He enters the service of Spain, 1512. which occurred in 1509; and Herrera, the Historiographer of the king of Spain, records the additional fact that, in 1512, he entered the service of Ferdinand, who, anxious to secure the services of so distinguished a navigator, "gave him the title of his Captain, and a liberal allowance, and retained him in his service, directing that he should reside at Seville, to await orders."[1]
No specific duties were, however, assigned to him beyond the general revision of the Spanish maps and charts then extant, till, in 1515, he became a member of the Council of the Indies, with the expectation of commanding in the following year another expedition for the discovery of a north-west passage to India.[2] But the death of Ferdinand put an end to this scheme, and the troubles which then ensued in Spain induced Cabot to return to England, where, shortly afterwards, he was appointed to prepare an expedition similar to that which Ferdi-*
- [Footnote: familiarly, and delight to have him sometimes keep me company in
mine own house; for being called out of England, by command of the Catholic King of Castile, after the death of King Henry VII., he was made one of our council, as touching the affair of the New Indies, looking daily for ships to be furnished for him, to discover this hid secret of nature (i. e. why the seas in these parts ran with so swift a current from the east to the west), this voyage is appointed to be begun in March in the year next following, being the year of Christ 1516."—Decades, ii. c. 12.]
- ↑ Herrera, dec. i. lib. ix. cap. xiii.
- ↑ R. Eden's 'Munster,' Lond., 1553. Cabot calls himself on the map previously referred to "Captain and Pilot-Major of his sacred Imperial Majesty the Emperor Don Carlos the Vth." Robert Thorne (said by Stowe to have been born in 1492) was one of the most eminent of the Bristol merchants of his days. He died in London in 1532, and is buried in the Temple Church. At his death he forgave all his debtors, at the same time leaving £4440 for charitable purposes, and £5140 to poor relations.
