discovery, if it had ever taken place, should not have been known by
him.

In sending forth the expeditions of Jacques Cartier and the joint
expeditions of Cartier and Roberval, Francis not only showed his
interest in the discovery of new countries, but he acted in perfect
ignorance of the Verrazzano discovery. If it were known to him, upon
what rational theory would he have attempted new voyages of
discovery in a cold and inhospitable region, on an uncertain search,
instead of developing what had been found for him? What could he
have expected to have accomplished by the new expeditions that had
not been already fully effected by Verrazzano? And, especially after
the way to Canada was found out by Cartier, what was there more
inviting in that unproductive quarter than was promised in the
temperate climate, fertile soil, and mineral lands, which the
Florentine had already discovered in his name, that he should have
sent Cartier and Roberval to settle and conquer the newer land?
[Footnote: The letters issued to Roberval have been recently
published, for the first time, by M. Harrisse, from the archives of
France, in his Notes pour servir a l'histoire de la Nouvelle France,
p. 244, et seq. (Paris, 1872.) They are dated the 16th of February
1540. Cartier's commission for the same service is dated in October,
1540. Charlevoix, misled probably by the letters granted by Henry IV
to the Marquis de la Roche in 1598, in which the letters to Roberval
are partially recited, asserts that Roberval is styled in them lord
of Norumbega. The letters now published show that he was in error;
and that France limited the authority of Roberval to the countries
west of the gulf of St. Lawrence (Canada and Ochelaga), so far as
any are named or described, and made no reference to Norumbega as a
title of Roberval or otherwise. As the year commenced at Easter the