Hostilities of the Natives

Cartier was not pleased with being made subservient to the Lord of Robertval, in the enterprise before him, and when five vessels were ready, he was glad to find De la Roque dilatory. He gathered the whole company that were to go in them, in the cathedral, where all received absolution and blessings, and on the 23d of May they sailed from St. Malo for the St. Lawrence, leaving De la Roque to follow when he pleased. Storms arose when they approached the tracks of the polar icebergs as they were voyaging toward the tropics, and chilling fogs lay along their paths. It was late in August when the squadron entered the harbor of Stadacona or Quebec. The people there, led by King Agona, the successor of Donnacona, pressed eagerly to the ships to welcome their old monarch, for Cartier had assured them that he would bring him back. Alas! Donnacona was no more. He and his eight chiefs had been baptized in France, but had grieved themselves to death in slavery. All of them had died before Cartier's departure on his third voyage. The mariner dared not tell the whole truth to the people for fear of their resentment; he only acknowledged that Donnacona was dead, and then told them that the other chiefs had all become great lords in France, had remained there, and would never return. In token of his good faith he showed them the pretty little daughter of the Huron chief at Hochelaga, whom he had brought back. The people had grave doubts. They were sullen and unfriendly. The kidnapping--the inexcusable treachery--had left a bitter sting of wrong in their hearts. Their sullenness grew more cloudy, and very soon signs of absolute hostility were manifested.

Cartier sailed up the river a few leagues above Quebec, where he found a better anchorage; and at the beginning of September he sent two of his vessels back to France with an account of his doings, and to communicate the fact that De la Roque had not arrived. He again visited Hochelaga to ascertain whether there were serious obstructions to navigation above that town, and to give back to her father the little Indian princess. He gave to the chief a "cloak of Paris red, which cloak was set with yellow and white buttons of tin, and small bells." These acts made a favorable impression upon the Hurons, and they loaded him with favors. After visiting the rapids between Montreal and La Chine, he returned to Quebec, when the temper of the natives was so manifestly hostile that he was admonished to provide for the safety of himself and his followers. He accordingly built a fort on the island of Orleans, and made his winter quarters there, mooring his vessels in a cove. He waited patiently for the coming of the Viceroy, but he had not appeared when the St. Lawrence was bound with ice.

The winter was long, cold and gloomy. The Frenchmen were almost buried in the snow-drifts, and suffered much; and when the spring opened, the natives were evidently preparing to attack them. Their provisions being almost exhausted, and no tidings of De la Roque reaching him, Cartier left the St. Lawrence toward the end of May, 1542, and sailed for France. Running into the harbor of St. John near the southeastern extremity of Newfoundland, he there found De la Roque, Lord of Robertval, with three ships and two hundred men, and about twenty French fishing-vessels. De la Roque had left Rochelle in France on the 16th of April, and reached the harbor he was in on the 8th of June. He had been there several days when Cartier arrived. They held a conference, when the Pilot told the Viceroy that he had left the St. Lawrence because he could not withstand the natives, who were becoming very hostile. The country, he said, did not seem very fertile, and there were no mines of precious stones and valuable minerals. A few "diamonds"--quartz crystals--which he had gathered, and a small quantity of gold, were all that he had to show of mineral wealth, and he advised De la Roque to go no further, for he could never make a colony on the St. Lawrence profitable to himself or his king. The Viceroy regarded this advice as selfish, believing Cartier's object to be to bear all the honor of his discoveries, and the glory of founding a new empire, himself. De la Roque therefore determined to go on, and ordered Cartier to go with him to the St. Lawrence, not doubting that their united forces might overawe the Indians and secure peace and prosperity. But the Pilot resolved not to submit to the Viceroy. With apparent compliance with the commands of his superior, he returned to his ship. At twilight he secretly conferred with the captains of his two other vessels, and at midnight, when the heavens were cloudy and moonless and the darkness was intense, he escaped from the harbor with his little squadron and sailed for St. Malo. Cartier was then about fifty years of age, and seems to have abandoned the sea, for he afterward lived quietly at St. Malo and at a little village near, alternately. When and where he died is not known. It is believed that he lived in comparative poverty, and died soon after his return from his third voyage to Canada.