every place he found after saints or members of the royal family; Cabot named them after his friends. This was a trading voyage: It had no religious purpose.

  There remained one task before them: They needed a cargo of cod to raise the outstanding two hundred pounds. Off the coast of Newfoundland, they set about this task and hooked something else without altogether intending to. It was a small whale. They hauled it aboard and stripped it and sal
ted it along with the codfish. Cabot was as sure as he could be that he had reached mainland Asia, and his readings of the North Star implied that they were now on the same latitude as southern Ireland, so they set sail for home.

  As Cabot was sailing back up the coast of Nova Scotia, five large ships were riding at anchor outside Lisbon harbor. On board the flagship, São Gabriel, Vasco da Gama was checking the details of this fleet, which constituted the renewed Portuguese assault on the Indies from the east. Three of the ships had been built to specifications set out by Bartholomew Dias, and one was to carry stores for the others. Dias himself was commanding the fifth ship, which would accompany them as far as El-Mina.

  On July 7, 1497, King Manuel received da Gama and his captains at a solemn ceremony onshore, presenting them with a silk banner of the Order of Christ, and marching with them down to the quayside. Then, to the beat of drums, they climbed into the waiting boats that would row them through the sparkling waves out to the Tower of Belem in the middle of the harbor, and to their ships. The following day, the fleet sailed slowly down the Tagus and out to sea. It was an impressive sight, far removed from the Matthew’s quiet departure from Bristol two months before. Ferdinand’s spies reported back to Spain that the Portuguese fleet had sailed to the Indies. A sharply worded protest followed to the court in Lisbon. If Vasco da Gama was heading for the Indies, then he must be trespassing on the Castilian side of the line drawn by the Treaty of Tordesillas, which allowed Castile to claim everything west of the line, even if that included the Far East and Asia. Manuel chose to ignore it.

  Out of reach of any diplomatic fallout, it took four months for da Gama’s ships to reach the southern tip of Africa, where they ran into repeated storms that divided the fleet and battered the ships back to the positions they had been in days before. It wasn’t until November 22 that the commanders persuaded their frightened crews to keep at the sails long enough to round the Cape of Good Hope. On Christmas Day, 1497, the fleet reached a coast they named after Christmas, Natal, and headed north toward what is now Mozambique, where they would collect supplies and repair the ships. They had then been cut off from news of Europe for more than six months.

  If Columbus was right, da Gama might expect to encounter the Castilian colonists in the East. He had been chosen to lead this expedition because he was believed to be up to the required subtlety of such an encounter.

  Cabot’s return journey had been extremely fast, with the Gulf Stream wafting the ship back toward Europe. There were disputes between Cabot and his advisers, who were certain they had drifted too far north, and Cabot agreed to change course farther south. As a result, after fifteen days sailing, they made landfall and it was obviously Brittany—the lighthouse at La Rochelle must have given it away. They turned back north and sailed around Land’s End and into the Bristol Channel.

  On August 6, 1497, the Matthew was carried by the tide back up the Avon River and, having notified the quays on their way, to a tumultuous welcome. The tax rebels at the gates had bypassed Bristol and the city was untouched: They had spent the summer moving slowly toward London, only to be surprised by Henry’s troops near Kingston and an ignominious series of humiliations.

  London was three days from Bristol along the Great West Road, and Cabot was only too aware of the potential fate that so nearly defeated Columbus on his return—being beaten to the court with the news by a recalcitrant underling. He had to get to the king as fast as possible. So he just had time to greet his family before setting off, making sure as he did so that he had reliable information about where the king was.

  Henry had, in fact, shifted his crisis headquarters to Woodstock Palace in Oxfordshire to be more centrally located. But he was now briefly back in London, so Cabot rode out—probably with at least some of his investors—down the Great West Road to Chippenham, past the strange unnatural shape of Silbury Hill, through Marlborough, Hungerford, Newbury, and Reading, across the Thames at Maidenhead, through the small villages of Hounslow and Hammersmith, with the Thames snaking away in the distance toward London. Three days later, an exhausted Cabot made his way down the main road from the west, known since Roman times as Akeman Street, through the village of Kensington, and turned right into Whitehall, to the great gates that led to the Palace of Westminster. His first priority was to make his arrival known, leaving his horse in the stables then taking the narrow road that led past Westminster Abbey to the gates of Westminster Hall, past the house of the first English printer, William Caxton, and the abbey chapter house where the House of Commons met.*

  On August 10, history records his interview with Henry and his advisers. Despite the nervousness of some of his diplomats about a possible source of conflict with Ferdinand and Isabella, and a threat to the royal marriage, Henry was pleased with the achievement and gave him an immediate reward of ten pounds. This was not quite the welcome that Cabot had planned. Perhaps the king had not fully understood the significance of what had been achieved, so Cabot went straight from Westminster to find Carbonariis at Austin Friars to hammer out a strategy to explain it to him better. Some weeks later, they made their way together back to the palace, and Carbonariis managed to bring Cabot before the king for a second time. This time Henry was made to understand the significance and made two immediate decisions: He renamed Prima Terra Vista New Founde Land, and he awarded Cabot with an “annuitie or annuel rent of twenty poundes sterling, to be had and yerely perceyved from the fest of th’anunciation of our lady last passed.” At long last Cabot’s money worries were over.

  The decisions about how to capitalize on the discovery were made over the next few months. For the moment, London was at Cabot’s feet and keen to invest, eager to hear more about the continent and how it would make London and Bristol the wealthiest cities in Europe.

  Henry was heading back within days to Woodstock to deal with the looming threat of a second rebellion in one year, once more emanating from the far west of England, but also a threatened invasion from Scotland. In the following week, it was clear that Perkin Warbeck himself had landed in Cornwall, smuggled aboard a Castilian ship in Cork, and hidden in an empty wine cask when the ship was intercepted and boarded, and was now on Bodmin Moor having declared himself King Richard IV.

  There was no point in hanging around an empty Westminster, so Cabot was soon back in Bristol with his family, with an enormous sense of relief of having at long last escaped the degradation of debt. Not that his had been paid, of course, but he was now too important to have his debts enforced against him, and he finally had money of his own. He immediately rented a house in the prestigious St. Nicholas Street, next to the mariner’s church and the Welsh Back, where the coasters unloaded. He took the lease from Amerike’s assistant John Kemys at a hefty two pounds a year.

  It was an excellent street to set up a headquarters. One end led to the city’s pillory and stocks and the main wharves at the docks. At the other end were steps down to the Avon where the local women did their washing. There was a view of Bristol Bridge, a smaller version of London Bridge with houses all along it and a chapel in the middle, and one large mansion, which had once belonged to the ill-fated Robert Sturmy. This was now the Cloth Hall, which also acted as a trade exchange and an office for the local fellowship of merchants, where those who operated out of Bristol kept their closely guarded maps. The jaw bone of the whale he had so laboriously returned, was placed over the door inside St. Mary Redcliffe Church.*

  Cabot was in high spirits. The first thing he did in London, having been granted his pension, was to wander down Cheapside where the goldsmiths and silk merchants operated, to shop for clothes and buy himself a silk outfit. Cabot was at his most gregarious, but there were hints that his bitterness about Columbus still ate at him. What Columbus had achieved, but he had patently not, was a title, which is perhaps why Cabot allowed himself to become known around London society as the admiral—an Arabic word without a formal use in English at the time. Having constructed a map and globe to demonstrate where the New
Founde Land was, and how it connected to the Indies, Cabot returned to London to put them on display and to give a series of public lectures in the city. Both the map and the lectures were also ammunition in the threatened war of words with Castile. They demonstrated where he had gone and set out the official English view: that Cabot had not been to, and was going nowhere near, Columbus’s discoveries.

  But what his map implied about the dead end Columbus had reached was bound to irritate in Castile and Aragon. One of the rival Spanish ambassadors, Pedro de Ayala, informed Henry that his sovereigns regarded Cabot’s voyage as trespassing on their territory. They had discovered islands around the Indies, and that was where Cabot was going—how could it not be trespassing? Henry deftly dismissed the charge: If that was what the Spanish believed, they were simply wrong.

  It was said in Italy that by inviting the French to come, Ludovico Sforza of Milan had turned a lion loose in his house—with the inevitable consequences still to come. Even so, as the official beneficiary of the French invasion, Milan had escaped lightly from the recent war, though it had now joined the Holy League. The eminent artists and engineers that clustered around the Sforza court were still there. Leonardo da Vinci had just finished painting his magnificent Last Supper on the wall of the refectory of the Dominican friars at Santa Maria delle Grazia, one of only six paintings he managed to finish during his stay as a Sforza employee.

  Cabot was well known in Milan—he had lived there for nearly five years—and some of the first letters to reach Italy about his achievement arrived there. The very first was a letter dated August 23 from a Venetian merchant named Lorenzo Pasqualigo sent home to his family. “That Venetian of ours who went with a small ship from Bristol to find new islands has come back and says he has discovered the main land,” he wrote, explaining that this was “the territory of the Grand Khan.” But the news arrived in Milan the following day, and there Leonardo at least would have understood the significance. He had not been a pupil of Toscanelli’s for nothing. The new Milanese ambassador to London, the elegant and witty Raimondi de Soncino, was soon writing home about the impact the victorious Cabot was now having there. He described Cabot as a well-known figure around the court with his public lectures and his vociferous advocacy of a scheme to “make London a more important mart for spices than Alexandria.”