Of the principal actors in the scenes which have been described, but little remains to be recorded. Roberval, after having distinguished himself in the European wars carried on by Francis I, is stated to have fitted out another expedition, in conjunction with his brother, in the year 1549, for the purpose of making a second attempt to found a colony in Canada; but he and all with him perished at sea. The intrepid Cartier, by whose services in the western hemisphere so extensive an addition had been made to the dominions of the King of France, was suffered to retire into obscurity, and is supposed to have passed the remainder of his days on a small estate possessed by him in the neighborhood of his native place, St. Malo. The date of his decease is unknown.[50] FOOTNOTES: [44] The courts of Spain and Portugal had protested against any fresh expedition from France to the west, alleging that, by right of prior discovery, as well as the Pope's grant of all the western regions to themselves, the French could not go there without invading their privileges. Francis, on the other hand, treated these pretensions with derision, observing sarcastically that he would "like to see the clause in old Father Adam's will by which an inheritance so vast was bequeathed to his brothers of Spain and Portugal." [45] The dates in this and subsequent pages are in accordance with the "old style" of reckoning. [46] It has not been satisfactorily settled to what tribe the Indians belonged who were found by Cartier at Hochelaga. Some have even doubted the accuracy of his description in relation to their numbers, the character of their habitations, and other circumstances, under the belief that allowance must be made for exaggeration in the accounts of the first European visitors, who were desirous that their adventures should rival those of Cortes and Pizarro. It has also been suggested that the people were not Hurons, but remnants of the Iroquois tribes, who might have lingered there on their way southward. At any rate, when the place was revisited by Frenchmen more than half a century afterward, very few savages were seen in the neighborhood, and these different from those met by Cartier, while the town itself was no longer in existence. Champlain, upward of seventy years after Jacques Cartier, visited Hochelaga, but made no mention in his narrative either of the town or of inhabitants. [47] Commission dated October 20, 1540. In this document the French King's appreciation of Cartier's merits is strongly shown in the terms employed to express his royal confidence "in the character, judgment, ability, loyalty, dignity, hardihood, great diligence, and experience of the said Jacques Cartier." Cartier was also authorized to select fifty prisoners "whom he might judge useful," etc.