sels which, by this time,
frequented the coasts of Newfoundland. She was taken off the island
and restored to her home in France. The island to which this tradition
more especially relates is now called Grand Meccatina.]

However, when the weather was warm again, in June, 1543, Roberval
started up the St. Lawrence River in boats to reach the wonderful
country of Saguenay. Apparently he met with little success, and, being
relieved by French ships in the late summer of 1543, he returned to
France.

Thus the splendid work achieved by Cartier seemed to have come to
nothing, for neither he nor Roberval revisited America. The French
settlement near Quebec was abandoned, so far as the officers of the
French king were concerned, and between 1545 and about 1583, if any
other Frenchman or European visited Canada it was some private
adventurer who traded with the natives in furs, or Basques from France
and Spain who frequented the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence on
account of the abundance of whales, walruses, and seals. In fact, at
the close of the sixteenth century, the Spanish Basques had
established themselves on shore at Tadoussac and other places, and
seemed likely to colonize the country.

CHAPTER III

Elizabethan Pioneers in North America

Except that the ships of Bristol still no doubt continued to resort to
the banks of Newfoundland for fishing, and that even the captains of
these ships were occasionally elected admirals of the French, Basque,
Portuguese, and English fishing fleets during the summer, the English,
as a nation, took no part in claiming political dominion over North
America after the voyage of Captain John Rut in 1527. This was the
fault of Sebastian Cabot, the son of the man who founded British
America, and who had returned to England long afterwards as the Grand
Pilot appointed by Edward VI to further the discovery of a northern
sea passage to China. Through him the attention of adventurers for a
time was diverted from America to the "discovery" of Russia (as it has
been called). The efforts of Sebastion Cabot were directed towards the
revelation of a north-east passage by way of Arctic Russia to the
Pacific, rather than past Newfoundland and Labrador and across Arctic
America.

But as soon as Elizabeth came to the throne the sea adventurers of
Britain, freed from any subservience to Spanish wishes, developed
maritime intercourse between England, Morocco, and West Africa on the
one han