“The said land, that part running east and west [Cape Breton Island and Nova Scotia?], was discovered about thirty-five years ago by the Bretons [Britons?] and Normans; hence this land has been called the Cape of the Bretons [Britons?].
“The other part [Newfoundland?] running north and south from Cape Ras to Cape Buona Vista, including nearly seventy leagues, was discovered by the Portuguese, and the remainder, as far as the Gulf of Castiles [north of the Strait of Belle Isle], and still farther, was discovered by the said Bretons [Britons?] and Normans.[361]
“About thirty-three years ago, a ship of Honfleur first went there, of which vessel Jean Denis was captain, and Gamart, of Rouen, pilot. In the year 1508, a ship of Dieppe, called La Pensée, owned by Jean Ango, father of the captain and viscount of Dieppe, sailed there, the master or patron of the said ship being Thomas Aubert, and he was the first person who brought here people from that country.”[362]
In company with the Pensée, another ship, commanded by Giovanni da Verrazzano, also sailed from the port of Dieppe. The two entering the river of St. Lawrence, ascended it to the distance of eighty leagues. The exploration of the river is thus described: “The people of Dieppe continued their commercial intercourse with the East Indies. When they heard of the discoveries which the Spaniards had made in America, they found their emulation incited, and they equipped two vessels to discover whether that part of the world did not extend its coast to the north. They intrusted the command of the ships to two of their most skillful captains, named Thomas Aubert and Jean Vérassen. These two ships sailed from Dieppe at the beginning of the year 1508, and discovered the same year the St. Lawrence River, to which they gave the name of Saint Lawrence because they began to ascend it on this saint’s day [the tenth of August]. They explored the river for more than eighty leagues, finding the inhabitants friendly, with whom they made very profitable exchanges for peltries.”[363]
As related in the chronicle of Eusebius, printed at Paris in 1512, it appears that Aubert and Verrazzano, on their departure from the New Land, carried to France a number of natives. Under the date of 1509, it is said: “Seven wild men were brought from that island (which is called the New Land) to Rouen with their canoe, clothing, and weapons. They are of a sooty color, with thick lips, and bearing marks on the face drawn like blue veins along the cheek-bones from the ear to the middle of the chin; with black hair and coarse like a horse’s mane; having no beard throughout the whole life; no hair on any part of the body, except on the head and eyebrows. They wear a girdle to cover their nakedness, in which girdle is a sort of pouch; they form a dialect with their lips; religion they have none. Their canoe is bark, which a man can lift on his shoulders with one hand. Their weapons are large bows, the strings being intestines or sinews of animals; their arrows are canes barbed with flint or fish-bone. Their food is boiled flesh; their drink water. Of bread and wine and money they have not the least use. They go naked or clad in the skins of beasts,—bears, deer, sea-calves, and the like. Their country, parallel to the seventh climate,[364] is nearer the West[365] than France is farther from it.”[366]
Although for a number of years, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, this part of North America was visited by English, French, and Portuguese seamen, it appears that no navigator had yet sailed along the peculiarly marked and sinuous coast of the new continent between the thirty-fourth and the forty-fifth parallels of north latitude. Fortunately for France, Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine, who, in 1508, had sailed with Aubert to the New Land, was sent a second time on a voyage of discovery toward the west.[367] As pertinently said by Asher: “What Cadamosta had done for Portugal, Columbus for Spain, John Cabot for England, that Verrazzano did for France.”[368]
The history of Verazzano’s second visit to America rightly begins with the attempt of the king of Portugal, in 1523, to impede the sailing of the vessels preparing for the voyage. The means which King John III. of Portugal employed to frustrate this undertaking are partly described by D’Andrada, the Portuguese historian. He says: “At that time the king was told by some Portuguese doing business in France that one João Varezano [Giovanni da Varrazzano], a Florentine, offered himself to Francis to discover other kingdoms in the East, which the Portuguese had not found, and that in the ports of Normandy a fleet was making ready, under the patronage of the admirals of the coast and the dissimulation of Francis, to plant a colony in Santa Cruz, called Brazil, discovered and laid down by the Portuguese on the second voyage to India.[369] Accordingly, he [King John III.] sent to France an embassador, João da Silveyra, son of Fernão da Silveyra, who delayed his going no longer than was necessary to get ready.”[370]