Holland had already turned with zeal to the exploration of new
lands in the East and the West: French fishermen, it is true, were
lengthening their voyages to the west; every year now the rugged old
Norman and Breton seaports were sending their fleets of small vessels
to gather the harvests of the sea. But official France took no active
interest in the regions toward which they went. Five years after the
peace of Cambrai the Breton port of St. Malo became the starting point
of the first French voyageur to the St. Lawrence. Francis I had been
persuaded to turn his thoughts from gaming and gallantries to the
trading prospects of his kingdom, with the result that in 1534 Jacques
Cartier was able to set out on his first voyage of discovery. Cartier
is described in the records of the time as a corsair--which means that
he had made a business of roving the seas to despoil the enemies of
France. St. Malo, his birthplace and home, on the coast of Brittany,
faces the English Channel somewhat south of Jersey, the nearest of the
Channel Islands. The town is set on high ground which projects out
into the sea, forming an almost landlocked harbor where ships may ride
at ease during the most tumultuous gales. It had long been a notable
nursery of hardy fishermen and adventurous navigators, men who had
pressed their way to all the coasts of Europe and beyond.

Cartier was one of these hardy sailors. His fathers before him had
been mariners, and he had himself learned the way of the great waters
while yet a mere youth. Before his expedition of 1534 Jacques Cartier
had probably made a voyage to Brazil and had in all probability more
than once visited the Newfoundland fishing-banks. Although, when
he sailed from St. Malo to become the pathfinder of a new Bourbon
imperialism, he was forty-three years of age and in the prime of his
days, we know very little of his youth and early manhood. It is enough
that he had attained the rank of a master-pilot and that, from his