discovery, word for word, without acknowledgment. [Footnote: Hist.
de la Nouvelle France, p. 27, et seq. (ed. 1609). In a subsequent
portion of his history (p. 244) Lescarbot again refers incidentally
to Verrazzano in connection with Jacques Cartier, to whom he
attributes a preposterous statement, acknowledging the Verrazzano
discovery. He states that in 1533 Cartier made known to Chabot, then
admiral of France, his willingness "to discover countries, as the
Spanish had done, in the West Indies, and as, nine years before,
Jean Verrazzano (had done) under the authority of King Francis I,
which Verrazzano, being prevented by death, had not conducted any
colony into the lands he had discovered, and had only remarked the
coast from about the THIRTIETH degree of the Terre-neuve, which at
the present day they call Florida, as far as the FORTIETH. For the
purpose of continuing his design, he offered his services, if it
were the pleasure of the king, to furnish him with the necessary
means. The lord admiral having approved these words, represented
then to his majesty, &c." Lescarbot gives no authority for this
statement, made by him seventy-five years after the voyage of
Cartier. It is absurd on its face and is contradicted by existing
records of that voyage. No authority has ever confined the
Verrazzano discovery within the limits here mentioned. Cartier is
represented as saying to the admiral that in order to complete
Verrazzano's design of carrying colonials to the country discovered
by him, that is, within those limits, he would go himself, if the
king would accept his services. The documents recently published
from the archives of St. Malo, show that the voyage of Cartier
proposed by Cartier, was for the purpose of passing through the
straits of Belle Isle, in latitude 52 Degrees, far north of the
northern limit of the Verrazzano discovery, according to either
version of the letter, and not with a design of planting a colony,