In December 1497 Cabot presented to the King his proposals for a second yoyage, From his original landfall he intended to follow the coast to the southwest until he came to the realm of the Great Khan, in East Asia - the source (according to Marco Polo) of "all the spices of the world." In February 1498 he received royal letters patent allowing him to impress ships and to recruit crews. Early in May Cabot sailed with five ships...If he or his companions followed his plan, they found neither Cathay nor a westerly sea-passage to East Asia. In this sense, they may have made (in the words of historian James A. Williamson) "the intellectual discovery of America," for subsequent English explorers did not confuse America with Asia. R.A. Skelton - Encyclopedia Americana, 1966.
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