Letter reveals previously unknown 1499 expedition to Canada

From The National Post (Canada):

British historians have unearthed a letter written 510 years ago by King Henry VII that sheds startling new light on Canadian history.

The letter reveals a previously unknown English expedition to this country in 1499 and may add the name of William Weston — an obscure shipping merchant from the west England port of Bristol — to the pantheon of early New World explorers.

The regal dispatch, believed to have been written the year after Anglo-Italian navigator John Cabot perished on his second voyage of discovery to Canada, indicates Weston was set to embark on his own transatlantic journey to “serche and fynde” the same distant territory.

Specifically, the king names Weston’s destination as “the new founde land” reached by Cabot in June 1497 — the first European landfall in North America since the age of the Vikings.

That makes Henry’s letter, believed to have been written on March 12, 1499, the earliest known use of the phrase that would eventually be used to designate Canada’s easternmost province.

Until now, the first mention of “new found land” in connection with Canada’s Atlantic shore was from a 1502 entry in Henry VII’s royal daybook.

Full article

And another article, with the same text but includes an image of the letter

Update: BBC History Magazine will have an article about this discovery in the September issue.

And here’s an article from PhysOrg