Several years passed before anything more was done officially respecting the exploration of the New Lands. Champlain assumes that Cartier made bad representations of the country, and discouraged effort. This view has been repeated without much examination. It is clear that all were disappointed by finding no mines of precious metals, as well as by the failure to discover a passage to the Indies; yet for all this Cartier has been maligned. This appears to be so from the statement found in the narrative of the third voyage, which opens in a cheerful strain, the writer saying that “King Francis I. having heard the report of Captain Jacques Cartier, his pilot-general, in his two former voyages of discovery, as well by writing as by word of mouth, respecting that which he had found and seen in the western parts discovered by him in the ports of Canada and Hochelaga; and having seen and talked with the people which the said Cartier had brought from those countries, of whom one was King of Canada,” resolved to “send Cartier, his pilot, thither again.” With the navigator he concluded to associate Jean François de la Roche, Lord of Roberval, invested with a commission as Lieutenant and Governor of Canada and Hochelaga. Roberval was a gentleman of Picardy, highly esteemed in his province; and, according to Charlevoix, he was sometimes styled by Francis I. the “petty King of Vimeu.” Roberval was commissioned by Francis I. at Fontainebleau, Jan. 15, 1540, and on February 6 took the oath in the presence of Cardinal de Tournon. His subordinate, Cartier, was not appointed until October 17 following, his papers being signed by Henry the Dauphin on the 20th. [Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF THE DAUPHIN.] The apparent object of this voyage is stated where the narrative recites that it was undertaken “that they might discover more than was done before in some voyages, and attain, if possible, to a knowledge of the country of the Saguenay, whereof the people brought by Cartier, as is declared, mentioned to the King that there were great riches and very good lands.” The first and second voyages of Cartier may not have attracted the attention of the Spaniards; but when the expedition of 1541 was in preparation Spain sought to interfere, as in the case of Verrazano in 1523.[175] Francis anticipated this, Alexander VI. having coolly given all America to Spain, as she eagerly claimed; and the explanation was that the fleet was simply going to the poor region of Baccalaos. The Spanish ambassador, knowing well that his master was too poor to support his pretensions by force of arms, finally came to the conclusion that the French could do no harm, while others prophesied a failure.[176]