Richard Biddle (1796 1847), an American politician and lawyer, published this work on the life of the explorer and cartographer, Sebastian Cabot (c.1481 1557), anonymously in 1831. He was responding to widespread criticisms of Cabot allegedly an unscrupulous character who played the governments of England and Spain to his own ends. The work includes notes on Sebastian's discoveries on the North American continent along with his father, John, and his search for the North-West Passage. As a governor of the Muscovy Company, Cabot initiated the expansion of English trade to Russia and the East....