The voyage of the Matthew

John Cabot · 1497 CE · Earth

Find a short western route to the spice lands of Asia for English merchants.

Historical context

Bristol merchants had been sending ships west in search of the island of Brasil for at least fifteen years before Cabot arrived, and he offered Henry VII an acquisition like those Portugal and Spain had made. One small ship and eighteen or twenty men went out and came back with news of a coast nobody yet understood.

The voyage, step by step

1. Out of Bristol

   May 1497

   In May 1497 the Matthew drops down the Avon with eighteen or twenty men and, by one account, food for seven or eight months.

2. Last land at Dursey Head

   1497 CE

   Rounding the south-west corner of Ireland, the Matthew takes her departure and steers into open ocean.

3. Thirty-five days west

   1497 CE

   A single ship of some fifty tons holds her course for five weeks; John Day says the wind was east-north-east and the sea calm.

4. Landfall, by tradition 24 June

   24 June 1497

   A wooded coast rises ahead. Cabot goes ashore once and raises the banners; Bristol men would call the country the new found land. The map follows the Cape Bonavista tradition; the true site is unknown.

5. A snare and a needle

   1497 CE

   The only landing party goes no further than a crossbow shot. It finds a trail, the remains of a fire and snares for game, and brings back a netting needle.

6. The cod grounds

   1497 CE

   Along the coast, the crew find a sea so thick with fish that they can be taken in baskets weighted with a stone.

7. Ten pounds for a continent

   6 August 1497

   The Matthew is back in Bristol on 6 August. Cabot rides to the king, and in December is granted a pension of twenty pounds a year.

Outcome

Reached a wooded coast across the Atlantic, probably Newfoundland though the landfall is disputed, and was back in Bristol after about three months with news of seas swarming with fish.

John Cabot

Venetian navigator who sailed from Bristol in 1497 and made the first documented European landfall in North America since the Norse.

Read on Wikipedia

Sources

• John Cabot — Wikipedia
• The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery under Henry VIIJames A. Williamson · Hakluyt Society · 1962

Continue exploring

• First voyage to IndiaVasco da Gama · 1497 CE – 1499 CE
• Indian Ocean pilotageAhmad ibn Mājid · 1498 CE
• Voyage to Brazil and IndiaPedro Álvares Cabral · 1500 CE – 1501 CE
• First Atlantic crossingChristopher Columbus · 1492 CE – 1493 CE