CHAP. II.
THE DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF CANADA.
Having given, from the best authority, the condition and characteristics of the aboriginal tribes of America, we go on briefly to enumerate the prominent events in the first stage of discovery and civilization. Those who read the curious picture we have been enabled to present, in the foregoing pages, of a nation almost, we may say, recently sprung to light, and who now look into the singular events of the first civilized history of the land they possessed, will have materials for a comparison between these and the lovely pictures on the other pages of the work, such as, for force of contrast and interest, is not often presented.
The Italian adventurers, John, and his sons Sebastian, Louis, and Sanchez Cabot, who received a commission on the 5th of March, 1495, from Henry VII. of England, to discover what Columbus was in search of, a north-west passage to the East Indies or China, (or, as the latter named country was then called, Cathay,) claim the honour of having been the first discoverers of Canada. The adventurers sailed in 1497 with six ships, and early in June of the same year, discovered Newfoundland; whence continuing a westerly course, they reached the continent of North America, which the Cabots coasted (after exploring the gulf of St. Lawrence) as far north as 67° 50' N. lat. They returned to England in August, 1497, but although Sebastian subsequently performed three voyages to the New World, no settlement was effected on its shores.
Port Hope.
In 1500, Gaspar Cortereal, a Portuguese gentleman, visited the coast, and pursued the track of Sir John Cabot (who was knighted by our sovereign); but Cortereal and his brothers accomplished nothing further than the kidnapping of several of the natives, whom they employed and sold as slaves. In 1502 Hugh Elliot and Thomas Ashurst, merchants of Bristol, with two other gentlemen, obtained a patent from Henry VIII. to establish colonies in the countries lately discovered by Cabot: but the result of the permission granted is not known. In 1527 an expedition was fitted out by Henry VIII. by the advice of Robert Thorne, a merchant of Bristol, for the purpose of discovering a north-west passage to the East Indies; one of the ships attempting which was lost.
Francis I. of France, piqued at the discoveries of Spain and Portugal, and having his ambition roused by the monopolizing pretensions of these two powers to the possessions in the New World, authorized the fitting out of an expedition, the command of which he gave to Verrazzano, a Florentine, who on his second voyage discovered Florida, and thence sailing back along the American coast to the 50° of lat. took formal possession of it for his royal master, and called it La Nouvelle France. On Verrazzano’s return to Europe in 1525, without gold or silver or valuable merchandize, he was at first coldly received, but, it is said, subsequently sent out with more particular instructions and directions to open a communication with the natives; in endeavouring to fulfil which, he lost his life in a fray with the Indians. This, however, is denied; and it is asserted that the capture of Francis I. at the battle of Pavia in 1525, prevented him from further exploring the coast, and that he returned to his native country and died in obscurity.