[Footnote 10:  A story was subsequently told of Roberval’s stern treatment which had a germ of truth in it, though it has since been the foundation of many a romance.  On the journey out from France it is said that Roberval took with him his niece Marguerite, a high-born lady, who was accompanied by an old companion or nurse.  Marguerite was travelling with her uncle because, unknown to him, she had a lover who had sailed with him on this expedition and whom she hoped to marry.  As they crossed the Atlantic these facts leaked out, and Roberval resolved to bide his time and punish his niece for her deception.  As they passed the coast of Southern Labrador Marguerite and her old nurse were seized and put into a boat, Roberval ordering his sailors to row them ashore to an island, and leave them to their fate.  They were given four guns with ammunition and a small supply of provisions.  But, as the boat was leaving the ship, Marguerite’s lover threw himself into the sea and swam to the island.  Here, according to the story which Marguerite is supposed to have told afterwards, they endeavoured to live by killing the wild animals and eating their flesh; but her lover-husband died, so also did her child soon after it was born, and then the old nurse, and the unhappy Marguerite was left alone with the wild beasts, especially the white Polar bears, who thronged round her hut.  Nevertheless she kept them at bay with her arquebus, and managed somehow to support an existence, until after nineteen months’ isolation the ascending smoke of her fire was seen by people on one of the many fishing vessels 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