Produced by Ron Swanson
HISTORY OF CANADA
PART I (NEW FRANCE)
_C. P. LUCAS_
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
A HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE BRITISH COLONIES VOL. V
CANADA--PART I HISTORICAL
BY
C. P. LUCAS, C.B.
OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD AND THE COLONIAL OFFICE
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
MDCCCCI
OXFORD
PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAP. I. EUROPEAN DISCOVERERS IN NORTH AMERICA TO THE END OF
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
CHAP. II. SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN AND THE FOUNDING OF QUEBEC . . . . 35
CHAP. III. THE SETTLEMENT OF CANADA AND THE FIVE NATION INDIANS 79
CHAP. IV. FRENCH AND ENGLISH DOWN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT . . 123
CHAP. V. THE MISSISSIPPI AND LOUISIANA . . . . . . . . . . . 147
CHAP. VI. ACADIA AND HUDSON BAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
CHAP. VII. LOUISBOURG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
CHAP. VIII. THE PRELUDE TO THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR . . . . . . . . 216
CHAP. IX. THE CONQUEST OF CANADA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
CHAP. X. THE CONQUEST OF CANADA (_continued_) . . . . . . . . 289
CHAP. XI. GENERAL SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
APPENDIX I. LIST OF FRENCH GOVERNORS OF CANADA . . . . . . . . 350
APPENDIX II. DATES OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF
CANADA DOWN TO 1763 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
LIST OF MAPS
1. Map of the French and English possessions in North America in
the middle of the eighteenth century
2. Map of New England, New York, and Central Canada, showing the
waterways
3. Map of Louisbourg
4. Map of Quebec
[Illustration: Map of the French and English Possessions in NORTH
AMERICA in the Middle of the 18th Century]
{1}
HISTORY OF CANADA
CHAPTER I
EUROPEAN DISCOVERERS IN NORTH AMERICA TO THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY
[Sidenote: _The British possessions in North America._]
The British possessions in North America consist of Newfoundland and
the Dominion of Canada. Under the Government of Newfoundland is a
section of the mainland coast which forms part of Labrador, extending
from the straits of Belle Isle on the south to Cape Chudleigh on the
north.
The area of these possessions, together with the date and mode of
their acquisition, is as follows:--
_Name._ _How acquired._ _Date._ _Area in square miles._
Newfoundland Settlement 1583-1623 40,200
and Labrador 120,000
Canada Cession [Quebec] 1763 3,653,946
[Sidenote: _British possessions in North America and West Indies
contrasted._]
In the Introduction to a previous volume,[1] it was pointed out that
all the British possessions in the New World have one common feature;
viz. that they have been, in the main, fields of European settlement,
and not merely trading stations or conquered dependencies; but that,
in other respects--in climate, in geography, and in what may be
called the strata of colonization--the West Indian and North American
provinces of the Empire stand at opposite poles to each other. It may
be added that, in North America, European colonization was later in
time and slower in development than {2} in the central and southern
parts of the continent; and, in order to understand why this was the
case, some reference must be made to the geography of North America,
more especially in its relation to Europe, and also to its first
explorers, their motives, and their methods.
[Footnote 1: Vol. ii, _West Indies_, pp. 3, 4.]
[Sidenote: _Geographical outline of America._]
The Old World lies west and east. In the New World the line of length
is from north to south. The geographical outline of America, as
compared with that of Europe and Asia, is very simple. There is a
long stretch of continent, with a continuous backbone of mountains,
running from the far north to the far south. The mountains line the
western coast; on the eastern side are great plains, great rivers,
broken shores, and islands. Midway in the line of length, where the
Gulf of Mexico runs into the land, and where, further south, the
Isthmus of Darien holds together North and South America by a narrow
link, the semicircle of West Indian islands stand out as
stepping-stones in the ocean for wayfarers from the old continent to
the new.
[Sidenote: _North and South America._]
The two divisions of the American continent are curiously alike. They
have each two great river-basins on the eastern side. The basin of
the St. Lawrence is roughly parallel to that of the Amazon; the basin
of the Mississippi to that of La Plata. The North American coast,
however, between the mouth of the St. Lawrence and that of the
Mississippi, is more varied and broken, more easy of access, than the
South American shores between the Amazon and La Plata. On the other
hand, South America has an attractive and accessible northern coast,
in strong contrast to the icebound Arctic regions; and the Gulf of
Venezuela, the delta of the Orinoco, and the rivers of Guiana, have
called in traders and settlers from beyond the seas.
[Sidenote: _South America colonized from both sides, North America
only from the eastern side._]
The history of colonization in North America has been, in the main,
one of movement from east to west. In South America, on the other
hand, the western side played almost from the first at least as
important a part as the eastern. {3} The story of Peru and its Inca
rulers shows that in old times, in South America, there was a
civilization to be found upon the western side of the Andes, and the
shores of the Pacific Ocean. European explorers penetrated into and
crossed the continent rather from the north and west than from the
east; and Spanish colonization on the Pacific coast was, outwardly at
least, more imposing and effective than Portuguese colonization on
the Atlantic seaboard. The great mass of land on the earth's surface
is in the northern hemisphere; and in the extreme north the shores of
the Old and New Worlds are closest to each other. Here, where the
Arctic Sea narrows into the Behring Straits, it is easier to reach
America from the west than from the east, from Asia than from Europe;
but to pass from the extremity of one continent to the extremity of
another is of little avail for making history; and the history of
North America has been made from the opposite side, which lies over
against Europe, where the shores are indented by plenteous bays and
estuaries, and where there are great waterways leading into the heart
of the interior.
[Sidenote: _The rivers of North America._]
[Sidenote: _English colonization in North America._]
The main outlets of North America are, as has been said, the St.
Lawrence and the Mississippi; while, on the long stretch of coast
between them, the most important river is the Hudson, whose valley is
a direct and comparatively easy highroad from the Atlantic to Lake
Champlain and the St. Lawrence basin; and here it may be noticed
that, though a Bristol ship first discovered North America, and
though, from the time of Ralegh onwards, North America became the
main scene of British colonization, the English allowed other nations
to secure the keys of the continent, and ran the risk of being cut
off from the interior. The French forestalled them on the St.
Lawrence, and later took possession of the mouth of the Mississippi.
The Dutch planted themselves on the Hudson between New England and
the southern colonies, and New York, the present chief city of
English-speaking America, was once New Amsterdam. Of all {4}
colonizing nations the English have perhaps been the least scientific
in their methods; and in no part of the world were their mistakes
greater than in North America, where their success was eventually
most complete. There was, however, one principle in colonization to
which they instinctively and consistently held. While they often
neglected to safeguard the obvious means of access into new-found
countries, and, as compared with other nations, made comparatively
little use of the great rivers in any part of the world, they laid
hold on coasts, peninsulas, and islands, and kept their population
more or less concentrated near to the sea. Thus, when the time of
struggle came, they could be supported from home, and were stronger
at given points than their more scientific rivals. If the French laid
their plans to keep in their own hands the Mississippi, the Ohio, and
the St. Lawrence, and thereby to shut off the colonies of the
Atlantic seaboard from the continent behind, those colonies had the
advantage of close contact with the sea, of comparatively continuous
settlement, and of yearly growing power to break through the weak and
unduly extended line with which the competing race tried to hem them
in.
But this contest between French and English, based though it was on
geographical position, belongs to the Middle Ages of European
colonization in America: let us look a little further back, and see
how the Old and the New Worlds first came into touch with each other.
[Sidenote: _Bacon on the discovery of North America._]
In his history of King Henry VII, Bacon refers to the 'memorable
accident' of the Cabots' great discovery, in the following
passage:--'There was one Sebastian Gabato, a Venetian living in
Bristow, a man seen and expert in cosmography and navigation. This
man, seeing the success and emulating perhaps the enterprise of
Christopherus Columbus in that fortunate discovery towards the
south-west, which had been by him made some six years before,
conceited with himself that lands might likewise be discovered
towards {5} the north-west. And surely it may be he had more firm and
pregnant conjectures of it than Columbus had of his at the first. For
the two great islands of the Old and New World, being in the shape
and making of them broad towards the north and pointed towards the
south, it is likely that the discovery first began where the lands
did nearest meet. And there had been before that time a discovery of
some lands which they took to be islands, and were indeed the
continent of America towards the north-west.'[2] Bacon goes on to
surmise that Columbus had knowledge of this prior discovery, and was
guided by it in forming his own conjectures as to the existence of
land in the far west; and it is at least not unlikely that, when he
visited Iceland in 1477, he would have heard tales of the Norsemen's
voyages to America.[3]
[Footnote 2: Spedding's edition of Bacon's works, 1870, vol. vi, p.
196.]
[Footnote 3: For this visit, see Washington Irving's _Life and
Voyages of Columbus_, bk. i, ch. vi.]
[Sidenote: _Pre-Columbian explorations._]
It would be out of place in this book to make more than a passing
reference to the much-vexed question, how far the New World was known
to Europeans before the days of Columbus and the Cabots. Indeed, if
all the stories on the subject were proved, the fact would yet remain
that, for all practical purposes, America was first revealed to the
nations of Europe, when Columbus took his way across the Atlantic. It
was likely that, when his discovery had been made, men would rise up
to assert that it was not so great and not so new as had been at
first imagined. The French claimed priority for a countryman of their
own;[4] stories of Welsh and Irish settlement in America passed into
circulation; the romance of the brothers Zeni was published, a tale
of supposed Venetian adventure in the fourteenth century to the
islands of the far north; and it was contended, more prosaically and
with greater show of reason, that Basque fishermen had frequented {6}
the banks of Newfoundland, before that island was discovered for
England and thereby earned its present name.
[Footnote 4: Cousin of Dieppe, who claimed to have discovered America
in 1488, four years before Columbus reached the West Indies.]
[Sidenote: _Voyages of the Norsemen._]
The story of the Norsemen's voyages has a sounder foundation than any
other of these early traditions and tales. Iceland is nearer to
Greenland than to Norway: it has been abundantly proved that colonies
were established and fully organized in Greenland in the Middle Ages;
and it seems on the face of it unlikely that the enterprise and
adventure of the seafaring sons of the north would have stopped short
at this point, instead of carrying them on to the mainland of
America.
[Sidenote: _Their alleged discovery of North America._]
The Norse are said to have come to Iceland about 875 A.D., where
Christian Irish had already preceded them; and, in the following
year, rocks far to the west were sighted by Gunnbiorn. A century
later, in 984, Eric the Red came back from a visit to Gunnbiorn's
land, calling it by the attractive name of Greenland. About 986,
Bjarni Herjulfson, sailing from Iceland to Greenland, sighted land to
the south-west; and, a few years later, about the year 1000, Leif,
the son of Eric, who had brought the Christian religion to Greenland,
sailed in search of the south-western land which Bjarni had seen. The
record of his voyage claims to be the record of the discovery of
America. He found the rocky barren shores of Labrador and
Newfoundland, and called them from their appearance Helluland, or
'slateland.' He passed on to the mouth of the St. Lawrence and to
Nova Scotia, calling it Markland, or the 'land of woods.' Then
sailing still further south, he came to a land where vines grew wild,
and which he called Vinland. This last was, it would seem, the New
England coast, between Boston and New York; and here in after times,
for a like reason, English settlers gave the name of Martha's or
Martin's Vineyard to an island, which lies close to the shore south
of Cape Cod.[5] In Vinland, it is stated, a Norse colony was {7}
founded a few years after Leif's visit; and trade--mainly a timber
trade--was carried on with Greenland down to the year 1347, after
which all is a blank.
[Footnote 5: A little further to the south on the coast of New
Jersey, or Maryland, Verrazano 'saw in this country many vines
growing naturally' (Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 360, 1810 ed.).]
No authentic inscriptions or remains, indicating Scandinavian
discovery or settlement in America, have, it is said, been found
anywhere outside Greenland, except at one point in the very far
north;[6] and in their absence these northern tales cannot be
absolutely verified. It can only be said that, in all probability,
America was known to the Northmen in the Middle Ages, but that what
happened in these dark days in the extreme north of Europe and the
extreme north of America has no direct bearing upon the history of
European colonization.
[Footnote 6: See Justin Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of
America_, (vol. i, chap. ii) on 'Pre-Columbian Explorations.' The
writer says, 'Nowhere in America, except on an island on the east
shore of Baffin's Bay, has any authentic runic inscription been found
outside of Greenland.' Reference should be made to the first chapter
of Mr. Raymond Beazley's _John and Sebastian Cabot_ ('Builders of
Greater Britain' series, 1898), in which the dates and particulars of
the Norse discovery of America, as given above, are somewhat
modified.]
[Sidenote: _The way to the East._]
At the time when modern history opens, there were two parts of the
world which were--to use the Greek philosopher's phrase--'ends in
themselves.' One was Europe or rather Southern Europe, the other was
the East Indies; and the great problem was to find the best and
shortest way from the one point to the other.
[Sidenote: _Africa and America places on the road._]
The overland trade routes through Syria and Egypt--by which Genoa,
Venice, and the other city states of the Middle Ages had grown
rich--had fallen in the main under Moslem control; and, accordingly,
the growing nations of Europe began to take to the open sea. On the
ocean, India can be reached from Europe either by going east or by
going west. In the former case Africa comes in the way, in the latter
America; and the position of these {8} two continents in the modern
history of the world is, in their earliest stage, that of having been
places on the road, not final goals.
The Portuguese tried the way by Africa and succeeded. Vasco de Gama
rounded the Cape, sailed up the eastern coast of Africa, and crossed
to India. The Spaniards set sail in the opposite direction, and,
failing in their original design, found instead a New World.
Let us suppose that the conditions had been reversed, that Southern
Africa, when reached, had proved as attractive as the West Indies;
that its shores had been fertile and easy of access; that its rivers
had been navigable, and that its turning-point had been as distant as
Cape Horn; that, on the contrary, Columbus had discovered a channel
through America, where he sought for it at the Isthmus of Darien, had
found the American coasts and islands as little inviting as Africa,
and behind them an expanse of sea no wider than the Indian Ocean. In
that case America would have remained the Dark Continent, to be
passed by, as Africa was passed by, on the way to the East; and
hinging on this one central fact, that the Indies were the goal of
discovery, the whole history of colonization would have been changed.
As it was, the Spaniards, in the first place, found their way barred
by America; and, in the second place, found America too good to be
passed by, even if a thoroughfare had been found. Thus they assumed
that they had really reached the Indies on their furthest side; and,
by the time that the mistake had been finally cleared up, the riches
and wonders of the New World had given it a position and standing of
its own, over and above all considerations respecting the best way to
the East.
America then was discovered by being taken on the way to some other
part of the world; it could not be passed by like Africa; and it was
more attractive than Africa. Thus it was early colonized, while the
great mass of the African {9} continent was left, almost down to our
own day, unexplored and unknown.
[Sidenote: _Reasons why the discovery and settlement of North America
was later than that of Central and South America._]
This statement, however, only holds true of that part of America
which the Spaniards made their own; and the further question
arises--Why was the discovery and settlement of North America a much
slower process than the Spanish conquest and colonization of Central
America and the West Indies? The north of Newfoundland is in the same
latitude as the south of England; the mouth of the St. Lawrence lies
directly over against the ports of Brittany; a line drawn due east
from New York would almost pass through Madrid: therefore it seems as
though sailors going westward from Europe would naturally make their
way in the first instance to the North American coast; and, as a
matter of fact, Cabot probably sighted the shores of Newfoundland,
Nova Scotia, or Labrador before Columbus set foot upon the mainland
of South America.
[Sidenote: _Spain and Portugal the natural centres for Western
discovery._]
[Sidenote: _The Spaniards went to the south-west._]
There are, however, ample historical and geographical reasons for the
fact that, at the beginning of modern history, the stream of European
discovery and colonization took a south-westerly rather than a
westerly direction. The main course of European civilization has on
the whole been from south-east to north-west. Its centre gradually
shifted from Asia Minor and Phoenicia to Greece, from Greece to Rome,
and finally from the shores of the Mediterranean to those of the
Atlantic. The peninsula of Spain and Portugal stands half-way between
the inner and the outer sea, and accordingly geography marked out
this country to be the birthplace of the new and wider history of the
world. Further, at the time when modern history begins, the Spaniards
and Portuguese were better trained, more consolidated, more nearly
come to their prime, more full of expansive force than the peoples of
Northern Europe; so that their history combined with their
geographical position to place them in {10} the front rank among the
movers of the world. But Spain and Portugal look south-west: both
countries are hot, sunny lands, and, while adventurers to the unknown
would in any case be more attracted to regions where they would
expect light and heat and tropical growth and colour, than to the
bare, bleak stretches of the north, most of all would a southern race
set out to find a new world in a southerly or south-westerly
direction. Again, as has been seen, the early explorers were seeking
for a sea-road to the Indies; and, as the tales of the Indies were
glowing tales of glowing lands, men were more likely at first to
start in search of them by way of the Equator than by way of the
Pole.
And they had guidance in their course. The Canaries, Madeira, and the
Azores, lying away in the ocean to the south-west, were the
half-mythical goals of ancient navigation. The Spaniards would
naturally make for them in the first instance, and so far help
themselves on their westward way. Wind and tide would prescribe the
same line of discovery. The way to the West Indies is made easy by
the north-easterly trade winds, whereas the passage to North America
is in the teeth of the prevailing wind from the west. Those who take
ship from Europe to North America meet the opposing force of the Gulf
Stream; voyagers to the south-west, on the contrary, are borne by the
Equatorial Current from the African coast to the Caribbean Sea.
[Sidenote: _The West Indies more attractive than North America._]
Easier to reach than North America, the West Indies and Central
America were also more attractive when reached. The Spaniards found
riches beyond their hopes, pearls in the sea, gold and silver in the
land, and a race of natives who could be forced to fish for the one
and to mine for the other. When they had discovered the New World,
there was every inducement to make them forthwith conquer and
colonize in countries where living promised to be more luxurious than
in their own land. Adventurers to North America, on the contrary,
found greater cold than they had {11} left behind them in the same
latitudes in Europe, desolate shores, little trace of precious metal,
and natives whom it was dangerous to offend and impossible to
enslave. In the far north the cod fisheries were discovered, and furs
were to be obtained by barter from the North American Indians; but
such trade was not likely to lead to permanent settlement in the near
future. Its natural outcome was not the founding of colonies, the
building of cities, and the subjugation of continents, but, at the
most, repeated visits in the summer time to the Newfoundland banks,
or spasmodic excursions up the course of the St. Lawrence. Thus, for
a century after Columbus first sailed to the west, while Central and
South America became organized into a collection of Spanish
provinces, the extreme north was left to Basque, Breton, and English
fishermen; and the coast between the St. Lawrence and the
Mississippi, where the English race was eventually to make its
greatest effort and achieve its greatest success--this, the present
territory of the United States, was, with the exception of Florida,
little visited and scarcely known.
[Sidenote: _Effect of finding mineral wealth in Central America._]
The discovery of minerals in a district brings about dense population
and a hurried settlement. Men come to fisheries or hunting-grounds at
stated times, and leave to come again. The progress of agricultural
colonization, if steady and continuous, is usually very slow. Thus,
where Central America gave gold and silver, there adventurers from
Europe hurried in and stayed. The fisheries of Newfoundland saw men
come and go; the sea was there the attraction, not the land. The
agricultural resources of Virginia and New England were left
undeveloped by Europeans, until the time came when business-like
companies were formed by men who could afford to wait, and when
enthusiasts went over the Atlantic not so much to make money as to
live patiently and in the fear of God.
[Sidenote: _The North-West Passage._]
But, though the sixteenth century passed away before men's eyes,
which were dazzled with the splendour of the {12} tropics, had given
more than passing glances to the sober landscape of North America,
discoverers from Cabot onwards were not idle; and from the first, the
ever powerful hope of finding a new road to the Indies took
adventurers to the north-west in spite of cold and wind and tide.
Because North America was unattractive in itself, therefore men seem
to have imagined that it must be on the way to something better; and
also, because it was unattractive in itself, they did not wait to see
what could be made out of it, but kept perpetually pushing on to a
further goal. They argued, as Bacon shows in the passage already
quoted, and argued rightly, that in the north the Old and New Worlds
were nearest together, and that here therefore was the point at which
to cross from one to the other. They found sea channels evidently
leading towards the west; they saw the great river of Canada[7] come
widening down from the same quarter; and thus, long after the quest
of the Indies had in Central America been swallowed up in the riches
found on the way, in North America it remained the one great object
of the men who went out from Europe, and of the Kings who sent them
out.
[Footnote 7: The idea that there was a way to the Indies by the St.
Lawrence long continued. Thus Lescarbot writes (_Nova Francia_,
Erondelle's translation, 1609, chap. xiii, p. 87) of the great river
of Canada as 'taking her beginning from one of the lakes which do
meet at the stream of her course (and so I think), so that it hath
two courses, the one from the east towards France, the other from the
west towards the south sea.']
As the first discoverer, Cabot, set sail to find the passage to
Cathay, 'having great desire to traffic for the spices as the
Portingals did,'[8] so all who came after during the century of
exploration kept the same end firmly in view. Francis I of France
dispatched Verrazano to find the passage to the East; Cartier, the
Breton sailor, came back from the St. Lawrence with tales which
savoured of the Indies, of 'a river that goeth south-west, from
whence there is a whole {13} month's sailing to go to a certain land
where there is neither ice nor snow seen'[9]--of a 'country of
Saguenay, in which are infinite rubies, gold and other
riches'[10]--of 'a land where cinnamon and cloves are gathered';[11]
and his third voyage was, in his King's words, 'to the lands of
Canada and Hochelaga, which form the extremity of Asia towards the
west.'[12] Frobisher's voyage in 1576 led to the formation of a
company of Cathay. As early as 1527, Master Robert Thorne wrote 'an
information of the parts of the world' discovered by the Spaniards
and Portuguese, and 'of the way to the Moluccas by the north.' Sir
Humphrey Gilbert published 'a discourse' 'to prove a passage by the
north-west to Cathaia and the East Indies'; and Richard Hakluyt
himself, in the 'epistle dedicatory' to Philip Sydney, which forms
the preface to his collection of _Divers Voyages touching the
discovery of America_,[13] sums up the arguments for the existence of
'that short and easy passage by the north-west which we have hitherto
so long desired.' In short, the record of the sixteenth century in
North America was, in the main, a record of successive voyagers
seeking after a way to the East, supplemented by the fishing trade
which was attracted to the shores of Newfoundland.
[Footnote 8: Gomara, quoted by Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 30 (1810 ed.).]
[Footnote 9: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 278.]
[Footnote 10: Ibid. p. 281.]
[Footnote 11: Ibid. p. 285.]
[Footnote 12: See Parkman's _Pioneers of France in the New World_
(25th ed., 1888), p. 217.]
[Footnote 13: Published in 1582; edited by the Hakluyt Society in
1850.]
[Sidenote: _The early voyagers to North America were of various
nationalities._]
The two men who opened America to Europe were of Italian
parentage--Columbus the Genoese, and Cabot, born at Genoa, domiciled
at Venice.[14] The two great trading republics of the Middle Ages at
once crowned their work in the world, and signed their own death
warrant, in providing Spain and England with the sailors whose
discoveries transferred the centre of life and movement from the
Mediterranean {14} to the Atlantic. The King of France too turned to
Italy for a discoverer to rival Columbus and Cabot, and sent
Verrazano the Florentine, at the end of 1523, to search out the
coasts of North America.
[Footnote 14: As to Cabot's parentage see below, p. 18. If the
voyages of the Zeni were genuine, the Venetians could have claimed a
yet older share in the record of European connexion with America.]
At the first dawn of discovery those coasts were not wholly given
over to French or English adventurers. Though Florida was the
northern limit of Spanish conquest and settlement, Spanish claims
extended indefinitely over the whole continent; and the French King's
scheme for the colonization of Canada, in 1541, under the leadership
of Cartier and Roberval, roused the suspicion of the Spanish court as
an attempt to infringe an acknowledged monopoly. The Portuguese at
the very first took part in north-western discovery, and with good
reason; for it was their own Indies which were the final goal, and
they could not afford to leave to other nations to find a shorter way
thither than their own route round the Cape. Thus it was that Corte
Real set out from Lisbon for the north-west in the year 1500, having
'craved a general license of the King Emmanuel to discover the
Newfoundland,' and 'sailed unto that climate which standeth under the
north in 50 degrees of latitude.'[15] We find, too, records of
Portuguese working in the same direction under foreign flags. In 1501
two patents were granted by Henry VII of England to English and
Portuguese conjointly to explore, trade, and settle in America;[16]
and, in 1525, Gomez, who had served under Magellan, and who, like
Magellan, was a Portuguese in the service of Spain, set out from the
Spanish port of Corunna to search for the North-West Passage.[17]
[Footnote 15: See Purchas' _Pilgrims_, pt. 2, bk. x, chap. i. A brief
'collection of voyages, chiefly of Spaniards and Portugals, taken out
of Antoine Galvano's Book of the Discoveries of the World.']
[Footnote 16: See Doyle's _History of the English in America_, vol.
i, chap. iv.]
[Footnote 17: See Justin Winsor, vol. iv, chap. i, p. 10.]
[Sidenote: _The Basque fishermen._]
Basque fishermen were among the very first visitors to Newfoundland,
and, even after the North American continent {15} was becoming a
sphere of French and English colonization, to the exclusion of the
southern nations of Europe, the Spaniards and Portuguese still held
their own in the fisheries. The record of almost every voyage to
Newfoundland notices Spanish or Portuguese ships plying their trade
on the banks.[18] A writer[19] in the year 1578, on 'the true state
and commodities of Newfoundland,' tells us that, according to his
information, there were at that date above one hundred Spanish ships
engaged in the cod fisheries, in addition to twenty or thirty whalers
from Biscay; that the Portuguese ships did not exceed fifty, and that
those owned by French and Bretons numbered about one hundred and
fifty. Edward Hayes, the chronicler of Gilbert's last voyage in 1583,
relates how the Portuguese at Newfoundland provisioned the English
admiral's ships for their return voyage, and adds that 'the Portugals
and French chiefly have a notable trade of fishing upon this
bank.'[20]
[Footnote 18: See Parkman's _Pioneers of France in the New World_
(25th ed., 1888), pp. 189, 190, and notes.]
[Footnote 19: Anthony Parkhurst. The letter was written to Hakluyt,
and published in his collection, vol. iii, p. 171.]
[Footnote 20: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 190.]
In the middle of the eighteenth century, the Spanish Government still
claimed for its subjects the right to fish on the Newfoundland coast,
among other grounds on that of prior discovery, a claim which was
only finally relinquished under the provisions of the Peace of Paris
in 1763;[21] and, writing {16} about the same date, the author of the
_European Settlements in America_ noted that the Spaniards still
shared in the fishery.[22]
[Footnote 21: As to the question whether Basque fishermen had found
their way to Newfoundland before Cabot, see the note to p. 189 of Mr.
Parkman's _Pioneers of France in the New World_. The reasons for
thinking that these fishermen forestalled Cabot seem to be--(1) the
argument of probability; (2) assertions of old writers to that
effect; (3) the application of the Basque name 'Baccalaos' to
Newfoundland, and the statement of Peter Martyr that Cabot found that
word in use for codfish among the natives; (4) the claim advanced by
the Spanish Government to right of fishing at Newfoundland on the
ground of prior discovery by Biscayan fishermen. As to this last
point, see _Papers relative to the rupture with Spain, 1762_. One
source of friction at this time between Great Britain and Spain was
what Pitt styles in a dispatch (p. 3) 'the stale and inadmissible
pretensions of the Biscayans and Guipuscoans to fish at
Newfoundland.' As to this claim, the Earl of Bristol, British
minister at Madrid, writes (p. 53), 'With regard to the Newfoundland
fishery, Mr. Wall urged, what I have also conveyed in some former
despatches, that the Spaniards indeed pleaded, in favour of their
claim to a share of the Bacallao trade, the first discovery of that
island.']
[Footnote 22: _European Settlements in America_, pt. 6, chap. xxviii,
'Newfoundland.' The author (? Burke) says, 'The French and Spaniards,
especially the former, have a large share (in the fishery).']
Hayes, who has just been quoted, tells us that more than thirty years
before he wrote, i.e. about 1550, the Portuguese had touched at Sable
Island and left there 'both neat and swine to breed.' In the same way
they left live stock at Mauritius on their way to and from the East;
and in like manner the Spaniards landed pigs at the Bermudas[23] on
their early voyages to the West Indies.
[Footnote 23: See vol. i of this series, p. 163, and vol. ii, p. 6
and note. Lescarbot states that the French Baron de Lery, who
attempted to found a colony in North America in 1518, left cattle on
Sable Island. See Parkman's _Pioneers of France_, p. 193, and Doyle's
_History of the English in America_, vol. i, chap. v, p. 111.]
[Sidenote: _Names in North America indicate visits from Southern
Europe._]
If evidence were wanted that, in the oldest days of movement from
Europe to the West, southern sailors did not go only to tropical
America, it would be found in the naming of the North American coasts
and islands. The first point on the coast of North America, sighted
by the first discoverer--the Italian Cabot--was spoken of under the
Italian name of Prima Terra Vista. The name Baccalaos[24] tells of
voyages of the Basques, as Cape Breton of visitors from Brittany;
and, {17} after Corte Real's voyages, the east coast of Newfoundland
was, as old maps testify, christened for a while Terra de Corte
Reall.[25] Soon, however, the Spaniards found Mexico, Peru, and
Central America enough and more than enough to absorb their whole
attention; the Portuguese were over-weighted by their eastern empire
and Brazil: and North America was given over, first to be explored
and then to be settled, by the peoples of the north of Europe; who
gathered strength as their southern rivals declined, and whose work
was more lasting because more slow.
[Footnote 24: 'Baccalaos' is the Spanish name for codfish. It is of
Basque origin. Cabot, it is stated, gave the name generally to the
lands which he found. The name was subsequently applied more
especially to Newfoundland. Thus Edward Hayes in his account of Sir
Humphrey Gilbert's last voyage, under the heading 'a brief relation
of the Newfoundland and the commodities thereof' (Hakluyt, iii, 193),
speaks of 'that which we do call the Newfoundland and the Frenchmen
Bacalaos.' Various small islands, however, in these parts were also
given this name by different writers. At the present day, on the maps
of Newfoundland, an islet off the east coast, at the extreme north of
the peninsula of Avalon, bears the name of Baccalieu. See Parkman, p.
189 note as above, and the chapter on the voyages of the Cabots in
Justin Winsor's history, vol. iii.]
[Footnote 25: The name 'Labrador' is supposed to have been derived
from the fact that some North American natives, brought back in one
of the ships which accompanied Corte Real on this second voyage, were
said to be 'admirably calculated for labour and the best slaves I
have ever seen.' Hence the name 'Laboratoris terra,' or Labrador. On
Thorne's map (1527) printed in the _Divers Voyages to America_, there
appears 'Nova terra Laboratorum dicta.' Sir Clements Markham, in his
edition of the _Journal of Columbus, Cabot, and Corte Real_ (Hakluyt
Society, 1893, Int. p. 51, note), says: 'There is no reference to
Labrador in any of the authorities for the voyages of Corte Real. The
King of Portugal is said to have hoped to derive good slave labour
from the lands discovered by Corte Real. That is all. The name
Labrador is not Portuguese; and Corte Real was never on the Labrador
coast.' Another derivation given is: 'This land was discovered by the
English from Bristol, and named Labrador because the one who saw it
first was a labourer from the Azores.' One more derivation is that
Labrador was the name of the Basque captain of a fishing-vessel. See
Justin Winsor, vol. iv, chap. i, pp. 2, 46, and Parkman's _Pioneers
of France in the New World_, p. 216, note.]
[Sidenote: _The Cabots._]
On March 5, 1496, King Henry VII of England granted a patent to 'John
Cabot, citizen of Venice,' and to his three sons--Lewis, Sebastian,
and Sancius--empowering them 'to discover unknown lands under the
king's banner.'[26] Under this patent--'the earliest surviving
document which connects England with the New World'[27]--North
America was discovered.
[Footnote 26: Quoted from the marginal note to the patent. See
Hakluyt's _Divers Voyages touching the discovery of America_,
published by the Hakluyt Society, 1850, p. 21.]
[Footnote 27: From Doyle's _History of the English in America_, vol.
i, chap. iv.]
Almost every point connected with the voyages of the Cabots is dark
and doubtful. What the father did and what {18} the son, whence they
came, and whither they went, is all uncertain. The tale of Columbus
and his voyages is known to all the world; but readers are left to
grope after the Cabots, as the latter groped after the strange wild
regions of the north-west.
John Cabot, it would seem, was a Genoese who settled in Venice. There
he was admitted to the rights of citizenship. He married a Venetian
lady, and in Venice probably his three sons were born and passed
their childhood. He travelled on the sea, visiting the coasts of
Arabia, and forming, it may be, schemes to discover a new route to
the far East. He came to England, having previously attempted to gain
support for his projected voyages in Spain and Portugal, and he took
up his residence in either London or Bristol. The exact date of his
arrival in this country is unknown; but, either shortly before or
shortly after he came, Columbus crossed the Atlantic for the first
time in 1492. The news gave a stimulus to other would-be discoverers,
and encouraged the Kings of Europe to further their plans. Hence
Cabot and his sons obtained their patent in 1496. It was little that
King Henry VII gave to the Italian sailors. Their voyages were to be
made 'upon their own proper costs and charges,' and in return for his
licence, the King was to receive a fifth of the profits. The
enterprise was countenanced but not supported by the state, and the
English Government in these early days, as in the times which came
after, left the work of discovery and colonization in the hands of
private adventurers. Bristol was the port of departure, and a Bristol
book contains the following notice of the voyage:--'In the year 1497,
the 24th of June, on St. John's day, was Newfoundland found by
Bristol men in a ship called the _Matthew_.'[28] John Cabot and
Sebastian his son probably both sailed in the _Matthew_, and they
commanded a crew of English sailors. The voyage {19} was a short
summer venture, beginning in May and ending with the close of July or
the beginning of August. America was seen and touched, the land-fall
being either the northern end of Cape Breton island, or the coast of
Labrador, or Cape Bonavista in Newfoundland. The English flag was
planted on American soil, but no exploration took place; nothing was
achieved but the one great fact of discovery. In the following
February, new letters patent were issued--on this occasion to John
Cabot alone; and a second time, in the summer of 1498, the ships
started from Bristol. Again, it is conjectured, both father and son
were on board; and this time the North American coast seems to have
been skirted from the region of icebergs and the banks of
Newfoundland as far south as the Carolinas. In reference to this
second voyage, Sebastian Cabot wrote that he sailed 'unto the
latitude of sixty-seven degrees and a half under the North Pole,' and
'finding still the open sea without any manner of impediment, he
thought verily by that way to have passed on still the way to Cathaio
which is in the East.'[29] The way to the East, however, was left
unopened, to tantalize after-comers, and to be a kind of 'will o' the
wisp,' leading men on to barren shores and Arctic seas, though the
continent which they had already found was worth all the riches of
the Indies.
[Footnote 28: Barrett's _History and Antiquities of Bristol_
(Bristol, 1789), p. 172.]
[Footnote 29: From Ramusio, quoted in 'a note of Sebastian Cabot's
voyage of discovery' (Hakluyt's _Divers Voyages_, p. 25). For the
much-vexed question of the Cabots and their voyages, reference should
be made to _John Cabot the Discoverer of North America and Sebastian
his son_, by Henry Harrisse, London, 1896; to the _Journal of
Columbus, Cabot, and Corte Real_, edited for the Hakluyt Society by
Sir Clements Markham, 1893; to Doyle's _History of the English in
America_, vol. i, Appendix B, 'The Cabots and their Voyages'; and to
Mr. Raymond Beazley's _John and Sebastian Cabot_ ('Builders of
Greater Britain' series, 1898). The result of a great deal of
learning is after all little but conjecture.]
[Sidenote: _Corte Real._]
The next great voyager to North America was Gaspar Corte Real, a
Portuguese. Twice he sailed to the north-west, in 1500 and 1501, on
the earlier voyage sighting Greenland {20} and the east coast of
Newfoundland, and on the later working north from Chesapeake Bay. He
was lost on the second voyage; and his brother Miguel, who went in
search of him in 1502, after finding 'many entrances of rivers and
havens,' was lost also.[30]
[Footnote 30: The voyages of the Corte Reals are given in Purchas'
_Pilgrims_, pt. 2, bk. x. See Justin Winsor, vol. iv, chap. i, on
Cortereal, Verrazano, &c. See also the volume of the Hakluyt Society
referred to in the previous note.]
[Sidenote: _French explorers._]
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, if not earlier, Frenchmen
took their place among the explorers of the world, and the Norman and
Breton seaports began to send their ships across the Atlantic. Denys
of Honfleur is said to have reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1506;
in 1508, Aubert of Dieppe brought American Indians back to France;
and in 1518 Baron de Lery made the first, a stillborn, attempt to
found a French colony in North America.[31]
[Footnote 31: See above, p. 16, note 23.]
[Sidenote: _Verrazano._]
At the end of the fifteenth century, the consolidation of France had
been completed by the marriage of Charles VIII with Anne of Brittany,
and from this time France began to compete with Spain. Francis I came
to the throne in 1515, and his personal rivalry with Charles V,
German Emperor and Spanish King in one, quickened the competition
between the French and Spanish peoples. Thus it was that the French
court turned its attention to the work of exploration, and Francis
sent forth the Italian Verrazano with four ships from Dieppe 'to
discover new lands by the ocean.'[32] Sailing at the end of 1523,
Verrazano was driven back by tempest; but, starting again, he left
Madeira to cross the Atlantic on January 17, 1524. He reached the
shores of Carolina; then coasted northward, landing at various
points; and, having sailed as far north as {21} Newfoundland--'the
land that in times past was discovered by the Britons (Bretons),
which is in fifty degrees'--he 'concluded to return into France.'
[Footnote 32: From 'The relation of John Verarzanus,' given in
Hakluyt's _Divers Voyages_, p. 55, and there also headed 'The
Discovery of Morum Bega' (Norumbega). It is given too in the ordinary
collection, vol. iii, p. 357.]
He brought home to his King a sober and systematic report of the
North American coast--a report which meant business, and was not
tricked out with vague surmises and impossible tales; but, within a
year from his return, the strength of France was for a while broken
at the battle of Pavia. He himself died soon afterwards, hanged, it
is said, by the Spaniards as a pirate; and for ten years there is no
record of any French explorer following in his steps, though French
ships found their way over the ocean to the cod-fisheries of
Newfoundland.
[Sidenote: _Cartier._]
The year 1534 is a memorable one in the annals alike of France and of
North America. It is the year from which must be dated the first
beginnings of New France on the banks of the St. Lawrence. The
discoverer of Canada was Jacques Cartier, a Breton sailor of St.
Malo. He went out to explore the unknown world, not at his own risk,
but as the agent of Brian Chabot, High Admiral of France. Sailing
from St. Malo, on April 20, 1534, he came to Newfoundland, passed
through the straits of Belle Isle, and entered the Gulf of St.
Lawrence. He sailed into Chaleurs Bay under the July sun, describing
the country as 'hotter than the country of Spain, and the fairest
that can possibly be found';[33] and, having set up a cross on Gaspe
Peninsula, he reached St. Malo again on September 5, bringing with
him two Indian children as living memorials of his voyage.
[Footnote 33: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 257.]
He had discovered a hot, fair land, widely different from the bleak
and rock-bound coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador; and the good
report which he brought of his discoveries was more than enough to
find him backing for a second venture. Accordingly, in the following
year, on May 19, 1535, he sailed again from St. Malo, and, reaching
{22} the straits of Belle Isle after storm and tempest, took his way,
the first of European explorers, up the great river of Canada. He
moored his three ships below the rock of Quebec--then the site of
Stadacone, a native Indian village, and the dwelling-place of a chief
Donnaconna, who is styled in the narrative the Lord of Canada. There
he left his two larger vessels, and pushed on in his pinnace and
boats to the town of Hochelaga. That town, the Indians had told him,
was the capital of the land; and he found it, palisaded and fortified
in native fashion, where Montreal now stands.[34] The Frenchmen were
received as gods by the Indians; they were asked, like the Apostles
of old, to touch and heal the sick; and, ever mindful of the duty of
spreading the Christian religion, they read the gospel to their
savage admirers in the strange French tongue, to cure their souls if
they could not mend their bodies.
[Footnote 34: As Mr. Parkman points out (_Pioneers of France_, p.
212), Quebec and Montreal were in old days, as now, the centres of
population in Lower Canada. 'Stadacone and Hochelaga, Quebec and
Montreal, in the sixteenth century, as in the nineteenth, were the
centres of Canadian population.']
Returning down stream to their ships, they passed the winter
underneath Quebec, amid ice and snow, stricken with scurvy, and
distrustful of their Indian neighbours; and at length, on the return
of summer, they set sail for France, carrying away the Indian chief
Donnaconna and some of his companions, to die in a far-off land. They
reached St. Malo in the middle of July, 1536, and so ended Cartier's
second voyage to 'the New found lands by him named New France.'[35]
[Footnote 35: End of the narrative of Cartier's second voyage in
Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 285.]
[Sidenote: _Failure of Roberval's attempt at colonization._]
Between four and five years passed, and then the Breton sailor set
out again. This time a definite scheme of settlement was projected,
the instructions were more elaborate than before, the preparations
were on a larger scale. The money {23} was found by the crown, and
the King was to receive one-third of the profits. A French nobleman,
De Roberval, was to go out as the King's lieutenant in the New World,
and was given the title of Lord of Norumbega,[36] while Cartier was
appointed Captain-General. The objects of the expedition were to
explore, to colonize, and to convert the heathen; and its leaders
were, like Columbus, empowered to recruit colonists from the prisons
at home. Cartier set out in advance of Roberval, in May, 1541. Again
he sailed up the St. Lawrence, reached in his boats a point above
Montreal, and, as before, wintered on the river; but this time at the
mouth of the Cap Rouge, some way higher up than Quebec. His leader,
Roberval, did not start till April, 1542; and, when in June he
reached St. John's harbour in Newfoundland, he was met by Cartier,
who had broken up his colony in disgust, and was on his way home to
France. In spite of Roberval's remonstrances, Cartier left by night
on his return voyage, and the Lord of Norumbega went on alone to the
St. Lawrence. He planted his settlement at Cap Rouge, where Cartier
had last sojourned, but it proved a miserable failure. The supplies
were insufficient, the Governor turned out a savage despot, and after
about a year the colony came to an end.
[Sidenote: _Norumbega._]
[Footnote 36: As to Norumbega, see Parkman's _Pioneers of France_,
pp. 216 and 253, notes, and Justin Winsor, vol. iii, chap. vi, on
'Norumbega and its English explorers.' The writer of this latter
chapter (p. 185) says the territory of Norumbega never included
Baccalaos, 'though Baccalaos, an old name of Newfoundland, sometimes
included New England.' Norumbega, an Indian name, covered the
district now included in the state of Maine, and was sometimes
extended to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia on the north, and part of
New England on the south. Michael Loki's map (1582) makes Norumbega
the whole district between the river and gulf of St. Lawrence and the
Hudson. The river of Norumbega was the Penobscot, and on it a city of
Norumbega was given a fabulous existence. Lescarbot (_Histoire de la
Nouvelle France_, 1609, bk. i, chap. i) speaks of 'pais qu'on a
appelle d'un nom Alleman Norumbega, lequel est par les quarante cinq
degrez.']
With this disappointing and disastrous failure, the curtain fell on
the prologue of the great drama of New France, and did not rise again
for more than fifty years. For the French, {24} as for the English,
the sixteenth century was a time of exploring, of training, of making
experiments; and it was not till the seventeenth century dawned that
permanent colonization began. Then in the Bourbons the French had
rulers who, with all their faults, were abler and stronger than the
princes of the house of Valois; and in Champlain they had a leader as
daring as, and more statesmanlike than, Cartier. But it was by
Cartier that the ground had been broken and the seed first sown. His
voyages made Canada[37] in some sort familiar to Europeans. He opened
the St. Lawrence to be the highway into North America,[38] and he
gave to the hill above the native town of Hochelaga the name of the
Royal Mount, which is still perpetuated in Montreal. He brought the
French into Canada, and, though his settlement failed, the French
connexion remained. Fishermen and fur-traders followed in his steps,
and in fullness of time the New France, which his discoveries
conceived, was brought to birth and grew to greatness.
[Footnote 37: For the meaning of the name 'Canada,' see Parkman's
_Pioneers of France_, p. 202, note. It is of Indian origin, probably
meaning 'town.' Cartier called the country about Quebec Canada,
having Saguenay below and Hochelaga above. Donnaconna, the native
chief at Quebec, was called Lord of Canada.]
[Footnote 38: On his second voyage Cartier sailed into a bay at the
mouth of the St. Lawrence, where he stayed from the eighth to the
twelfth of August, and 'named the said gulf St. Lawrence his bay'
(Hakluyt, iii, 263), St. Lawrence's Day being the 10th of August.
Hence the river, which he called the river of Hochelaga or the great
river of Canada, derived its name. See Parkman, p. 202.]
[Sidenote: _English exploration in North America in the sixteenth
century._]
[Sidenote: _Hore's voyage._]
[Sidenote: _Acts of Parliament relating to the Newfoundland
fisheries._]
A Bristol ship[39] having first discovered North America, it might
have been expected that the years succeeding Cabot's voyages would
have been fruitful in English adventure to the West; but, as far as
records show, little was done by Englishmen during the first half of
the sixteenth century to open up the New World; and even Cartier's
bold exploits roused little or no spirit of rivalry in Great Britain.
Indeed, all through {25} this century no English voyager seems to
have turned his mind to Canada and its river. The explorers went to
the Arctic seas, the would-be colonizers to Newfoundland or Virginia.
Between 1500 and 1550 two voyages alone have been actually
chronicled, though passing reference is made to others. Of these two,
the first was in 1527, when Albert de Prado, a canon of St. Paul's,
sailed with two ships in search of the Indies, reaching Newfoundland
and the North American coast. The second was in 1536, under a leader
named Hore--a voyage of which a graphic account is given in Hakluyt.
On the coast of Newfoundland the adventurers suffered the last
extremes of starvation, until at length even cannibalism began among
them; and the survivors owed their safety to the coming of a French
ship, which they seized and in which they returned home. It is clear,
however, that before the middle of the century the Newfoundland
fisheries had become a recognized branch of English trade, for the
traffic was safeguarded by two Acts of Parliament, one passed in
1540, in Henry VIII's reign, the other in 1548, in the reign of King
Edward VI. The object of the second Act was to prohibit the exaction
of any dues by way of licence from men engaged in the Iceland or
Newfoundland fishing trade, and Hakluyt's note upon it is that 'by
this Act it appeareth that the trade out of England to Newfoundland
was common and frequented about the beginning of the reign of Edward
VI, namely, in the year 1548.'[40]
[Footnote 39: For this passage, see Doyle's _History of the English
in America_, vol. i, chap. iv.]
[Footnote 40: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 170.]
[Sidenote: _Return of Sebastian Cabot to England._]
About this date Sebastian Cabot again appears upon the scene. In 1512
he had entered the Spanish service; and, after a visit to England,
had returned to Spain, where, from 1518 to 1547, he held the
appointment of Pilot-Major to the King and Emperor Charles V.[41] At
the end of 1547 or the beginning of 1548, he was induced in his old
age to come back to the land, for and from which, more than half a
century {26} before, his or his father's great discovery had been
made; and King Edward VI rewarded his services by appointing him
Grand Pilot in England. His mind was still set on finding a way to
the Indies by the Northern Sea. He became governor of 'the mystery
and company of the Merchant Adventurers for the discovery of regions,
dominions, islands, and places unknown'; and in Hakluyt's pages[42]
may be found his instructions 'for the direction of the intended
voyage for Cathay.'
[Footnote 41: See _The Dictionary of National Biography_, s. v.]
[Footnote 42: Vol. i, p. 251.]
[Sidenote: _The North-East Passage and Sir Hugh Willoughby._]
[Sidenote: _The Muscovy Company._]
The company was not finally incorporated by royal charter till
1554-5, but in the preceding year, 1553, they sent out an expedition
of three ships to try for a North-East Passage. The leader of the
expedition, Sir Hugh Willoughby, was, with the crews of two ships,
frozen to death on the coast of Lapland; but Richard Chancellor, the
captain of the third ship, reached the port on which the town of
Archangel now stands, and made his way overland to Moscow. This was
the beginning of British trade with Russia. The Merchant Adventurers
became known as the Muscovy Company, and their efforts were directed
to the overland traffic between Asia and Europe, which came by
Bokhara, Astrakhan, and the Volga, to the meeting of the east and
west at Novgorod.
[Sidenote: _Martin Frobisher._]
But, important as was this new development of trade, the British
explorers, whose names have lived, still took their way for the most
part over the Atlantic, making ever for the West. In June, 1576,
Martin Frobisher sailed from Blackwall to the north-west 'for the
search of the straight or passage to China.'[43] He sighted
Greenland; and, sailing west, came to the inlet in the American
coast, north of the Hudson Straits, which, after him, was called
Frobisher Bay. This arm of the sea he took to be a passage between
the two continents, the right-hand coast, as he went west, seeming to
be Asia, the left-hand coast America. He came back {27} to Harwich in
October, bringing with him a sample of black stone supposed to
contain gold; and thus, to the vain hope of a short passage to the
Indies, he added the more dangerous attraction of possible mineral
wealth in the Arctic regions. Men's hopes were raised; a company of
Cathay was formed, with Michael Lok for governor; and, as their
Captain-General, Frobisher sailed again in May, 1577, 'for the
further discovering of the passage to Cathay.'[44] Again he sighted
Greenland. Again he reached the bay which had been the turning-point
of his former voyage. He took possession of the barren northern land
in his Queen's name; and, when he came back in September, 'Her
Majesty named it very properly Meta Incognita, as a mark and bound
utterly hitherto unknown.'[45] The voyage was fruitless, but the
stones brought home were still thought to promise gold, and so, in
the following May, Frobisher started once more on a third voyage to
the north. Fifteen ships went with him from Harwich, bearing 'a
strong fort or house of timber'[46] to be set up on arrival in the
Arctic regions, and intended to shelter one hundred men through the
coming winter. The hundred men included miners, goldfiners,
gentlemen, artisans, 'and all necessary persons'[46]--as though this
desolate region were to become the scene of a thriving colony. They
set sail, reached the coast of Greenland, and claimed it in the
Queen's name. They fell in with the Esquimaux; they crossed the
channel now known as Davis Strait to the Meta Incognita; and they
came back in the autumn with no result beyond the report of a new
imaginary island. This was the end of Frobisher's enterprise, but in
the next forty years other English sailors followed where he had gone
before, and opened up to geographical knowledge fresh stretches of
icebound coast and wintry sea. Davis, Hudson, Baffin, and others,
gave their names to straits and bays, but it is impossible here to
trace the record of their courage and endurance. {28} No quest has
ever been so fruitful of daring, patient seamanship, none has ever
been so barren of practical results, as that for the North-West
Passage. What Frobisher went to find in the sixteenth century,
Franklin still sought in the nineteenth: and through all the ages of
British exploration has run the ever receding hope of finding a short
way through ice and snow to the sunny lands of the East.
[Footnote 43: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 52.]
[Footnote 44: Ibid. p. 56.]
[Footnote 45: Ibid. p. 104.]
[Footnote 46: Ibid. p. 105.]
[Sidenote: _Sir Humphrey Gilbert._]
In Great Britain the sixteenth century was the age of adventurers,
casting about for ways to other worlds, or freebooting where Spain
and Portugal claimed ownership of land and sea; but in that time two
men stand out as having had definite views of settlement, and as
having been colonizers in advance of their age. They are Sir Humphrey
Gilbert and his half-brother, Sir Walter Ralegh. Edward Hayes, the
author of a narrative of Gilbert's attempt to found a colony in
Newfoundland, speaks of him as 'the first of our nation that carried
people to erect an habitation and government in those northerly
countries of America,'[47] and no nobler Englishman could well be
found to head the list of English colonizers of the New World.
Chivalrous in nature, bold in action, he was at the same time 'famous
for his knowledge both by sea and land';[48] and it was his
_Discourse to prove a passage by the north-west to Cathaia and the
East Indies_, which is said to have determined Frobisher to explore
the north.
[Footnote 47: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 185.]
[Footnote 48: From Fuller's _Worthies of Devonshire_.]
[Sidenote: _His patent of colonization._]
In June, 1578, Gilbert obtained from Queen Elizabeth his celebrated
patent 'for the inhabiting and planting of our people in
America.'[49] The grant was a wide one. It gave him full liberty to
explore and settle in any 'remote heathen and barbarous lands,
countries, and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian
prince or people'; and it constituted him full owner of the land
where he settled, within {29} a radius of two hundred leagues from
the place of settlement. It was subject only to a reservation to the
Crown of one-fifth of the gold and silver found, and to a condition
that advantage should be taken of the grant within six years. For
three or four years Gilbert's efforts to colonize under this patent
were fruitless; he organized an expedition which came to nothing, and
other men, to whom he temporarily resigned his rights, were equally
unsuccessful.
[Footnote 49: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 174.]
[Sidenote: _His voyage to Newfoundland._]
At length, on June 11, 1583, he set sail from Cawsand Bay, near
Plymouth, to try his luck for the last time in the western world.
There were five ships, one of which was fitted out by Ralegh,[50] and
one, the _Golden Hind_, had for its captain and owner, Edward Hayes,
the chronicler of the voyage. The company numbered 260 men all told,
including shipwrights, carpenters, and other artisans, 'mineral men
and refiners,' 'morris dancers' and other caterers of amusement 'for
solace of our people and allurement of the savages.'[51] These last
were evidence that more was projected than mere temporary
exploration. It was intended, writes Hayes, 'to win' the savages 'by
all fair means possible'; and with this end in view the freight of
the ships included 'petty haberdashery wares to barter with those
simple people.' On the third of August the little fleet entered the
harbour of St. John's in Newfoundland, where they found thirty-six
ships of all nations. They came expecting resistance, but met with
none. When Gilbert made known his intention to proclaim British
sovereignty over the island, the sailors and fishermen present seem
to have willingly acquiesced; and when he wanted to revictual and
refit his ships, the necessary supplies were readily forthcoming.[52]
[Footnote 50: This ship deserted soon after starting.]
[Footnote 51: Hakluyt, vol. iii, pp. 189, 190.]
[Footnote 52: Hayes says, 'The Portugals (above other nations) did
most willingly and liberally contribute' (Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 192).
See above, p. 15.]
[Sidenote: _Newfoundland declared to be a British possession._]
The want of a settled authority, of some guarantee for law {30} and
order, in the harbours and on the coasts of Newfoundland, was no
doubt felt by those who came year by year to the fisheries, and Sir
Humphrey Gilbert's name and high repute may well have been known to
others than his own countrymen. Two days after his arrival he took
formal possession of the land, with ceremony of rod and turf, in the
name of his sovereign; the arms of England were set up; three simple
laws were enacted--providing that the recognized religion should be
in accordance with the forms of the Church of England, safeguarding
the sovereign rights of the Queen of England, and enjoining due
respect for her name; and then Gilbert issued land grants as
proprietor of the soil. In the words of one of the accounts which
Hakluyt has preserved,[53] 'he did let, set, give, and dispose of
many things as absolute Governor there, by virtue of Her Majesty's
letters patents.'
[Footnote 53: Peckham's account, Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 209.]
Thus was Newfoundland declared to be a British possession, and such
are its claims to be our oldest colony. The annexation was complete
in form and substance; no protest was entered against it by those
whom it concerned; land was granted by the recognized proprietor, and
nothing was wanting to constitute a claim which should last, and has
lasted, to all time. Frobisher proclaimed the sovereignty of England
over Arctic lands, but his proclamation was as barren as the shores
over which it extended. Gilbert, on the contrary, went to a place
where European sailors had long foregathered; he went there as an
English Governor; his authority was unquestioned, his grants were
accepted, and when he read his commission and set up the arms of
England at the harbour of St. John, he took the first step, and a
very long step, towards British dominion in the New World.
[Sidenote: _Gilbert's death._]
Gilbert had great hopes of finding precious metal in Newfoundland;
and his principal mining expert, a Saxon, {31} promised him a rich
yield of silver from the ore which was collected in the island. That
ore, however, was lost early on the voyage home, and the miner
himself was lost with it in the wreck of the largest ship--the
_Delight_. A far greater loss, however, was in store for the
ill-fated expedition. They left St. John's on August 20, making for
Sable Island, which had been stocked years before by the
Portuguese.[54] In a few days the _Delight_ foundered on a rock; and
the weather became so bad that, at the end of the month, Gilbert
consented to make for home. He was in the smallest ship, the
_Squirrel_, a little ten-ton vessel, as being the best suited to
explore the creeks and inlets of the American coast; and, in spite of
the remonstrances of his companions, he would not leave her on the
return voyage. 'We are as near heaven by sea as by land,' were his
last words, before the ship went down in the middle of the Atlantic
with all on board; and thus, fearless and faithful unto death, he
found his resting-place in the sea. The story is one which stands out
to all time in the annals of English adventure and English
colonization. It was meet and right that the founder of the first
English colony should be a Devonshire sailor of high repute, of
stainless name, chivalrous, unselfish, strong in the fear of God. It
was no less meet that his grave should be in the stormy Atlantic,
midway between the Old World and the New. Thus those who came after
had a forerunner of the noblest type; and the ships, which from that
time to this have carried Englishmen to America, may ever have been
passing by where Humphrey Gilbert went to his rest.
[Footnote 54: See above, p. 16.]
[Sidenote: _Sir Walter Ralegh._]
[Sidenote: _His attempts to colonize Virginia._]
Gilbert's half-brother, Sir Walter Ralegh, was cast in the same
mould, but the record of his doings lies in the main beyond the range
of this book. Virginia and Guiana were the scenes of his attempts at
colonization, not Newfoundland or the coasts and rivers of Canada. In
1584, the year after {32} Gilbert had been lost at sea, Ralegh
obtained from Queen Elizabeth a patent which was practically the same
as Gilbert's grant of 1578; and, at the end of April, he sent out two
ships, commanded by two captains named Amidas and Barlow, to explore
and report upon a likely place for an English settlement.[55]
[Footnote 55: Accounts of this and the following voyages are given in
the third volume of Hakluyt. See also the first book of John Smith's
general history of Virginia, _The English Voyages to the Old
Virginia_, in Mr. Arber's edition, _The English Scholar's Library_.]
They sailed more towards the south than previous English explorers,
and eventually reached the island of Roanoke, which is now within the
limits of North Carolina. Everything seemed bright and sweet and
healthful, and the natives of the country were friendly and
hospitable, 'such as live after the manner of the golden age.'[56] So
they came back in the autumn with a story full of hope for the
future, and the virgin Queen christened the land of promise Virginia.
[Footnote 56: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 304.]
Ralegh lost no time in sending out settlers. In the next year, 1585,
seven ships started with 108 colonists on board. The expedition was
commanded by Sir Richard Grenville, and among other captains with him
was Thomas Cavendish, afterwards celebrated, like Drake, for sailing
round the world. Ralph Lane, a soldier of fortune, was chosen to
remain in charge of the colony, and with him was Amidas, the explorer
of the previous year, who was styled 'Admiral of the country.' They
went by the West Indies, touching at the Spanish islands of Porto
Rico and Hispaniola, and, at the end of June, they reached Roanoke.
Here they formed their settlement, and, when Grenville and his ships
left in August and September, they brought back as bright a report as
Amidas and Barlow had given the year before.
Already, however, before Grenville's departure, there had been
friction between the Indians and the new-comers; and, as months went
on, the new-born colony became in constant {33} danger of
extermination. Still Lane contrived to hold his own, exploring north
and west, gleaning reports of pearls and mines, and a possible
passage to the south sea, until the winter and spring were past and
the month of June had come again. A fleet of twenty-three ships was
then seen out at sea, and, to the joy of the settlers, proved to be
an English expedition under Sir Francis Drake, who was returning home
laden with spoils from the Spanish main. Drake, at Lane's request,
placed one of his ships with seamen and supplies at the disposal of
the colony; but a storm arose, and the ship was blown out to sea.
Daunted by this fresh trouble, the settlers determined to give up
their enterprise and return home. They asked for passages on board
Drake's vessels: the request was granted; and they abandoned Roanoke
only a fortnight before Grenville arrived with relief, long expected
and long delayed. Finding the island deserted, Grenville left fifteen
men in possession and himself came home.
So far, Ralegh's scheme had failed; but the failure was due to
untoward circumstances, not to the nature of the country, and he
still persevered in his efforts. The very next year, in 1587, he sent
out a fresh band of settlers, 150 in number; giving them for a leader
John White, who had taken part in the former expedition. The
arrangements for forming a colony were more fully organized than
before; and to White and twelve Assistants Ralegh 'gave a charter and
incorporated them by the name of Governor and Assistants of the city
of Ralegh in Virginia.'[57] When the colonists reached Roanoke, they
found that the fifteen men left by Grenville had disappeared, driven
out, as they learnt, by the Indians. Notwithstanding, they renewed
the old settlement; and, in the face of native enmity, began again
the work of colonizing America. Before the end of the summer, White
sailed for England, to give an account of what had been done; and, on
his return home, Ralegh prepared to send {34} relief to the colony.
But war with Spain was now on hand, freebooting was more attractive
than colonizing, one attempt and another to send ships to Virginia
miscarried; and when at length, late in 1589, White reached the scene
of his settlement, he found it dismantled and deserted. So ended the
first attempt to colonize Virginia. Success was not to come for a few
more years, until the sixteenth century had passed and gone.
[Footnote 57: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 341.]
[Sidenote: _General results of the sixteenth century._]
Before 1600, Newfoundland had been annexed by Great Britain, but not
one single English or French colony had as yet taken root in America.
Nevertheless the century was far from barren of results. The way had
been made plain, the ground had been cleared, the wild oats of
adventure and knight-errantry had been sown, and the peoples were
sobering down to steadier and more prudent enterprise. Beaten on the
sea, raided and plundered in their own tropical domain, the Spaniards
were ceasing to be a terror and a hindrance to the nations of
Northern Europe; and, as the latter grew from youth to lusty manhood,
the map of the great North American continent unfolded itself before
their eyes. Then Champlain went to work in Canada, and John Smith in
Virginia; Jesuits on the St. Lawrence, and Puritans in the New
England states; and so the grain of mustard-seed, cast into American
soil, grew into a great tree, which already, before three centuries
have ended, bids fair to overshadow the earth.
N.B.--The references to Hakluyt made in the notes above are to the
1810 edition.
Among modern books most use has been made in this chapter of:--
PARKMAN'S _Pioneers of France in the New World_;
DOYLE'S _History of the English in America_, vol. i; and
JUSTIN WINSOR'S _Narrative and Critical History of America_.
Reference should also be made to Sir J. BOURINOT'S monograph on 'Cape
Breton,' first published in the _Proceedings and Transactions of the
Royal Society of Canada_, vol. ix, 1891, and since published
separately.
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