ON OArE BRETON. 183 



the last beiug the old uamc oi' Louisbourg, which, iu Champlaiu's time and many years 

 later, was the favourite resort of English fishermen. It was iu the reign of Elizabeth that 

 Englishmen began to show that spirit of maritime enterprise which was afterwards to 

 have such remarkable results in later times by the establishment of the greatest colonial 

 empire whii'h the world has ever seen. In the course of the sixteenth century, when the 

 rich fisheries of Newfoundland and the islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence became known 

 throughout Euro^ie, English fishermen ventured into the waters which had long been 

 the resort of the vessels of France, Portugal and Spain, and by the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century there were probably over two hrrudred English craft of various sizes 

 engaged in this great industry. Louisbourg, easy of access from the ocean, invited the 

 English, at an early date, to make it their port of call. The Spaniards preferred the xires- 

 ent harbour of Sydney, which is even yet known as Spanish River, and the French for 

 many years sought shelter within the safe haven of St. Anne's, embosomed iu the hills 

 of the northeastern coast of the island. 



The discoveries of Verrazano in 1524 and of Jacques Cartier in 1535 gave France a 

 claim to Acadie, Cape Breton and Canada. England's title came from the voyages of the 

 Cabots. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a relative of the bold and chivalrous Raleigh, was the 

 first Englishman of note who ventured, towards the close of the sixteenth century, to the 

 shores of Newfoundland and took possession of the island in the name of Elizabeth, but 

 his expedition had no other results than a barren assertion of a claim of sovereignty ' and 

 his tragic death at sea on his return to Europe. The Marquis de la Roche, a little later in 

 the same century, made an abortive attempt to establish a settlement in the new domain 

 which France now began to claim in America, but his hopes perished in the relentless 

 sands of Sable Island. It was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that 

 either France or England was able to make a permanent establishment iu the new world. 

 Raleigh, above all other Englishmen of his time, saw that fame and fortune were to be 

 won in America, but his first attempt to found a little colony iu Carolina entirely failed, 

 and the historian for centuries since has speculated on the fate of the unhappy people 

 who lauded iu 1587 on Roanoke Island.- The attempts of Sieur Chauvin and Sieur Aymer 

 de Chastes to colonize New Prance were equally unfortunate, and the seventeenth 

 century opened without a single European settlement on the whole coast of North 

 America except the Spanish post of St. Augustine at the extreme jioint of the peninsula 

 of Florida. At one time, indeed, it seemed as if the lilies of France would have floated 

 over that southern region and Protestants would have found in those times of oppression 



' Sir Humphrey Gilbert, on the ôtli of August, 1583, in the harbour of St. John's, Newfoundland, " summoned 

 the merchants and masters, botli English and strangers [of the ships in port] to be present at his talking posses- 

 sion of those countries. Before whom openly was read and interpreted unto the strangers his commission, by 

 virtue whereof he tooke possession in the same harbour of St. John, and 200 leagues every way, invested the 

 Queene's Majestie with the title and dignité thereof, had delivered unto him (after the custome of England) a rod 

 and a turffe of the same soile, entring possession also for him, his heires aud assignes forever." See report of 

 Mr. Edward Ilaies, gentleman, and principall actor in the8amevoyago,"HaUUiyt's Collection (Edmund (ioldsniid's 

 éd., Edinburgh, 18S9), vol. xii, p. ;!:!7. Sir Humphrey does not appear to have entered any port or landed in Caje 

 Breton, if indeed he ever made the stcoa. See infra, sec. XI, for a claim that one of his vessels was wrecked in 

 Louisbourg harbour. 



- See an interesting paper, " The Lost Colony of Koanoke : its Fate and Survival,'' by Professor S. B. Weeks, in 

 the Papers of the American Historical Association, lSi»l ; also, in Mag. of Am. Hist for Feb., 1891. 



