delayed. Not a solitary emigrant established his home CHAP. I. along all the indented line of coast.*

Canada.

10 August

Jacques Cartier, an experienced mariner of Saint Malo, Cartier in following, a few years after Verazzano's adventurous voyage, discovered the mouth of the "Great River of Cana- 1534. da." The next year, returning with three well-fitted vessels, Cartier passed westward of Newfoundland on the festival of Saint Lawrence, and, in honor of the martyr, 1535. gave his name to the noble gulf which stretched beyond. Pursuing his way up the great river, and holding friendly intercourse with the Hurons and Algonquins along its banks, the enterprising explorer visited the island of Hochelaga, the fertile hill on which, he named "Mont 3 October. Real." After wintering his ships in the little river just north of the present city of Quebec, Cartier solemnly erect- 1536. ed a cross, and, claiming the surrounding regions as the 6 May. rightful possessions of his sovereign king, Francis I., set sail once more for Saint Malo.

Cartier's reports on his return to France, though they did not arouse a general spirit of enterprise among his countrymen, stimulated François de la Roque, lord of Ro- Roberval. berval, a nobleman of Picardy, to obtain from the king a 1540. patent as viceroy over the newly-discovered French ter- 15 January ritories on the Saint Lawrence. With Roberval was associated Cartier, as captain and pilot-in-chief. Return- 19 October. ing to the Saint Lawrence, Cartier built a rude fort, not far from the site of Quebec, and thus gave to his country the pre-eminence of having erected the first European post 1541.

* Hazard, i., 9, 10; Chalmers, 4, 7, 8; Holmes's Annals, i., 13-54; Bancroft, i., 8–17, 75, 76; Biddle's "Memoir of Cabot ;" C. Robinson's "Voyages to America;" Hakluyt's "Divers Voyages." In 1501, Cortereal, a Portuguese, visited Newfoundland and Labrador, but his voyages produced no practical results. Verazzano's Letter to King Francis I., of July 8, 1524, giving an account of his discoveries, is the earliest original description now extant, of the Atlantic coast of the United States. Translations of that letter are in N. Y. H. S. Collections, i., 45-60 (from Ramusio), and in i. (second series), 39-67 (from the Magliabecchian MSS.). In the Hakluyt Society's reprint of "Hakluyt's Divers Voyages," the translation of Verazzano's letter (from Ramusio) is accompanied by a fac-simile of the rare map which Michael Lock, of London, made and dedicated to Sir Philip Sydney, in 1582. This map, it appears, was constructed partly from "an old excellent mappe," which Verazzano himself had given to King Henry VIII., and which, when Hakluyt published his work (in 1582), was "yet in the custodie of Master Locke." The name by which the New World is now unworthily known, was not, at the time of Verazzano's voyage, applied to the Northern Continent; at all events. Verazzano does not use the term "America" in his letter.

CHAP. I. in the northern territory of America. But divided authority frustrated the discordant enterprise; and, for a long generation, no further American discoveries were prosecuted by the subjects of France.*

1542.

Voyages.

Frobisher's Forty years after Cartier first ascended the Saint Lawrence, Martin Frobisher, "one of the boldest men who ever ventured upon the ocean," encouraged by the favor of Elizabeth to search for a northwest passage to China, made his 1576. way to a group of islands off the coast of Labrador. A few stones brought back to London, from the desolate abode of the Esquimaux, were supposed to contain gold; 1577-8. and new expeditions were sent to the imaginary Dorado. But Frobisher's voyages were all unsuccessful. While credulous avarice was signally disappointed, the coasts of North America remained unexplored by the English.t

patent.

With more definite purpose, and with sounder views, Gilbert's Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a knight of Devonshire, obtained 1578. a royal patent, authorizing him to discover and occupy 11 June. any remote, heathen, and barbarous lands, "not actually

possessed of any Christian prince or people." Gilbert's purpose was to begin that actual occupation of American territory which England had entirely neglected during the eighty years that followed the voyage of Cabot. The patent gave Gilbert abundant powers; but various obstacles postponed the execution of his design. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was stoutly denying the exclusive pretensions of 1580. Spain to the New World, in virtue of first visitation, and of the Pope's donation, and was distinctly affirming the session the principle that discovery and prescription, unless accomdoctrine. panied by possession, are of no avail. Thus the Queen

Actual pos

English

*Hakluyt, iii., 250-297; Hazard, i., 19-21; Chalmers, 81, 82; Bancroft, i., 19-24.

† Hakluyt, iii., 29-32, 47-129; Purchas, v., 811; Bancroft, i., 81-86; Rundall's Narratives, &c., 9-34, published by the Hakluyt Society, 1849.

Hazard, i., 24-28; Bancroft, i., 88, 89.

"Præterea illam non intelligere, cur sui et aliorum Principum subditi ab Indiis prohibeantur, quas Hispanici juris esse persuadere sibi non posset ex Pontificis Romani donatione, in quo prærogativam in ejusmodi caussis agnovit nullam, nedum auctoritatem ut Principes obligaret, qui nullam ei obedientiam debent; aut Hispanum novo illo orbe quasi infeudaret, et possessione investiret. Nec alio quopiam jure quam quod Hispani hinc illinc appulerint, casulas posuerint, flumen aut Promontorium denominaverint, quæ proprietatem acquirere non possunt. Ut hæc rei alienæ donatio quæ ex jure nihili est, et imaginaria hæc proprietas obstare non debeat, quo minus ceteri Principes commercia in illis regionibus exerceant, et colonias ubi Hispani non incolunt, jure gentium nequaquam violato, dedu

1580.

of England, while she refused to recognize the double CHAP. I. Spanish title by exploration and investiture, at the same time virtually renounced any English claim founded solely upon Cabot's voyage.

Newfound

After a few year's delay, Gilbert, aided by the resources of his half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, equipped an ex- Gilbert at pedition, and sailed directly to Newfoundland, where, for land. the first time, he set up the arms of England and pro- 1583. claimed the queen. On his return voyage, the intrepid adventurer perished at sea. But the English right to the 9 Septemb. island "first seen" by Cabot, was now formally published to the world "by the voice of a herald."*

5 August.

new patent.

The untimely fate of his kinsman did not dishearten Raleigh, who readily procured from Elizabeth, whose fa- Raleigh's vorite he had become, a new patent to discover and occupy any remote, heathen, and barbarous lands, "not act- 1584. ually possessed of any Christian prince, nor inhabited by 25 March. Christian people." Up to this time the English had limited their views to the bleak regions near the fisheries at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence. Raleigh's enterprise was now directed to a more genial climate. Two vessels were soon dispatched toward Florida, under the com- 27 April. mand of Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow. Sailing by the circuitous route of the Canaries and the West Indies, they safely reached the island of Wocockon, at the Ocracoke inlet, in North Carolina, where they took formal pos- 13 July. session of the country in behalf of their sovereign. their return to England, the adventurers made such glowing reports of the regions they had visited, that Elizabeth gave to the wilderness the name of VIRGINIA, to commem- Virginia orate its occupation in the reign of a maiden queen.t

On

tion at

But the time for permanent English settlements beyond Colonizathe Atlantic had not yet fully come. The colonists whom tempted, Raleigh sent to the island of Roanoke in 1585, under 1585. cant, quum præscriptio sine possessione haud valeat."-Camden, Rerum Ang. et Hib. Reg. Eliz. Annales, 1580, edit. Hearne, 1717, p. 360

"Regionem illam [Newfoundland] Anglici juris esse, voce præconis publicasset." -Camden, Annales Eliz., 1583, p. 402; Hakluyt, i., 679-699, iii., 143-166; Purchas, iii., 808; Hazard, i., 32; Bancroft, i., 90, 91.

† Hazard. i., 33-38; Hakluyt, iii., 246-251; Bancroft, i., 92-95; Chalmers, 4, 9.

1587.

CHAP. I. Grenville and Lane, returned the next year, dispirited, to England. A second expedition, dispatched in 1587, under John White, to found "the borough of Raleigh, in Virginia," stopped short of the unexplored Chesapeake, whither it was bound, and once more occupied Roanoke. 1590. In 1590, the unfortunate emigrants had wholly disappeared; and, with their extinction, all immediate attempts to and aban- establish an English colony in Virginia were abandoned.* Its name alone survived. After impoverishing himself in unsuccessful efforts to add an effective American plantation to his native kingdom, the magnanimous patriot was. 1603. consigned, under an unjust judgment, to a lingering imprisonment in the Tower of London; to be followed, after 1618. the lapse of fifteen years, by a still more iniquitous exe

doned.

Raleigh's fate.

cution. Yet, returning justice has fully vindicated Raleigh's fame; and nearly two centuries after his death, 1792. the State of North Carolina gratefully named its capital after that extraordinary man, "who united in himself as many kinds of glory as were ever combined in an individual."+

The reign of Elizabeth did not terminate before another step had been taken in the path of American adventure. Shakspeare's liberal-minded patron, the Earl of Southampton, “having well weighed the greatness and goodness of the cause," contributed largely to fit out a vessel Gosnold's under the command of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold and Captain Bartholomew Gilbert, to discover a "convenient place for a new colony" to be sent to North America. 1602. Early in 1602, Gosnold sailed from Falmouth in a Dart26 March. mouth bark, named the Concord, "holding a course for

voyage.

the north part of Virginia." Rejecting the usual circuitous route by the Canaries and the West Indies, Gosnold, after being driven by an unfavorable wind "as far southward as the Azores," boldly steered his small vessel di

* Hazard, i., 38-45; Hakluyt, iii., 251-265, 280-295; Chalmers, 514, 515; Bancroft, i., 95-108. The attention of Europe was attracted, in 1590, to the characteristics of the North American savages, by the beautiful plates with which Theodorus de Bry, of Frankfort, illustrated his collections of "Voyages." These were engraved from the sketches made, under Raleigh's direction, by the draughtsman Wythe, who accompanied Lane in 1585, † Bancroft, i., 111.

1602.

14 May.

rectly across the Atlantic, by which he made the voyage CHAP. I. "shorter than heretofore by five hundred leagues."* In seven weeks the Concord safely made the land, about the latitude of 43°, in the neighborhood of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Here the adventurers were visited by several Indians in a French-built shallop, with "mast and sail, iron grapples, and kettles of copper." From their explanations, it appeared that some French vessels from the Basque Provinces "had fished and traded at this place." But seeing no good harbor, Gosnold stood again to sea southwardly, and soon "found himself imbayed with a mighty headland." Here he went ashore in his shallop, while his men, during the six hours he was absent, caught so many "excellent codfish, that they were compelled to throw numbers of them overboard again." Naming this headland "Cape Cod❞—a designation which it has ever since Cape Cod retained-Gosnold coasted to the southward as far as the and named mouth of Buzzard's Bay, where he prepared to plant a colony on the westernmost island, which was called "Eliz- 28 May. abeth,” in honor of the queen. Three weeks were spent in building a house, where Gosnold proposed to remain during the winter, with eleven of his men, and meanwhile send the Concord home, in charge of Gilbert, "for new and better preparations." But his men, filled with a covetous conceit of the unlooked-for merchandise" which had rewarded their traffic with the Indians, "would not by any means be treated with to tarry behind the ship;" and Gosnold returned to England, after an absence of five months, with the most favorable reports of "the 23 July. benefit of a plantation in those parts."+

discovered

Accession

Elizabeth's timid successor now sat on the throne of 1603. Great Britain. At the time of James's accession, Spain 24 March. was the only European nation that possessed any fixed of James 1 settlements in all the northern continent to which Colum

* Smith's Hist. of Virginia, i., 105.

"History of Travail into Virginia Britannia," by William Strachey, 153-158; Purchas, iv., 1647; Smith's Hist. of Virginia, i., 105-108. Strachey's interesting work has just been published (1850) for the first time, from the original MS. in the British Museum, by the Hakluyt Society.