[211] Relation originale du voyage de Jacques Cartier au Canada en 1534: Documents inédits sur Jacques Cartier et le Canada (nouvelle série), publiés par H. Michelant et A. Ramé, accompagnés de deux portraits de Cartier, et de deux vues de son manoir. Paris, Tross, 1867. The original manuscript bears the erroneous date of 1544.
[212] Ante, p. 49.
[213] In neither of these narratives do we find any reference to those who preceded Cartier in the New Land; nor even, except in two cases, is there a passing allusion to contemporary voyages; yet both Normans and Bretons were active. Again, there is no mention of any map or chart.
The Normans and Bretons probably sailed to the banks of Newfoundland before Cabot made Prima Vista. An early mention of their voyages is that of the Gran Capitano Francese of 1539, found in Ramusio (Raccolta, 1556, iii. 359), where they are spoken of as frequenting the northern parts thirty-five years before, and giving a well-known headland its present name of Cape Breton. [This “gran capitano” is held by Estancelin in his Navigateurs Normands to be Jean Parmentier of Dieppe, and Pierre Crignon is named as the writer of the somewhat confused routier and narrative given in Ramusio. Cf. Shea’s Charlevoix, i. 132; Major’s Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Introduction; and Murphy’s Verrazzano, p. 85. Harrisse (Cabots, p. 249) also discusses the question of the Capitano’s identity.—Ed.] Ramusio also (iii. 359) refers to Jean Denys and the pilot Gamort, of Rouen, who sailed to Newfoundland in a ship of Honfleur about the year 1506. Ramusio (iii. 359) also mentions that Thomas Aubert of Dieppe voyaged thither in the “Pensée” in 1508.
Gosselin shows that in 1508 other ships sailed to Newfoundland, and that they were generally of a tonnage from sixty to ninety tons. “I cite, among others,” he says, “‘Bonne-Aventure,’ Captain Jacques de Rufosse; the ‘Sibille’ and the ‘Michel,’ belonging to Jehan Blondel; and then the ‘Marie de Bonnes Nouvelles,’ equipped by Guillaume Dagyncourt, Nicolas Duport, and Loys Luce, associated citizens, the command of the ship being given to Captain Jean Dieulois” (Documents, etc., p. 13). In view of those cases, which appear to be a few of many, how poor is the appearance of that scepticism which has so long led writers to look askance at the statements of Ramusio concerning Aubert and the “Pensée”! The records of Normandy and Brittany are doubtless rich in facts relating to obscure points of American history.
[There is in Mr. Parkman’s Collection (vol, i. p. 89), among the copies made for him in France by Mr. Poore, a map of the St. Lawrence Gulf, with the route of Cartier in 1534 pricked out. The map is signed N. B.; and I suppose it to have been made by Bellin, the map-maker who supplied Charlevoix with his maps. Faillon (Histoire de la Colonie Francaise, i. 523) argues that all three of the Relations as we have them were the work of Cartier himself. Ramé gives a copy of an ancient register at St. Malo, said to be in Cartier’s hand, which preserves the names of his companions.—Ed.]
[214] “Brief Recit & succincte narration de la nauigation faicte es ysles de Canada, Hochelage, & Saguenay, & autres, auec particulieres meurs, langaige, & cerimonies des habitans a’icelles; fort delectable à veoir [vignette]. Avec priuilege. On les uend a Paris au second pillier en la grand salle du Palais, & en la rue neufue Nostredame a l’enseigne de lescu de frāce, par Ponce Roffet dict Faucheur, & Anthoine le Clerc, frères, 1545.” Reprinted at Paris by Tross in 1863, with a collation of the three manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which are described in an “Introduction historique par M. d’Avezac,” substantially reprinted in Malte Brun’s Annales des voyages, July, 1864. These manuscripts are numbered, according to Harrisse (Cabots, p. 79), “Fonds Moreau, 841,” and “Fonds français, 5,589, 5,644, 5,553.” The Tross reprint is also accompanied by a fac-simile of a plan of Hochelaga, taken from the version of Ramusio, and a map of “Nova Francia” (given on another page), used by the Italian editor to illustrate an accompanying piece, the “Discorso d’vn gran Capitano” (iii. 352) shown in Verrazano the Explorer (p. 54) to have been modelled in part from the map of Verrazano. There appears to be but one copy of the Brief recit, 1545, known at present. This is in the Grenville Collection in the British Museum. A second copy was found by Tross, and was lost in the ship on its way to America. Muller at one time advertised a copy at $125. See Sabin, Dictionary, vol. iii. no. 11,138; Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, no. 267. It is reprinted in Kerr’s (vol. vi.) and Pinkerton’s (vol. xii.) Voyages.
[215] In vol. iii.
[216] Page 3.
[217] Vol. iii. p. 212.