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.
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.
| English exploration in North America in the sixteenth century. Hore's voyage. Acts of Parliament relating to the Newfoundland fisheries. |
A Bristol ship39 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 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
39 For this passage, see Doyle's History of the English in America, vol. i, chap. iv.
40 Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 170.
| 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 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 pages42 may be found his instructions 'for the direction of the intended voyage for Cathay.'
41 See The Dictionary of National Biography, s. v.
42 Vol. i, p. 251.