We must look upon Jacques Cartier, when as the bearer of a Royal
Commission, he left St. Malo, on April 20, 1534, to conquer new lands
for Christianity, as dignified by this side of his duty--to promote
the glory of God and that of France. Consequently his progress up the
River St. Lawrence to Hochelaga is marked by such incidents as the
distribution of rosaries and pious objects, emblems of the faith he
believed in, and the planting at Gaspé of a cross thirty feet high, in
the middle of which was a shield with three _fleurs de lis_, with the
inscription, cut into the wood, "Vive Le Roi de France." His course
and that of Champlain, up the St. Lawrence is strewn with a number
of places named after the festivals of the church, all dignifying an
otherwise prosaic catalogue of discoveries. The cross and the crown of
France may therefore be considered the emblems of the French occupation.
It is not the purpose of this book to detail Cartier's voyages, three
of which we have recounted by himself, those of 1534, 1535-36, and
1540. We have, however, chosen several extracts from the second voyage,
as these relate especially to Montreal. We wish to gather the results
of his work. He left no permanent settlement and established no trading
posts but he claimed the land for France and his accounts to the king
and the ministers and his published voyages of the country of Canada,
Hochelaga and Saguenay, kept before his countrymen the existence of a
great land in the West worth the colonizing.
Cartier's commission in the first voyage was that of "Captain and
Master Pilot of the King;" in the second, "Captain General and Master
Pilot." When he was sent on his third voyage, a new element entered
into the view of Canada. At the head of the expedition was placed a
gentleman of Picardy, Jean François de la Rocque Seigneur de Roberval,
whom Francis I playfully styled the Petty King of Vimeux, and whom he
appointed his lieutenant and governor in the countries of Canada and
Hochelaga, with Jacques Cartier as "the Captain General and leader of
the ships." His commission is dated October 20, 1540. This was to be
the first colonizing movement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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