No contemporary account of this remarkable voyage was published, and historians have founded their descriptions of it mainly on reports of a much later period, derived from conversations with Sebastian Cabot at first, second, or third hand. These reports are contradictory in essential parts, and their authors confuse this second with the first expedition or treat the two as one voyage. Its story, as most satisfactorily picked out, runs practically in this wise: Sebastian steered first northwest and directed his course by Iceland. At length he came upon a formidable headland running to the north. This coast he followed for a great distance, expecting to find the passage to Cathay around it. In the month of July his ships were encountering “monstrous heaps” of ice floating in the water, and daylight was almost continual. At length failing to find any passage the ships’ prows were turned about and in course of time Newfoundland was reached, where the expedition sought refreshment. How far north Sebastian had penetrated it is impossible to determine from the conflicting statements. He himself is quoted as saying, twenty years and more afterward, that he was at fifty-six degrees when compelled to turn back. But modern authorities find presumptive evidence that he discovered Hudson’s Strait and gained the sixty-seventh degree through Fox’s Channel before he turned. From Newfoundland he sailed south, and coasted down along the North American coast, still hopeful of finding the much-sought-for passage, till, the company’s provisions falling short, he was obliged to take the homeward course. The southernmost point reached is as indefinite as the northern, but authorities generally agree that it was near thirty-six degrees, off North Carolina, or about the latitude of Gibraltar.
Cabot is declared by early writers to have named the “great land” along which he first coasted, assumed to be Newfoundland, “Baccaloas,” a German term then in use in the south of Europe for codfish, because of the multitudes of “big fish” found in the region. Later authorities, however, say that this name was applied by Portuguese navigators who came after Cabot. The name subsequently settled down upon a small island on the east coast of Newfoundland. It seems to be agreed that landings were made by Cabot’s company at several points. The natives, probably of Newfoundland, were seen dressed in beasts’ skins, and they were found making use of copper. Great sailors’ yarns were spun about the abundance of the fish of the region, so great that “the progress of the ships were sometimes impeded by them.” Bears, of which there were a plenty, were accustomed to feed on the fish, plunging into the sea and catching them with their claws.