Coğrafi Keşifler

İngilizlerin Newfoundlandı Keşfi

In August 1497 Cabot rode from the docks of Bristol directly to Henry VII. He reported his startling news. He had set sail in May on a tiny fifty-ton caravel called the Matthew with a crew of twenty. After thirty-five days’ sailing west into the Atlantic they sighted land. Cabot and his crew stepped ashore onto this new world. They did not advance further than the shooting distance of a crossbow. In that time they found nets, wooden tools, footprints and the remains of a fire, but saw no actual humans. They raised English and papal banners and claimed this ‘New Found Land’ for Henry VII.

Cabot believed he had found the eastern fringes of the great empire of Cathay – China. Henry gave him patents to continue exploring the far side of the Atlantic, and merchandise to carry to the New Found Land on five ships, one of which was funded by the king himself. The fleet left Bristol in 1498. And that was the last that was ever heard of John Cabot. Neither he nor his ships ever returned.

Niye Portekiz keşif yaptı İngiltere yapamadı

Portuguese had discovered that there were good following winds from Iberia on the journey out to the Atlantic islands and south down the African coast. Returning home was just as straightforward if the sailor headed into the ocean and picked up a following westerly at 35° north off the (then undiscovered) North American coast.
England was not blessed by geography to join this push out into the tropics. Iberian sailors benefited from the Atlantic wind system that carried ships in a clockwise pattern to the Canaries, across to the West Indies with the trade winds behind them and home again, with the added propulsion of the Gulf Stream, via North America. Sailors from the British Isles could not benefit inthis way. The prevailing winds in the Channel and Bay of Biscay were against them and they had nofriendly islands en route to resupply them.