12 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



familiar in New Testament criticism, of first studying the contemporary 

 documents solely, and apart from all comments and later documents and, 

 in that' way, what was before obscure became clear. I then took the 

 map of La Cosa (Appendix D, La Cosa's map), and made it the pivot of 

 m}'' studies, and thus I happened to notice iirst the bearing of the name 

 Caco descubierto. Having, therefore, built my foundation upon these 

 contemporary documents, I was ready to accept from any other quarter 

 confirmatory evidence ; from the map of 1544 as well as from any other 

 map. I think it essential to point this out ; because, in my view, if there 

 be any merit or any originality in the monograph of 1894, it is in these 

 particulars chiefly that it must reside. 



Before closing my paper I would like to dwell for a moment ujion a 

 singular misconception which has arisen in the minds of some of our 

 French fellow-countrymen, and which has found expression in news- 

 papers under the heading of "Cartier versus Cabot"'; as if these studies 

 and conclusions in the least degree derogated from Cartier's fame as the 

 discoverer of Canada. The monograph of 1894 did the v^ery reverse ; for 

 it set out to demonstrate the falsity of the theory that Cabot had entered 

 the gulf. It proved by the maps that, until Cartier sailed into the gulf, 

 it M'as not known at all; and that the so-called Cabot map of 1544 em- 

 bodied Cartier's discoveries; and, moreover, that, whatever the fishermen 

 may have known, previous to that time Newfoundland was supposed by 

 the cartographers and geographers to be a part of the main continent. 

 Thus it vindicated for Cartier what many other writers had been under- 

 mining, and it aimed to correct those false views of history which, to the 

 detriment of Cartier's fame, were insidiously creeping into the text-books. 



Eut Avhile to Cartier must be awarded the discovery of ihe G-ulf and 

 Eiver St. Lawrence, he did not discover any portion of the sea coast of 

 America. Xo writer claims that for him. That Cabot discovered the 

 northeast coast is as much beyond question as :>ny historical fact can be. 

 That is not open to dispute, though whether the landfall was at Cape 

 Breton, Labrador or Newfoundland may be yet a fair ground for discus- 

 sion. Cabot's discovery is not an English and French question ; for it 

 is impossible for any writer to be more French than Champlain, Charle- 

 voix, Ferland and Laverdière. They assign to John Cabot the discovery 

 of Labrador in 1497. Who can, in our community, be more French than 

 D'Avezac — the learned and profound scholar of the Geographical Society 

 of Paris ? — yet he maintained that Cabot's Island of St. John was Prince 

 Edward Island. Le Canada Franrais is surely a French publication — 

 and Canadian as well,— and yet the Abbé Beaudoin, in October, 1888, 

 maintained in much detail the thesis that Prince Edward Island was dis- 

 covered by Cabot in 1497, and named St. John by him. If so, Cabot, 

 and not Cartier, was the discoverer of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and of 

 Canada in a sense that no member of this society has ever held. These 



