IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1.25 '-m •J IIIIM III -10 IM 1 2.2 2.0 1.8 LA. Ill 1.6 v: <^ /2 o ^1 A ^#.^r] ^> ^m j'f > ^ ^/a 9. '^ m / y Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.V. M5S0 (716) 872-4503 €3 ;\ \ ^'t it reads as follows : " which said shippe... departed from Bristowe in the beginning of May." Now Hakluyt's work was not published until 1589, and as the Fust MS. purports to have been written in 1565, we bhould have here another anachronism. To change " the beginning of May " into " the second day of May " is not a very difficult matter ; but, as my opponents rightly observe, the Fust MS. contains a third da^e, which cannot be so easily explained away, viz., the alleged day of Cabot's return to Bristol, "August 6th." This may be a random figure, although it agrees in a measure with Cabot's presence in London on the 10th, when Henry VII. made a present of !(•/, '' to hym that founde the Isle." Besides, we know from Pasqualigo that the successful navigator was three mouths on the voyage : " Stato mexi tre sul viazo," which synchronizes practically with the space of time between " the beginning of May " and " the Gth of August." What lends force to the oVtjection is the fact that, so far as known at present, the gratuity of 10^ and the time spent on B the voyage have been disclosed in print only within the last sixty yeara. The mysterions "Maurice Toby, Gent.," cannot therefore have borrowed the latter item of information from Rawdon Brown's 'Calendars.' To this, I frankly confesp, I have nothing to say just now, except that the possibility of accouutint^ for the statement does not seem to be altogether beyond the reach of ultimate investigations. As to the date of 24 June for the landfall, it is, in itself, highly improbable, conHidering that it does not leave time enough for what may be fairly assumed to have been done by Cabot before returning home, Mr. Prowse and Mr. Wkare's objections to the contrary notwithstanding. They are unwilling to admit that after having been tossed on the waves during fifty-three days the small crew required a little rest, the diminutive craft some repairs, and the larder additional provisions (which could be obtained only by jaunting and Siilting game on shore). My contra- dictors say that " fifty-three days out from Bristol to Newfoundland, and forty-two days home, would not be a record-breaking passage even for those days." Certainly not ; but this curious reasoning implies that Oabot must have set sail homeward on the very day when he first sighted the American continent, which is hard to believe. Meanwhile, what becomes of the 300 leagues to and fro, amounting to 600, which Cabot coasted in the new land : *' Andato per la costa lige 300," as he related to Pasqualigo, and as corroborated by Soncino, who saw the description of the newly- found country marked in a chart and on a solid globe which Oabot had made : ** in una carta, et &uohe in una sphera solida che lui ha fatto et f I / demostra dove ^ capito " ? Mr. Phowsr and Mr. Wkark should not have omitted to explain the nautical phenomenon which their argument involves. At all events, my objections have been tacitly endorsed by the Royal Society of Canada, which, in the brass tablet it caused to be placed in the Legislative Hall at Halifax, does not say that the discovery was accomplished ''June 24, on Sr. John the Baptist's Day,'' and that " Cr»pe Breton Island," or even " Bonavista Buy," was the land- fall. The inscription only, and wisely, states that the fliigs of England and Venice were first planted in the New World by John Cabot, '' in the June of 1497, on the north-eastern seaboard of North America." So much for Mk. Pr(jwsk and Mr. Weake's asseverations in that respect. If we now examine the extrinsic character of the Fust chronicle, we notice certain particulars alec worthy of attention. Neither the original MS. nor a complete copy of it can be found anywhere. Critics consequently are deprived of the most precious means of information ; for, if spurious, the MS. could not resist the close scrutiny of paloeo^jraphers, while its substance would cer- tainly afford materials to exercise the acumen of historians. As the matter stands, they have only to work upon a few extracts made by a book- seller's assistant after 1845. Nor can the existence of the original MS. be traced further back than Sir Francis Fust, who died in 1769. In the list of members of his family he is the only one who is mentioned as having been a book collector, and the MS. contained his own personal book-plate. Under the circumstances, it rests with Mr. Weare to show that the MS. existed 8 between 15G5 ami the time whon Sir Francis acquired it. Mr. Wkarb r«^pliea with the stutw- ment that, *' the evidence of liviuj^ persons coul