northerly route to China, in order to facilitate commerce with the
Orientals, in the belief that this route would be shorter and less
dangerous.

In the year 1496, the king of England commissioned John Cabot and his son
Sebastian to engage in this search. [1] About the same time, Don Emanuel,
king of Portugal, despatched on the same errand Gaspar Cortereal, who
returned without attaining his object. Resuming his journeys the year
after, he died in the undertaking; as did also his brother Michel, who was
prosecuting it perseveringly. [2] In the years 1534 and 1535, Jacques
Cartier received a like commission from King Francis I., but was arrested
in his course. [3] Six years after, Sieur de Roberval, having renewed it,
sent Jean Alfonse of Saintonge farther northward along the coast of
Labrador; [4] but he returned as wise as the others. In the years 1576,
1577, and 1578, Sir Martin Frobisher, an Englishman, made three voyages
along the northern coasts. Seven years later, Humphrey Gilbert, also an
Englishman, set out with five ships, but suffered shipwreck on Sable
Island, where three of his vessels were lost. In the same and two following
years, John Davis, an Englishman, made three voyages for the same object;
penetrating to the 72d degree, as far as a strait which is called at the
present day by his name. After him, Captain Georges made also a voyage in
1590, but in consequence of the ice was compelled to return without having
made any discovery. [5] The Hollanders, on their part, had no more precise
knowledge in the direction of Nova Zembla.

So many voyages and discoveries without result, and attended with so much
hardship and expense, have caused us French in late years to attempt a
permanent settlement in those lands which we call New France, [6] in the
hope of thus realizing more easily this object; since the voyage in search
of the desired passage commences on the other side of the ocean, and is