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Excerpt from Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for 1890-91 The great wave of prosperity which brought wealth to Canynges and his contemporaries seems to have waned with the fall of the Plantagenets. When Henry VII. Visited the town after his accession, the clothing trade was de pressed and shipowners complained Of heavy losses and consequent poverty. Already, however, the merchants were looking out, with a vague belief in the imminence of some great discovery, for new fields of enterprise. On the 15th July, 1480, according to William \vyrcester, two Ships sailed down the Severn on their voyage to the island of Brasile, which they expected to find somewhere to the west of Ireland but which, as may be supposed, did not turn up. Faith in its existence, however, remained. Nearly 20 years later, a Spanish envoy, writing to his Court, stated that the people Of Bristol were sending out every year, under the direction Of a Genoese, two, three, or four ships in search of this Island of Brazil, as well as of certain Seven Cities, promising equally golden returns if they could only be hit upon. The Genoese referred to was John Cabot, who had lived some years in Bristol, where, it is believed, his son Sebastian was born. The Spaniard was not aware that the Cabots had just made the discovery of North America. In virtue of a. Royal patent permitting them to sail under the royal flag, the Cabots em barked in May, 1497, in a ship named the Matthew, which, like those spoken of by the Spanish envoy, was doubtless fitted out by Bristol adventurers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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