It was the stern logic of events which compelled the
enterprise. Barbarous Turks swept westward. Arabia, Syria,
the Isles of Greece, and, at last, in 1453, Constantinople
itself, fell into their hands. The Eastern Empire, the
last survival of the Empire of the Romans, perished
beneath the sword of Mahomet. Then the pathway by land
to Asia, to the fabled empires of Cathay and Cipango,
was blocked by the Turkish conquest. Commerce, however,
remained alert and enterprising, and men's minds soon
turned to the hopes of a western passage which should
provide a new route to the Indies.

All the world knows the story of Christopher Columbus,
his long years of hardship and discouragement; the supreme
conviction which sustained him in his adversity; the
final triumph which crowned his efforts. It is no detraction
from the glory of Columbus to say that he was only one
of many eager spirits occupied with new problems of
discovery across the sea. Not the least of these were
John and Sebastian Cabot, father and son. John Cabot,
like Columbus, was a Genoese by birth; a long residence
in Venice, however, earned for him in 1476 the citizenship
of that republic. Like many in his time, he seems to have
been both a scientific geographer and a practical
sea-captain. At one time he made charts and maps for his
livelihood. Seized with the fever for discovery, he is
said to have begged in vain from the sovereigns of Spain
and Portugal for help in a voyage to the West. About the
time of the great discovery of Columbus in 1492, John