and while there was offered by Wolsey the command of five vessels which Henry VIII. intended to despatch to Newfoundland. Being reproached by a fellow Venetian with having done nothing for his own country, Cabot refused, and on reaching Spain entered into secret negotiations with the Council of Ten at Venice. It was agreed that as soon as an opportunity offered Cabot should come to Venice and lay his plans before the Signiory. The conference of Badajoz took up his time in 1524, and on the 4th of March 1525 he was appointed commander of an expedition fitted out at Seville “to discover the Moluccas, Tarsis, Ophir, Cipango and Cathay.”
The three vessels set sail in April, and by June were off the coast of Brazil and on their way to the Straits of Magellan. Near the La Plata river Cabot found three Spaniards who had formed part of De Solis’s expedition of 1515. These men gave such glowing accounts of the riches of the country watered by this river that Cabot was at length induced, partly by their descriptions and in part by the casting away of his flag-ship, to forgo the search for Tarsis and Ophir and to enter the La Plata, which was reached in February 1527. All the way up the Parana Cabot found the Indians friendly, but those on the Paraguay proved so hostile that the attempt to reach the mountains, where the gold and silver were procured, had to be given up. On reaching Seville in August 1530, Cabot was condemned to four years’ banishment to Oran in Africa, but in June 1533 he was once more reinstated in his former post of Pilot Major, which he continued to fill until he again removed to England.
As early as 1538 Cabot tried to obtain employment under Henry VIII., and it is possible he was the Sevillian pilot who was brought to London by the king in 1541. Soon after the accession of Edward VI., however, his friends induced the Privy Council to advance money for his removal to England, and on the 5th of January 1549 the king granted him a pension of £166, 13s. 4d. On Charles V. objecting to this proceeding, the Privy Council, on the 21st of April 1550, made answer that since “Cabot of himself refused to go either into Spayne or to the emperour, no reason or equitie wolde that he shulde be forced or compelled to go against his will.” A fresh application to Queen Mary on the 9th of September 1553 likewise proved of no avail.
On the 26th of June 1550 Cabot received £200 “by waie of the kinges Majesties rewarde,” but it is not clear whether this was for his services in putting down the privileges of the German Merchants of the Steelyard or for founding the company of Merchant Adventurers incorporated on the 18th of December 1551. Of this company Cabot was made governor for life. Three ships were sent out in May 1553 to search for a passage to the East by the north-east. Two of the vessels were caught in the ice near Arzina and the crews frozen to death. Chancellor’s vessel alone reached the White Sea, whence her captain made his way overland to Moscow. He returned to England in the summer of 1554 and was the means of opening up a very considerable trade with Russia. Vessels were again despatched to Russia in 1555 and 1556. On the departure of the “Searchthrift” in May 1556, “the good old gentleman Master Cabot gave to the poor most liberal alms, wishing them to pray for the good fortune and prosperous success of the ‘Searchthrift’; and then, at the sign of the Christopher, he and his friends banqueted and made them that were in the company good cheer; and for very joy that he had to see the towardness of our intended discovery, he entered into the dance himself among the rest of the young and lusty company.” On the arrival of King Philip II. in England Cabot’s pension was stopped on the 26th of May 1557, but three days later Mary had it renewed. The date of Cabot’s death has not been definitely discovered. It is supposed that he died within the year.
See G. P. Winship, Cabot Bibliography, with an Introductory Essay on the Careers of the Cabots (London, 1900); and H. P. Biggar, “The Voyages of the Cabots to North America and Greenland,” in the Revue Hispanique, tome x. pp. 485-593 (Paris, 1903). (H. P. B.)
CABOTAGE, the French term for coasting-trade, a coast-pilotage. It is probably derived from cabot, a small boat, with which the name Cabot may be connected; the conjecture that the word comes from cabo, the Spanish for cape, and means “sailing from cape to cape”, has little foundation.
CABRA, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Cordova, 28 m. S.E. by S. of Cordova, on the Jaen-Málaga railway. Pop. (1900) 13,127. Cabra is built in a fertile valley between the Sierra de Cabra and the Sierra de Montilla, which together form the watershed between the rivers Cabra and Guadajoz. The town was for several centuries an episcopal see. Its chief buildings are the cathedral, originally a mosque, and the ruined castle, which is the chief among many interesting relics of Moorish rule. The neighbouring fields of clay afford material for the manufacture of bricks and pottery; coarse cloth is woven in the town; and there is a considerable trade in farm produce. Cabra is the Roman Baebro or Aegabro. It was delivered from the Moors by Ferdinand III. of Castile in 1240, and entrusted to the Order of Calatrava; in 1331 it was recaptured by the Moorish king of Granada; but in the following century it was finally reunited to Christian Spain.
CABRERA, RAMON (1806–1877), Carlist general, was born at Tortosa, province of Tarragona, Spain, on the 27th of December 1806. As his family had in their gift two chaplaincies, young Cabrera was sent to the seminary of Tortosa, where he made himself conspicuous as an unruly pupil, ever mixed up in disturbances and careless in his studies. After he had taken minor orders, the bishop refused to ordain him as a priest, telling him that the Church was not his vocation, and that everything in him showed that he ought to be a soldier. Cabrera followed this advice and took part in Carlist conspiracies on the death of Ferdinand VII. The authorities exiled him and he absconded to Morella to join the forces of the pretender Don Carlos. In a very short time he rose by sheer daring, fanaticism and ferocity to the front rank among the Carlist chiefs who led the bands of Don Carlos in Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia. As a raider he was often successful, and he was many times wounded in the brilliant fights in which he again and again defeated the generals of Queen Isabella. He sullied his victories by acts of cruelty, shooting prisoners of war whose lives he had promised to spare and not respecting the lives and property of non-combatants. The queen’s generals seized his mother as a hostage, whereupon Cabrera shot several mayors and officers. General Nogueras unfortunately caused the mother of Cabrera to be shot, and the Carlist leader then started upon a policy of reprisals so merciless that the people nicknamed him “The Tiger of the Maeztrazgo”. It will suffice to say that he shot 1110 prisoners of war, 100 officers and many civilians, including the wives of four leading Isabellinos, to avenge his mother. When Marshal Espartero induced the Carlists of the north-western provinces, with Maroto at their head, to submit in accordance with the Convention of Vergara, which secured the recognition of the rank and titles of 1000 Carlist officers, Cabrera held out in Central Spain for nearly a year. Marshals Espartero and O’Donnell, with the bulk of the Isabellino armies, had to conduct a long and bloody campaign against Cabrera before they succeeded in driving him into French territory in July 1840. The government of Louis Philippe kept him in a fortress for some months and then allowed him to go to England, where he quarrelled with the pretender, disapproving of his abdication in favour of the count of Montemolin. In 1848 Cabrera reappeared in the mountains of Catalonia at the head of Carlist bands. These were soon dispersed and he again fled to France. After this last effort he did not take a very active part in the propaganda and subsequent risings of the Carlists, who, however, continued to consult him. He took offence when new men, not a few of them quondam regular officers, became the advisers and lieutenants of Don Carlos in the war which lasted more or less from 1870–1876. Indeed, his long residence in England, his marriage with Miss Richards, and his prolonged absence from Spain had much shaken his devotion to his old cause and belief in its success. In March 1875 Cabrera sprang upon Don Carlos a manifesto in which he called upon the adherents of the pretender to follow his own example and submit to the restored monarchy of Alphonso XII., the son of Queen Isabella, who recognized the rank of captain-general and the title of count of Morella conferred on Cabrera by
