The accounts of the first discovery of Canada, meagre as they are, possess a romantic interest which is never likely to assume any very precise or substantial form. Although Cabot, who discovered Labrador and Hudson’s Bay, was the first person who suggested or projected the establishment of colonies or settlements in these newly-found regions, and English merchants actually established some small colonies there, it is to Jacques Cartier, of St. Malo, that the credit of the first real establishment of Europeans in Canada must be assigned. Cabot discovered the Gulf of St. Lawrence: it was Cartier who found that the Gulf was but the mouth of a vast river; and who urged his little craft among its unknown dangers till he came to the site of Quebec. It was no ordinary man who, having accomplished thus much, pressed onwards till he reached Hochelaga, the site of Montreal. He was impelled by the love of gold and precious stones, and believed that here he had found them, but they were indeed only Lagenian mines. Cartier, and many another gallant sailor, found glittering mica and crystals on the shores of their new found lands, which in their innocent faith they believed to be gold and diamonds, and so filled ship and were off to sea again. The failure of these early adventures cast Canada into disfavour with those who led the enterprise of the East. Whilst the English merchants and navigators were, with uncertain steps, seeking some solid resting-place on the eastern shores of America below the St. Lawrence, Canada was left in the possession of the Indians--not a peaceable possession, because the great Tribes were as irreclaimably belligerent as the Highland Clans or the Irish Septs. It is curious to reflect on the fact, indeed, that little more than two hundred years ago the whole of the vast region between Massachusetts and Hudson’s Bay was in the hands of the Red Man. But he was then yielding ground rapidly before the imperious strangers who had seized his shore farther south. The merchants of Bristol and of London turned their attention to Virginia before the French of St. Malo had well established themselves on the shores of the St. Lawrence. Both English and French alike were encouraged and stimulated in these early efforts by the Crown. About the time that James the First was granting charters and framing corporations for colonies in Virginia, Champlain was establishing French settlements at Tadousac and Quebec, in Nouvelle France. The early dealings of English and French with the natives are discreditable to both nations; both fomented or availed themselves of dissensions among the Tribes, and when hostilities broke out, threw their weight on one side or the other. Whilst the New England Puritans were encouraging themselves in the work of destroying the Red Man by quoting passages from the Old Testament, which clearly showed how they the chosen people of God were called upon to slay the Canaanite, Champlain, with his Roman Catholic priests,