Cartier Discovers the Gulf of St. Lawrence

After appropriate religious ceremonies in the cathedral of St. Malo, in which Chabot participated, Cartier sailed for America. He left St. Malo on a bright afternoon (April 20, 1534), with a crew of one hundred and twenty men in each of his vessels. The voyage was prosperous, and with generally fair winds he reached the eastern coast of Newfoundland in twenty days. Then he sailed northward, entered the Straits of Belle Isle, and touching the coast of Labrador, he formally took possession of the country in the name of his king by planting a cross and hanging upon it the arms of France. The natives, who had been fishing near, gathered around the Frenchmen in considerable numbers, with their chief, and looked with wonder as the mariners raised that symbol of the atonement made of the trunk of a tree, and thirty feet in height. The shield they hung upon it bore the lilies of France--the royal insignia--and over it they carved, in antique letters, Vive le Roi de France!--"Live the King of France." Then the mariners all knelt, and with hands stretched toward the skies, they thanked God for his mercies. The savage chief faintly comprehending the significance of the shield with the Gallic arms as a token of claimed sovereignty, told Cartier, by signs, that he could not allow a cross to be set up without his consent, whereupon the mariner satisfied him by the assurance that it was only as a beacon to guide other voyagers in those waters.

After spending some weeks in exploring the great gulf west and southwest of Newfoundland, discovering the Magdalen Islands, the northern coasts of Cape Breton and the bays of Chaleurs and Gaspe, now at the eastern extremity of Canada, Cartier landed and held friendly intercourse with the Indians. There he set up a huge wooden cross, as before, with a shield and the French lilies, and took possession in the name of King Francis. His kindness inspired the natives with such confidence, that one of the chiefs offered to Cartier two of his sons to accompany him to France, on the condition that he should return them to their home the next year.

From Gaspe Bay Cartier sailed northeast, and doubling the east end of great Anticosti Island, he went up that branch of the St. Lawrence some distance, without suspecting that he was in the mouth on a great river whose chief sources were immense inland seas of fresh water. As the season of autumn storms was approaching, he turned back, passed through the Straits of Belle Isle, and sailed away for France, reaching St. Malo early in September. His voyage was considered successful. Chabot was delighted, and Francis was encouraged to make new efforts on a larger scale, in the same direction. Three ships were fitted out late in the following spring-La Grand Hermione, La Petite Hermione, L'Emerillon. The first was a vessel of one hundred and twenty tons burthen; the second was sixty tons, and the third was smaller. Cartier was commissioned "Captain and Pilot of the King." He gathered his companions and seamen in the cathedral at St. Malo, at the middle of May, where the whole company received absolution--pardon of their sins--from the Bishop, and also his blessing. It was Whit-Sunday--a festival when all newly-baptized persons appear in the church in white garments. Beautiful and picturesque was the scene, and joyous was the occasion; and impressions of the pageant remained on the memory of each mariner long after he left the holy fane that day, and embarked for his voyage.

Cartier sailed from St. Malo on his second voyage to New France, with several French noblemen, on the 19th of May, 1535--Le Grande Hermione was his flagship. Storms soon separated the vessels, but they met at an appointed rendezvous in the Straits of Belle Isle, on the 26th of July. Going westward, they entered the gulf on which Cartier had sailed the previous year; and on the day dedicated to St. Lawrence, they passed into the waters between Anticosti and the main, on the north, to which Cartier gave the name of St. Lawrence. This title was afterward given to the gulf and to the great river at whose mouth Anticosti lies. That island, Cartier named L'Assumption. Its Indian name was Natiscotec, the sound of which from the lips of the natives was, to English ears, Anticosti, and so they called it.