he sailed northwards along the coast, to see if he could find any gulf that permitted him to proceed westwards in his intended voyage to India, and still found firm land to lat 56 deg.  N. Finding the coast here turning to the east, he despaired of finding a passage in that direction:  he sailed again down the coast to the southwards, still looking everywhere for an inlet that would admit a passage by sea to India, and came to that part of the continent now called Florida; where, his victuals failing, he took his departure for England[12].  In the preface to the third volume of his navigations, Ramusio, as quoted by Hakluyt, says that Sebastian Cabot sailed as far north in this voyage as 67 deg. 30’, where on the 11th June the sea was still quite open, and he was in full hope of getting in that way to Cathay, but a mutiny of his people forced him to return to England[13].  Peter Martyr of Angleria, as likewise quoted by Hakluyt, says that Sebastian was forced to return to the southwards by the immense quantities of ice which he encountered in the northern part of his voyage[14].

Sebastian Cabot, on his return to England, found matters in a state which did not promise him any farther advantages as a mariner, on which he went into Spain, where he was employed by Ferdinand and Isabella, in whose service he explored the eastern coast of South America, and discovered the Rio Plata, up which he sailed above 360 miles, finding it to flow through a fine country, everywhere inhabited by great numbers of people, who flocked from all parts to admire his ships.  After making many other voyages, which are not specified, he settled in Seville, where he employed himself in making sea charts, and had the appointment of pilot-major, all pilots for the West Indian Seas having to pass his examination, and to have his license[15].  He thought fit, however, to return into England, and was employed by Henry VIII.  In the service of that sovereign he made a voyage to the coast of Brazil in 1516, under the superior command of Sir Thomas Pert, vice-admiral of England, of which the following imperfect account is preserved by Haklyut.

“That learned and industrious writer Richard Eden, in an epistle to the Duke of Northumberland, prefixed to a work which he translated from Munster in 1553, called A treatise of the New India, makes mention of a voyage of discovery made from England by Sir Thomas Pert and Sebastian Cabota, about the eighth year of Henry VIII.  The want of courage in Sir Thomas Pert occasioned this expedition to fail of its intended effect; otherwise it might have happened that the rich treasury called Perularia, now in Seville, in which the infinite riches which come from the new-found country of Peru, would long since have been in the Tower of London to the great honour of the king, and the vast increase of the wealth of this realm.  Gonsalvo de Oviedo, a famous Spanish writer, alludes to this voyage, in his General and