Cathaia by this way, which for the bringing of the Spiceries from India
into Europe, were the most easy and shortest of all other wayes hitherto
found out. And surely this enterprise would be the most glorious, and of
most importance of all other that can be imagined to make his name great,
and fame immortall, to all ages to come, farre more then can be done by any
of all these great troubles and warres which dayly are used in Europe among
the miserable Christian people.

* * * * *

Another testunonie of the voyage of Sebastian Cabot to the West and
Northwest, taken out of the sixt Chapter of the third Decade of Peter
Martyr of Angleria.

Scrutatus est oras glaciales Sebastianus quidam Cabotus genere Venetus, sed
à parentibus in Britanniam insulam tendentibus (vti moris est Venetorum,
qui commercij causa terrarum omnium sunt hospites) transportatus penè
infans. Duo is sibi nauigia, propria pecunia in Britannia ipsa instruxit,
et primò tentens cum hominibus tercentum ad Septentrionem donec etiam Iulio
mense vastas repererit glaciates moles pelago natantes, et lucem ferè
perpetuam, tellure tamen libera, gelu liquefacto: quare coactus fuit, vti
ait, vela vertere et occidentem sequi: tetenditque tantum ad meridiem
littore sese incuruante, vt Herculei freti latitudinis fere gradus æquarit:
ad occidentémque profectus tantum est vt Cubam Insulam à Iæua, longitudine
graduum penè parem, habuerit. Is ea littora percurrens, quæ Baccalaos
appelauit, eosdem se reperisse aquarum, sed lenes delapsus ad Occidentem
ait, quos Castellani, meridionales suas regiones adnauigantes, inuenient.
Ergò non modò verisimilius, sed necessario concludendum est, vastos inter
vtramque ignotam hactenus tellurem iacere hiatus, qui viam præbeant aquis
ab oriente cadentibus in Occidentem. Quas arbitror impulsu coelorum