Sebastian Cabot shook the dust of Bristol off his restless feet more
than once in the years that followed. Within five years after his voyage
to the Arctic regions he was cruising about the Caribbean. In 1517 he
was at the entrance of the great bay on the north coast of Labrador. In
1524 he was in the service of Spain, and coasting along the eastern
shores of South America ascended the great river which De Solis had
named Rio de la Plata, came within sight of the mountains of Peru. But
for orders from Spain, where Pizarro had secured the governorship of
that land, Cabot might have been its conqueror. In 1548, after some
years spent in Spain as pilot major, he came back to England, where he
was appointed to the position of superintendent of naval affairs. It was
his work to examine and license pilots, and make charts and maps, and
some ten years later he died, having founded the company of Merchant
Adventurers in 1553. This company was entitled to build and send out
ships for discovery and trade in parts unknown. By uniting merchant
traders in one body, governed by definite rules, and backed by their
combined capital, it broke the monopoly of the Hanseatic League and
finally drove the Hanse merchants out of England. Sebastian Cabot was
its first governor, holding the office until he died, and has rightly
been called the father of free trade.
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