of the country.

[Sidenote: Jacques Cartier.]

Within ten years France sent forth another expedition, under the command
of the famous Jacques Cartier, which was destined to acquire for that
nation its claim to the possession of Canada. Cartier sailed from St.
Malo to Newfoundland in twenty days. He went up the St. Lawrence, and
returned home to tell the thrilling tale of his adventures. The next
year he came back to discover the sites of Montreal and Quebec; and he
made two more voyages, in 1540 and 1542.

[Sidenote: Ponce de Leon.]

Meanwhile, Spain was resolved to sustain the great prestige she had
gained by the expeditions of Columbus, and to yield to no rival her
claims to dominion on the new continent. In 1512, Don Juan Ponce de
Leon, a brave soldier and adventurous man, who had accompanied Columbus
on his second voyage, landed on the peninsula of Florida, and
established the right of Spain to its possession. Five years after,
Fernandez landed on the coast of Yucatan; and ere long Garay explored
the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

[Sidenote: De Soto.]

It is not possible, in this survey, to follow, or even to name, the
Spanish expeditions of discovery and conquest between 1512 and 1550.
Suffice it to say that during this period subjects of the Spanish king
landed on the coast of South Carolina, entered the harbors of New York
and New England, crossed Louisiana and northern Mexico to the Pacific,