LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Sebastian Cabot: Bristol Harbour
built 804 days ago
In 1508 - 1509, backed by Bristol interests, Sebastian Cabot explored areas to the north of those found in 1497-98, seeking a way round the new continent to Asia. He may well have sailed through Hudson Strait, turning back only because his crew refused to continue. This was the first attempt to find the northwest passage, a quest that attracted explorers for centuries. Sebastian then explored the east coast of America before returning to England.
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Armed with these powers Cabot set sail from Bristol on Tuesday the 2nd of May 1497, on board a ship called the " Mathew " manned by eighteen men. Rounding Ireland they headed first north and then west. During several weeks they were forced by variable winds to keep an irregular course, although steadily towards the west. At length, after being fifty-two days at sea, at five o'clock on Saturday morning, June 24, they reached the northern extremity of Cape Breton Island. The royal banner was unfurled, and in solemn form Cabot took possession of the country in the name of King Henry VII. The soil being found fertile and the climate temperate, Cabot was convinced he had reached the north-eastern coast of Asia, whence came the silks and precious stones he had seen at Mecca.
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Like Christopher Columbus, who ... planned to sail west, Cabot found it very difficult to convince rich backers to pay for the ships he needed to test out his ideas about the world. After failing to persuade the royal courts of Europe, he decided to come to England. He arrived with his family in 1484, to try to persuade merchants in Bristol to pay for his planned voyage. Before his voyage set off, Cabot heard the news that Columbus had sailed west across the Atlantic and reached land. At the time, everyone believed that this land was the Indies, or Spice Islands.
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In England, Cabot received the backing he had been refused in Spain and Portugal. First, the merchants of Bristol agreed to support his scheme. They had sponsored probes into the north Atlantic from the early 1480s, looking for possible trading opportunities. Some historians think that Bristol mariners might even have reached Newfoundland and Labrador even before Cabot arrived on the scene.
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Cabot left Bristol in May 1497. One month later, he saw land and disembarked briefly. He then skirted the shore for some 30 days without seeing anyone, and returned to England at the beginning of August, full of enthusiasm and convinced that he had reached Asia.
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[T]here was precedent for Cabot not keeping directly to his course. Furthermore, even on the return leg of the successful trip, as Day wrote, Cabots "sailors confused him, saying that he was heading too far north," and led him to land in Brittany--in spite of the fact that the Gulf Stream might have carried him even further north than he intended.21 The difference between Bristol and Brittany is almost as great as that between Cape Bauld--the southernmost point to which the natural factors could have carried him--and Cape Bonavista, in southern Newfoundland. Such a miscalculation or misdirection is no mean error, yet this detour is almost always passed over.
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