46 ALL AFLOAT 



East ? America was looked upon as a rather 

 annoying obstruction to proper navigation, 

 though it was allowed to have some incidental 

 interest of its own. Vasco da Gama doubled 

 the Cape of Good Hope in the same year that 

 Cabot raised St George's Cross over what after- 

 wards became British territory. Twenty-five 

 years later Magellan found the back way 

 through behind Cape Horn, and his ship, though 

 not himself, went round the world. Then, 

 twelve years later still, the French sailed into 

 the Canadian scene on which they were to play 

 the principal part for the next two centuries 

 and a quarter. 



Every text-book tells us that Jacques Cartier 

 was the great French pioneer and explains his 

 general significance in the history of Canada. 

 But no books explain his peculiar significance 

 from the nautical point of view, though he 

 came on the eve of the most remarkable change 

 for the better that was ever made in the art of 

 handling vessels under sail. He was both the 

 first and the last mediaeval seaman to appear 

 on Canadian inland waters. Only four years 

 after his discovery of the St Lawrence, an Eng- 

 lishman, Fletcher of Rye, astonished the seafar- 

 ing world of 1539 by inventing a rig with which 

 a ship could beat to windward with sails trimmed 



