In 1583 Stephen Bellinger, a friend of Hakluyt, being in the service of Cardinal Bourbon, of Rouen, visited Cape Breton and the coasts to the south.[193] In 1577 and 1578 commissions were issued by Henry III. to the Marquis de la Roche for a colony;[194] and Hakluyt says that in 1584 the Marquis was cast away in an attempt to carry out his scheme.[195] In 1587 the grandnephew of Cartier was in Canada, evidently engaged in regular trade.[196] Beyond question communication was maintained with Canada until official colonization was again taken up in 1597.[197] The efforts of Francis I. in sending out Verrazano, Cartier, and Roberval were by no means thrown away, and we must take for what it is worth the statement of Alexander in his _Encouragement to Colonies_, where (p. 36) he says that the French in America effected more “by making a needless ostentation, that the World should know they had beene there, then that they did continue still to inhabit there.” CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION. LITTLE is known of the personal history of Jacques Cartier, though Cunat discovered several points relating to his ancestry. It appears that one Jehan Cartier married Guillemette Baudoin; and that of their six children, Jamet, or Jacques, was the oldest, having been born Dec. 4, 1458. Marrying in turn Jeffeline Jansart, he had by her a son, Dec. 31, 1494. This son, up to a recent day, was held to be the great navigator; but Longrais has rendered it almost certain that he was not. Like Verrazano, Allefonsce, and others, he appears to have done something as a privateer; and the Spanish ambassador in France, reporting the expedition of Cartier and Roberval, Dec. 17, 1541, spoke of “el corsario Jacques Cartier.”[198] At an early age Cartier was wedded to Catharine des Granches, daughter of Jacques des Granches, the constable of St. Malo, this being considered a brilliant marriage. After retiring from the sea, he lived in the winter at his house in St. Malo, adjoining the Hospital of St. Thomas, and in the summer at his manor on the outskirts of the town at Limoilou.[199] The name of Des Granches appears in connection with the mountains on the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Cartier, so far as known, had no children. At least Cunat’s researches, supported by the local tradition, show that Manat had no authority now recognized for saying that in 1665 he had a lineal descendant in one Harvée Cartier.[200] Following Verrazano, we have the earliest notice of French visitations to the coast in the statement of Herrera,[201] that in 1526 the Breton, Nicolas Don, pursued the fisheries at Baccalaos. In 1527 Rut, as reported in Purchas,[202] says that eleven sail of Normans and one of Bretons were at St. John, Newfoundland.[203] According to Lescarbot,[204] who gives no authority, the Baron de Léry landed cattle on the Isle of Sable in 1528.[205]