The name of Norumbega, or Norembegue, the earliest applied to New England, is attributed to the Portuguese and Spaniards. Jean Alfonse, the pilot of Roberval, the same person who is accredited with having been first to navigate the waters of Massachusetts Bay, gives them the credit of its discovery. It is true that Marc Lescarbot, the Parisian advocate whose relations are the foundations of so many others, was at the colony of Port Royal in the year 1606, with Pontgravé Champlain, and De Poutrincourt. This writer discredits all of Alfonse's statement in relation to the great river and coast of Norumbega, except that part of it in which he says the river had at its entrance many islands, banks, and rocks. In this fragment from the "_Voyages Aventureux_" of Alfonse, the embouchure of the river of Norumbega is placed in thirty degrees ("trente degrez") and the pilot states that from thence the coast turns to the west and west-north-west for more than two hundred and fifty leagues.[1] The most casual reader will know how to value such a relation without reference to the sarcasm of Lescarbot, when he says, "And well may he call his voyages adventurous, not for himself, who was never in the hundredth part of the places which he describes (at least it is easy to conjecture so), but for those who might wish to follow the routes which he directs the mariner to follow." After this, his claim to be considered the first European navigator in Massachusetts Bay must be received with many grains of allowance. Champlain, who remained in the country through the winter of 1605, on purpose to complete his map, has this to say of the river and city of Norumbega; he is writing of the Penobscot: "I believe this river is that which several historians call Norumbegue, and which the greater part have written, is large and spacious, with many islands; and its entrance in forty-three and forty-three and a half; and others in forty-four, more or less, of latitude. As for the declination, I have neither read nor heard any one speak of it. They describe also a great and very populous city of natives, dexterous and skillful, having cotton cloth. I am satisfied that the major part of those who make mention of it have never seen it, and speak from the hearsay evidence of those who know no more than themselves. I can well believe that there are some who have seen the embouchure, for the reason that there are, in fact, many islands there, and that it lies in the latitude of forty-four degrees at its entrance, as they say; but that any have entered it is not credible; for they must have described it in quite another manner to have removed this doubt from many people." With this protest Champlain admits the country of Norumbega to a place on his map of 1612.