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Article: REAR WINDOW: NEWFOUNDLAND Where fishes swim, men will fight
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- March 19, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1995 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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IN THE autumn of 1497 an Italian visitor in London wrote to the
Duke of Milan describing the great fuss that was being made in
England over a Genoese mariner by the name of Giovanni Caboto, or
John Cabot.
Cabot, having forsaken Italy for Bristol, had in that spring and
summer sailed westward over the Atlantic in a small ship, the
Matthew, and eventually sighted land. Returning to Bristol with the
story of his discovery he had been greeted as a hero, mobbed in the
streets and lionised as the "Great Admiral". The parsimonious Henry
VII was even moved to reward him with a special grant of pounds
10.
Christopher Columbus's discovery of land to the west was by then
five years old so this English ...