Section IL, 1894. [ 131 ] Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada. 



V. — Cartier s Course — a Last Word. 



By The Right Reverend M. F. Howley, Wust Newt'oiimllund. 



(Conimiinicated by Dr. Boiirinot, May 23rd, 1H!M.) 



It may perhaps be considered rather late in the day now, after all the learned essays 

 that have been written on this subject, especially in these latter years, to attempt to throw 

 any new light on Cartier's itinerai-y in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Yet I presume to do so, 

 and when a writer, altogether unknown and without a name, comes forward upon a well-, 

 beaten track, and pretends to overturn the theories of long-established critics, and renowned 

 students, he is supposed to Ije able to show some creilentials of great weight and authority 

 in order to entitle him to a hearing. It will be asked, then, on what plea do I pretend to 

 give a final decision on a point which has up to the present day defied the penetration of the 

 keenest historical students ? I reply : 



The very fact that this research has defied the writers who have attacked it, is one 

 reason why the field is still open to investigation. The earlier writers, Lesearbot, Charlevoix, 

 Grarnier, Ferland, Brasseur de Bourbourg, &c., having had access only to mutilated and 

 incomplete extracts of Cartier's Belntion, are hopelessly confusing and contradictory in their 

 accounts of these voyages. The later writers, though enjoying the full benefit of the entire 

 Relation originale, have not been able to steer their course clear through the narrative. 



The very latest writer who has touched on the sulyect — the learned Dr. Bourinot, in 

 " Cape Breton and its Memorials," at page 133 — shows how all the writers who have lately 

 attacked this literary and geographical puzzle, while each contradicting the other, have not 

 been able to lay down anything for certain themselves ; and the learned author ends liy 

 contradicting or disagreeing with them all. 



My claim then, to "superior light " is based on the fiict that my position as Bishop on 

 the West Coast of Newfoundland, and my residence for the past eight years at Bay St. 

 George, together with a personal experience of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, now ranging over 

 twenty-three years, has given me an opportunity of travelling over and over again on the very 

 route first explored by Cartier. With the Relation Originale as my guide-book, I have followed 

 him from harbour to harbour ; identifying aud locating with absolute certainty, all the places 

 described in the narrative. I have had, moreover, the advantage of consulting on the obscure 

 and obsolete passages of the Relation the French fishing captains of St. Malo, St. Brieux, La 

 Rochelle, and other places of Brittany and ITormandy, who come out here every j'ear to 

 make their fishery, just as they did in the days of Cartier ; and who preserve all the quaint- 

 ness of customs and language of those days which are unintelligible even to the learned 

 Frenchman of to-day. It has been the source of intense pleasure to me to verify the 



