LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Sebastian Cabot: Asia
built 804 days ago
[A]bout 1490, Cabot and his family moved to Valencia in Spain.Why? It is probable that, like his fellow-countryman Christopher Columbus, Cabot wanted to be part of an expanding frontier of exploration, the Atlantic Ocean. The leaders in this enterprise were the Portuguese, and the Spanish were ... interested. The monarchs of both countries wanted to find new routes to Asia and its riches - routes which would avoid the Mediterranean and the virtual monopoly on the spice trade held by the Italians. There was another motivation as well. In a deeply religious age, Europeans wanted to spread knowledge of Christianity, and to contain the spread of Islam.
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It is now possible to construct a hypothetical route which Cabot might have followed, and that is generally consistent with both forms of evidence (navigation and sightings). Cabot set sail from Dursey Head or some nearby point on or about 20 May. He headed north for a few days, then cut back west, sailing directly for what he believed to be the northern coast of Asia. In spite of good weather and a fair wind, his crew became anxious after several weeks at sea. Cabot himself, concerned about the ice in the ater, steered somewhat to the south and was pushed further in that direction by the current. Sporadically his men, afraid of the ice and despairing of finding land, urged him even more in that direction; sometimes the ship headed due west, sometimes southwest.
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A merchant like his father, Cabot traded in spices with the ports of the eastern Mediterranean, and became an expert mariner. Valuable goods from Asia - spices, silks, precious stones and metals - were brought either overland or up the Red Sea for sale in Europe. Venetians played a prominent part in this trade.
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It is debatable whether Cabot was confused by his crew or used this to excuse his own navigational error, or whether he was forced by a restless crew to direct his ship away from where he knew he should be headed. There being little doubt that Cabot was an excellent mariner, the third interpretation seems most likely.22 If indeed the anxiety of the crew led to the error, how much more likely is it the crew would have forced similar detours on the way out? Returning to England, the crew panicked after a short time and forced the ship to turn southward toward a place where they were sure to find land. It would hardly be a surprise if they ... led the captain astray on the outward voyage when no one knew for certain if they would find land at all. There were, furthermore, two good reasons that the sailors would have wanted to look more to the south. First, there was bound to be ice in the latitudes north of Newfoundland;23 and, as Morison noted, even a little bit of ice would have been a serious danger for the wooden ships of the day.24 Thus, it is entirely likely that not only the crew but Cabot himself decided that Asia had to be discovered further south, even if this entailed somewhat more traveling.
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