Columbus discovered the Bahama Islands and some other parts of the West Indies in 1492. This immediately gave a vigorous impetus to discovery in the West and South, and before Columbus in this third voyage could reach the mainland of America, which he did in 1498, both Americo Vesputio and Sebastian Cabot had reached it before him. Vesputio was sent out by Ferdinand, king of Castile, in 1499. He was by birth a Florentine, as Columbus was a Genoese, thus giving to Italy the two earliest discoverers of the New World. If there be any doubt that Vesputio, or Vespucci, was the first discoverer of the mainland of America, that doubt is in favour of John and Sebastian Cabot, who received a patent from Henry VIII. of England in 1496, and discovered what has been differently stated to be Newfoundland, or a part of the coast of Labrador. This discovery was made prior to 1497, because the discovery is mentioned in an entry in the privy purse of Henry VIII. “to hym that found the new Isle, £10.” The settlement of these claims to priority of discovery has occasioned much dispute, into which we need not enter. In any case the discoverer was an Italian, for John Cabot was a Venetian, and his son Sebastian had no other claim to be an Englishman than by being born in Bristol, which his father, as a merchant, frequently visited.