the admiral, and, consequently, that any services which he had previously rendered must have been in the possession of the crown. In either case, however, whether Verrazzano were dead or alive when Francis resumed his royal functions, there is no reason why the discovery, if it had ever taken place, should not have been known by him. In sending forth the expeditions of Jacques Cartier and the joint expeditions of Cartier and Roberval, Francis not only showed his interest in the discovery of new countries, but he acted in perfect ignorance of the Verrazzano discovery. If it were known to him, upon what rational theory would he have attempted new voyages of discovery in a cold and inhospitable region, on an uncertain search, instead of developing what had been found for him? What could he have expected to have accomplished by the new expeditions that had not been already fully effected by Verrazzano? And, especially after the way to Canada was found out by Cartier, what was there more inviting in that unproductive quarter than was promised in the temperate climate, fertile soil, and mineral lands, which the Florentine had already discovered in his name, that he should have sent Cartier and Roberval to settle and conquer the newer land? [Footnote: The letters issued to Roberval have been recently published, for the first time, by M. Harrisse, from the archives of France, in his Notes pour servir a l'histoire de la Nouvelle France, p. 244, et seq. (Paris, 1872.) They are dated the 16th of February 1540. Cartier's commission for the same service is dated in October, 1540. Charlevoix, misled probably by the letters granted by Henry IV to the Marquis de la Roche in 1598, in which the letters to Roberval are partially recited, asserts that Roberval is styled in them lord of Norumbega. The letters now published show that he was in error; and that France limited the authority of Roberval to the countries west of the gulf of St. Lawrence (Canada and Ochelaga), so far as any are named or described, and made no reference to Norumbega as a title of Roberval or otherwise. As the year commenced at Easter the date of Roberval's commission was in fact after that of Cartier.]