With this disappointing and disastrous failure, the curtain fell on the prologue of the great drama of New France, and did not rise again for more than fifty years. For the French, {24} as for the English, the sixteenth century was a time of exploring, of training, of making experiments; and it was not till the seventeenth century dawned that permanent colonization began. Then in the Bourbons the French had rulers who, with all their faults, were abler and stronger than the princes of the house of Valois; and in Champlain they had a leader as daring as, and more statesmanlike than, Cartier. But it was by Cartier that the ground had been broken and the seed first sown. His voyages made Canada[37] in some sort familiar to Europeans. He opened the St. Lawrence to be the highway into North America,[38] and he gave to the hill above the native town of Hochelaga the name of the Royal Mount, which is still perpetuated in Montreal. He brought the French into Canada, and, though his settlement failed, the French connexion remained. Fishermen and fur-traders followed in his steps, and in fullness of time the New France, which his discoveries conceived, was brought to birth and grew to greatness. [Footnote 37: For the meaning of the name 'Canada,' see Parkman's _Pioneers of France_, p. 202, note. It is of Indian origin, probably meaning 'town.' Cartier called the country about Quebec Canada, having Saguenay below and Hochelaga above. Donnaconna, the native chief at Quebec, was called Lord of Canada.] [Footnote 38: On his second voyage Cartier sailed into a bay at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, where he stayed from the eighth to the twelfth of August, and 'named the said gulf St. Lawrence his bay' (Hakluyt, iii, 263), St. Lawrence's Day being the 10th of August. Hence the river, which he called the river of Hochelaga or the great river of Canada, derived its name. See Parkman, p. 202.] [Sidenote: _English exploration in North America in the sixteenth century._] [Sidenote: _Hore's voyage._] [Sidenote: _Acts of Parliament relating to the Newfoundland fisheries._]