ABSTRACT
It is now known, and was unknown before the discovery of John Day’s letter, that John Cabot led an expedition in pursuit of his plans in 1496. It was to this that Day referred in the following brief statement: ‘Since your lordship wants information relating to the first voyage, here is what happened: he [Cabot] went with one ship, his crew confused him, 1 he was short of food and ran into bad weather, and he decided to turn back.’ It was an unlucky attempt at the westward passage, similar to that of John Lloyd in 1480. Day does not give the date, but it was presumably after the issue of the patent, and so can only have been 1496. The King was in Bristol on August 12, 2 and it would be interesting to know whether Cabot had returned by then.
