Hakluyt, in "Divers Voyages" (1582) [cf. Hakluyt, 1850, p. 23], has a rather fuller version of this account, quoted from Robert Fabyan, where we read that the ships from Bristol were
"fraught with sleight and grosse merchandizes as course cloth, Caps, laces, points, and other trifles, and so departed from Bristowe in the beginning of May: of whom in this Maior's time returned no tidings."[321]
"This Mayor" would be William Purchas, who was Lord Mayor of London until October 28 (November 6, N.S.), 1498. Thus, if this is correct, the expedition had not yet returned in the late autumn.
[Sidenote: John Cabot probably never returned from the voyage of 1498]
The information contained in Ayala's letter, that one of Cabot's ships had put in to Ireland, is the last certain intelligence we have of this expedition, which was looked forward to with such great hopes. John Cabot now disappears completely and unaccountably from history, and his discovery, which the year before had attracted so much attention, seems to have been more or less forgotten in the succeeding years, and is never referred to in the later letters of the Spanish Ambassadors in London. It may, therefore, seem reasonable to suppose that the expedition disappeared without leaving a trace. The probability of this is confirmed by the fact that two years and a half later, in March 1501, Henry VII. again granted letters patent, for the discovery of lands, to three merchants of Bristol and three Portuguese, without mentioning Cabot; it is merely stated that all former privileges of a similar kind were cancelled. But according to some old account books from Bristol, found at Westminster Abbey, John Cabot's royal pension of £20 a year was paid as late as the administrative year beginning September 29, 1498. This, as Harrisse and others think, shows that Cabot returned from the voyage and was still alive in that year. But this seems to be uncertain evidence. The money need not have been paid to him personally; it may have been paid to his wife or his sons or other representatives during his absence on the voyage, and we cannot conclude anything certain from it. As the pension is not entered in the following years, it seems rather to show that Cabot was really lost, and the money was only paid during the first year of his absence.