Cartier anchored off Quebec, then called Stadaconna, and the abode of an Indian chief called Donnaconna. After leaving his ships secure, he pursued his route in the pinnace and two boats, until, on the third of October, he reached an island in the river, with a lofty mountain, which he named _Mont Royal_, now called Montreal. After losing many of his followers by scurvy, during his wintering at Stadaconna, which he named St. Croix, Cartier returned to France in 1536, carrying off by force Donnaconna, two other chiefs, and eight natives. The French court, finding there was no gold and silver to be had, paid no further attention to _La Nouvelle France_, or Canada, until the year 1540, when Cartier, after much exertion, succeeded in getting a royal expedition fitted out under the command of François de la Roque, Seigneur de Roberval, who was commissioned by Francis I. as viceroy and lieutenant-general in Canada, Hochelaga, or Montreal. Roberval despatched Cartier to form a settlement, which he did at St. Croix harbour on the 23d of August, 1541, but suddenly left it early in the ensuing year. The viceroy himself arrived in Canada in July, 1542, where he built a fort, and wintered about four leagues above the Isle of Orleans (first called the Isle of Bacchus); but for want of any settled plans, in consequence of the scurvy, and the insurrections and deadly hostility of the Indians, owing to Cartier’s having carried off Donnaconna and his attendants (who had all perished in France), little was accomplished.[2] Roberval’s attention was soon after called from Canada, to serve his sovereign in the struggle for power so long waged with Charles V. of Spain; and Jacques Cartier, ruined in health and fortune, died in France soon after his arrival there. Roberval on the death of Francis I. embarked again for Canada in 1549, with his gallant brother Achille, and a numerous train of enterprising young men; but having never afterwards been heard of, they are supposed to have perished at sea. In 1576, Martin Frobisher was sent out by Queen Elizabeth with three ships on discovery, when Elizabeth’s Foreland, and the Straits which bear his own name, were discovered. Frobisher mistaking _mica_ or _talc_ for gold ore, brought quantities of it to England, and was despatched by some merchants with three ships in the following year, to seek for gold, and to explore the coast of Labrador and Greenland, with the view of discovering a north-west passage to India. He returned without any other success than 200 tons of the supposed gold ore, and an Indian man, woman, and child. [Illustration: _The Whirlpool on the Niagara._] In 1578 Martin Frobisher again sailed for the American continent with no fewer than fifteen ships in search of gold, to the ruin of many adventurers, who received nothing but mica instead of gold ore; the fact, however, shows the speculative avidity of mercantile adventurers at that period.