GENERAL HISTORY.-EARLY DISCOVERY OF CANADA.

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superficies of 3,200 miles covered by the numerous lakes and rivers of the province, and excluding the surface of the St. Lawrence river and part of the gulf, which occupy 52,000 square miles; the entire province, water and land, being a quarter of a million of square miles, or one hundred and sixty million of acres. The boundaries of Lower Canada are the territories of the Hudson bay Company or East Maine on the N.; on the E. the Gulf of St. Lawrence and a line drawn from Ance au Sablon on the Labrador coast, due N. to the 52nd of N. Lat. ;* on the S. by New Brunswick and part of the territories of the United States, viz. Maine, Hampshire, Vermont and New York; and on the W. by the line separating it from Upper Canada as before described: the whole territory is divided into three chief districts-Quebec, Montreal and Three rivers and two inferior ones-Gaspé and St. Francis; these again further divided into 40 counties (vide population section) with minor subdivisions consisting of seigniories, fiefs and townships, &c.

GENERAL HISTORY.-The discovery of the coast of Canada, according to the most authentic statements, was made by the celebrated Italian adventurers John and his son Sebastian Cabot, who received a commission from Henry VII. of England to discover what Columbus was in search of-a Northwest passage to the East Indies or China, or as the latter named country was then called, Cathay. The adventurers sailed in 1497 with six ships, and early in June of the same year discovered Newfoundland; whence continuing a westerly course the continent of N. America was arrived at, which the Cabots coasted (after exploring the Gulf of St. Lawrence) as far N. as 67.50 N. Lat. They returned to England in 1498. In 1502 Hugh Elliott and Thomas Ashurst, merchants, of Bristol, with two other gentlemen, obtained a pa

* This boundary was fixed by the 6. Geo. IV. c. 59., which also reannexed the island of Anticosti to Lower Canada.

+ We know nothing certain of the Spaniards having previously visited this part of America, the discovery of Columbus was in 1492, only five years previous to Cabot's voyage.

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ENGLISH AND FRENCH MARITIME EXPEDITIONS.

tent from Henry VII. to establish colonies in the countries lately discovered by Cabot, but the result of the permission granted is not known. In 1527 another expedition was fitted out by Henry VIII. by the advice of Robert Thorne, a merchant of Bristol, for the purpose of discovering a N. W. passage to the E. Indies, one of the ships attempting which was lost.

Francis the First of France, piqued at the discoveries of Spain and Portugal, and having his ambition roused by the monopolizing pretensions of these two powers to the possessions in the New World, authorized the fitting out of an expedition, the command of which he gave to John Verrazani, an Italian, who discovered Florida, and thence sailing back round the American coast to the 15° of Lat., took formal possession of the country for his royal master, and called it ' La Nouvelle France.' On Verrazani's return to Europe in 1524, without gold or silver or valuable merchandize, he was coldly received, but subsequently sent out with more particular instructions and directions to open a communication with the natives, in endeavouring to fulfil which he lost his life in a fray with the Indians, and the object of the expedition was frustrated; while the capture of Francis the First at the battle of Pavia in 1525, put a temporary stop to further exploration of the coast of Canada. When the Government, however, ceased to follow up the result of Verrazani's formal acquisition of Canada, the Frenchmen of St. Maloes commenced a successful fishery at Newfoundland, which so early as 1517 had had 50 ships belonging to the English, Spanish, French and Portuguese engaged in the cod fishery on its banks. Jacques Cartier, a native of St. Maloes engaged in the Newfoundland fishery, took the lead in exploring, at his own risk, the N. coasts of the new hemisphere; this bold and experienced navigator at last received a commission from his Sovereign, Francis the First, and left St. Maloes 20th April, 1534;* coasted part of the gulf which he named St. Lawrence; sailed 300 leagues up the river to which he gave the same name;

Neither of his two vessels were more than 20 tons burthen!

FORMAL ACQUISITION OF CANADA BY FRANCE.

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contracted an alliance with some of the natives; built a small fort in which he wintered; took formal possession of the country, and returned to France with a native chief named Donnaconna, and two or three of his principal attendants (all of whom were forced from their country by treachery) but without any of those precious metals which were then the great objects of European cupidity. The enterprizing character of his royal master induced him to despatch Cartier in the following year with three larger vessels, and a number of young gentlemen as volunteers. Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence, found the country densely peopled and the Indians every where friendly. Quebec (or as it was termed by the natives Quilibek) was touched at, and an Indian village found there; Cartier pursued his route until he reached an island in the river with a lofty mountain, which he named Mont-Royal, now called Montreal.* After losing many of his followers from scurvy, Cartier returned to France in 1536; and the French court finding that no gold or silver was to be had, paid no further attention to La Nouvelle France or Canada until the year 1540, when Cartier, after much exertion, succeeded in getting a royal expedition fitted out under the command of Francois de la Roque, Seigneur de Roberval, who was commissioned by Francis the First as Viceroy and Lieut.-General in. Canada, Hochelaga (or Montreal) &c. Roberval despatched Cartier to form a settlement, which he did at St. Croix's Harbour; the Viceroy himself proceeded to his new colony in 1542, where he built a fort and wintered, about four leagues above the isle of Orleans (first called the isle of Bacchus), but for want of any settled plans, and from the rising and deadly hostility of the Indians, owing to Cartier's having carried off the Indian Chief in 1535, little was accomplished. Roberval's attention was called from Canada to serve his sovereign in the struggle for power so long waged with Charles Vth of Spain; and Jacques Cartier,

There is a discrepancy in the public records as to whether Montreal was visited in the first or second voyage-the difference is not material to this History.

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MARTIN FROBISHER'S GOLDEN VOYAGE TO CANADA.

ruined in health and fortune, returned to France in 1549, where he died neglected by his fickle countrymen. Roberval, on the death of Francis I., embarked for Canada with his brother and a numerous train of enterprizing young men, but from having never afterwards been heard of, they are supposed to have perished at sea. For fifty years France paid no attention to Canada,* and the few settlers or their descendants left by Cartier or Roberval, were unheeded and unsuccoured; but in 1598, Henry the IV. appointed the Marquis de la Roche his Lieut.-General in Canada, with power to partition discovered lands into Seigniories and fiefs, to be held under feudal tenure, and as a compensation for military service when required. Such was the origin of the Canadian Seigneuries.

Sable island and a rude part of Acadia (now called Nova Scotia), were first settled on, and afterwards abandoned, and to private enterprize, rather than to royal decrees, the French nation were at last indebted for a permanent and profitable colonization in Canada. M. Chauvin, a naval officer, obtained from Henry IV., in 1600, a commission, granting him an exclusive trade with Canada, and other privileges. Chauvin associated other persons with him in his enterprize, and made two successful trading voyages to Tadoussac, near the mouth of the Saguenay river, where the Indians gave the most valuable furs in exchange for mere trifles. Chauvin died in 1603, and Pierre Dugast, Sieur de Monts, a Calvinist, and gentleman of the bed chamber to Henry IV., received a patent,

In 1576, Martin Frobisher was sent out by Queen Elizabeth with three ships on discovery, when Elizabeth's Foreland and the straights which bear his own name were discovered. Frobisher mistaking mundic, mica or tale for gold ore, brought large quantities of it to England, and was dispatched by some merchants, with three ships, the following year, to seek for gold, and to explore the coast of Labrador and Greenland, with a view of discovering a N. W. passage to India. He returned without any other success than 200 tons of the supposed gold ore, and an Indian man, woman and child! In 1578 Martin Frobisher again sailed for the American continent, with no fewer than 15 ships, in search of gold; to the ruin of many adventurers, who received nothing but mica instead of gold ore; the fact, however, shews the speculative avidity of mercantile adventure at that period.

NEW FRANCE OR CANADA COLONIZED.-CARDINAL RICHELIEU. 7

conferring on him the exclusive trade and government of the territory, situate between the 40° and 46° of Lat. and, although of the reformed religion, the Sieur was enjoined to convert the native Indians to the Roman Catholic tenets. De Monts and M. de Chatte, governor of Dieppe, associated with them, in their plans of trade, discovery and colonization, the celebrated Samuel de Champlain, who afterwards founded Quebec, and may be said to have been the main cause of the French success in Canada. Trading posts were established at several places; the fur trade was prosperously carried on; the Acadian (now Nova Scotia) colony neglected; and Quebec the capital of the future New France, founded 3rd of Jan. 1608. The various Indian tribes contiguous to the new settlement; namely, the Algonquins, the Hurons, &c. who were at war with the Iroquois, or Five Nations, solicited and obtained the aid of the French; Champlain taught them the use of fire-arms, (the Iroquois sought the knowledge of the same from their English friends in the adjacent territory), and hence began the ruinous wars which have ended in the nearly total extermination of the Indians of the North American Continent, wherever they have come in contact with the Europeans and their descendants. But little success attended the first colonization on the banks of the St. Lawrence; in 1622, fourteen years after its establishment, Quebec had not a population exceeding 50 souls. The mischievous policy of making religion (and that of the Jesuit caste) a part of the colonial policy, long hampered the French settlers; to remedy the distressed condition of the colony, the commerce of Canada, heretofore vested in the hands of one or two individuals, was transferred in 1627, to a powerful association called the Company of an hundred partners, composed of clergy and laity, under the special management of the celebrated Cardinal Richelieu. The primary object of the company was the conversion of the Indians to the Catholic faith, by means of zealous Jesuits; the secondary, an extension of the fur trade, of commerce generally, and the discovery of a route to the Pacific Ocean and to China, through the great rivers and lakes of New France.