vessels amongst the icebergs, ice floes, polar bears, and stormy seas
of Greenland and Labrador. Commercially the voyage was a failure,
almost a disaster. The ships returned singly, and after a considerable
interval of time. Nevertheless, some of the king's loans were repaid
to him; and in 1501 a regular chartered company was formed (perhaps at
Bristol), with three Bristolians and three Portuguese as directors.
Henry VII not only gave a royal patent to this association, but lent
more money to enable it to explore and colonize these new lands across
the western sea.

There can be little doubt that between 1498 and 1505 these Bristol
ships, directed by Italian, English, and Portuguese pilots, first
revealed to the civilized world of western Europe the coasts of
Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, and
Delaware. They must have got as far south as the State of Delaware
(according to Sebastian Cabot, their southern limit was lat. 38°),
because in 1505 they were able to bring back parrots ("popyngays"), as
well as hawks and lynxes ("catts of the mountaigne"), for the
delectation of King Henry; and parrots even at that period could not
have been obtained from farther north than the latitude of New
York.[8]

[Footnote 8: Almost certainly this was _Conurus carolinensis_, a green
and orange parrakeet still found in the south-eastern States of North
America, but formerly met with as far north as New York and Boston.]

But after 1505 English interest in "the Newe founde launde" and the
"Newe Isle" languished; the exploration of North America was taken up
and carried farther by Portuguese, Bretons and Normans of France,
Italians, and Spaniards.[9] It revived again under Henry VIII, owing