A ship, only 70 feet long, was designed and built in Bristol, and on 20th May 1497, with a well-chosen crew of eighteen, the Matthew sailed from the mouth of the Avon, travelled to the fishing grounds south of Iceland and then due West. Thirty-four days after leaving England the sailors sighted a New Found Land. They went ashore in three places and brought back several pieces of evidence of their voyage, including a needle for making nets, a snare for catching animals, the jaw-bone of a whale. They made the return journey in just over two weeks and only three days after returning to Bristol Cabot presented these things to the king. Much impressed, Henry VII granted another patent, and in 1498 Cabot, with a fleet of five ships, again set sail from Bristol. One, storm-damaged, returned to Ireland: the others were never heard of again. Cabot's son, Sebastion, was to become almost as famous as his father. He sailed to St Petersburg, was the first Governor of the Muscovy Company of Merchant Venturers, and he led an expedition that discovered the coast of Brazil. But he did not achieve what his father had achieved: the discovery of a continent most of the world did not know existed. "Thirty-four days after leaving England the sailors sighted a New Found Land." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Amerike Descending from the Earls of Gwent, Richard Ap Meryk - in Welsh, Richard, son of Meryk - was born in 1445 at the family home, Meryk Court, Weston-under-Penyard, near Ross-on-Wye. ( Elizabeth, grand daughter of one of his ancestors, Hywel Ap Meurig, married Sir John Poyntz in 1343. Queen Elizabeth II is descended from their Tudor lineage, as was Diana, Princess of Wales, via the Spencer family connections. ) Richard Amerike married a woman by the name of Lucy Wells, living for a time at West Camel, near Ilchester, where the local assize courts were held. When Bristol grew in importance and the assizes moved there, so did Amerike, joining relatives already established in the city. When he arrived it was the second biggest port in England after London. Trade was controlled by a few energetic men and to succeed he had to make the right contacts: he did, and in time became an important and wealthy man. By 1497 he was Sheriff of Bristol and also, for the third time, King's Customs Officer for the port - an office usually held for only one year though Amerike had already been the Customs Officer twice before, in 1486 and 1490. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When the voyage of discovery was proposed Amerike donated more money than anyone else to funding the construction of Cabot's ship. Also, as no wood was readily available nearby, oaks from Amerike's family estate were cut down and floated down the Wye from Ross to Chepstow, over the Severn and then up the Avon to the Bristol dockyard. It was probably in honour of Cabot's wife Mattea that the ship was named Matthew, but it could also have been named after Amerike himself, Matthew, one of the apostles, having been a custom's officer. But it is also probable that, as the chief sponsor of the Matthew's voyage and with Cabot's wife and children then living, at his instigation, in a house belonging to a close friend, Amerike sought reward for his patronage by asking that any new-found lands should be named after him. ..."Amerike sought reward for his patronage by asking that any new-found lands should be named after him." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The American flag Since the flag of the United States of America is based on the design of Amerike's coat-of-arms it is more than probable that its origins lie with Amerike and not with George Washington, whose family also bore arms of the Stars and Stripes. According to the American Flag Research Centre in Massachusetts the heraldic origin of the American flag is not positively known; archives in the British Library confirm that the Stars and Stripes was the coat-of-arms of the Ap Merike family - and that they pre- date Washington's connection with the continent by three hundred years. Amerike's coat-of-arms can be seen in the Lord Mayor's Chapel on College Green in Bristol as part of the Poyntz crest, a relative having married into that wealthy, land-owning family. Cabot must have been a very remarkable person. How else could someone of no great wealth or personal influence pursue a goal so single-mindedly and achieve it so triumphantly ? How else could a foreigner convince the English king that he should give him formal backing, and hard-headed Bristol merchants that the money they were hazarding would be spent with hope of a good return ? Who else, knowing just how dangerous the oceans could be, would set off again and again to risk his life and that of his crews on the quest for new places beyond the horizon? As to Richard Amerike, the picture that emerges is of a man who was an outstanding medieval entrepreneur - defined in the dictionary as "one who undertakes a business enterprise with chance of profit or loss". He was very successful, but little did he know that the Stars and Stripes on his personal banner would eventually become an emblem known the world over. ..."little did Amerike know that the Stars and Stripes on his personal banner would eventually become an emblem known the world over"...