INTRODUCTION. 



It is not the place here to enter into a discussion of this ques- 

 tion nor yet to call up all the points in the arguments in favor of 

 or against any particular hypothesis. The fact that as yet we know 

 little enough of these interesting points of inquiry, which, while they 

 answer for individual effort and research, will hardly be necessary 

 in such a place as this, will therefore limit us to what we do know. 



We do know of the contention among both French and English 

 as to the discovery of Labrador by Sebastian Cabot in 1496, and 

 its exploration soon after by the Portuguese Corterell, who is said 

 to have named it. We do know that Mr. Samuel Robertson, who 

 has given this matter his most careful attention and who has per- 

 haps searched more thoroughly than any other man in the country 

 for the real facts bearing upon this subject, in his excellent article 

 read before the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, dated 

 January 16, 1841, gives us the summing up of what are the results 

 of his labors. From them we learn that "the universal tradition 

 of the coast," and which his inquiries seem to verify and establish, 

 is "that one Labrador, a Basque whaler, from the kingdom of 

 Navarre in Spain, did penetrate through the Straits of Belle Isle, as 

 far as Labrador Bay, sometime about the middle of the fifteenth 

 century ; and, eventually, the whole coast took the name from that 

 bay and harbor." 



There is very little doubt, as far as circumstantial evidence goes, 

 that the coast here, as in the neighboring places, was visited by the 

 Norsemen in the tenth century ; but they left no signs of coloniza- 

 tion by which we can prove it. 



There were some remains of buildings, also instruments discov- 

 ered, that were supposed to be of later and Esquimaux origin, but 

 these, Mr. Robertson thinks, can be proven of Basque origin. In 

 all probability, therefore, Labrador was discovered by Basque fisher- 

 men and whalers before the discovery of Cabot, and before Chris- 

 topher Columbus discovered America. We know that the French 

 carried on fisheries along the coast of Newfoundland earlier even 

 than the year 1500. In 1532 Jacques Cartier, with Bretons for 

 pilots y visited this coast, and as early as 1506 a chart of the Gulf 



