It was necessary however in the interests of England for Hakluyt in this
Discourse to revive and substantiate the English rights in America by
putting forward the prior discovery by the Cabots in 1497-1498. Though
he presents this direct claim modestly, yet like Sir Humphrey Gilbert he
founds it upon insufficient evidence. In a loose manner he speaks of
Cabot and not the Cabots, and attributes to Sebastian the son what
properly belongs to John the father. He reposes full confidence in the
loose and gossiping statements of Peter Martyr that Sebastian Cabot, a
quarter of a century after the discovery, told him that at the time,
1497 or 98,he had explored the coast to the latitude of Gibraltar, that
is to Chesapeake Bay and the longitude of Cuba or the city of
Cincinnati, a thing not probable, in as much as the active old pilot
mayor was never able to declare, down to the time of Gomez, that he had
been on that coast before. It would have been foolish in him to fit out
in 1524 Gomez to ' discover ' what the pilot mayor had already explored
in 1497.

Hakluyt's arguments and historical statements in this Discourse of 1584
to the present time have always been presented by English diplomatists
with confidence, especially against the French. Yet the French continued
to maintain their occupation of Cape Breton, the Gulf of St Lawrence and
Canada, which together they called New France. It is now however made
apparent from contemporary historical documents that have recently been
brought to light from the archives of Spain and Venice that John Cabot,
accompanied by his son Sebastian, then a youth of some nineteen or
twenty years, in 1497 took possession of Cape Breton in the names of
Venice and England conjointly, and raised the flags of St Mark and St
George. There is not yet any trustworthy evidence that they went south
of Cape Breton either in that or the voyage of 1498.