That the French and especially the Normands had soon afterwards resorted to Newfoundland for the purpose of taking fish, and were actually so engaged there at the time of the Verrazzano voyage, is evident from the letter of John Rut, who commanded one of the ships sent out on a voyage of discovery by Henry VIII of England in 1527.  That voyager states that, driven from the north by the ice, he arrived at St. Johns in Newfoundland on the third of August in that year, and found there eleven Normand, one Breton and two Portuguese vessels, “all a fishing.” [Footnote:  Purchas, III, 809.  Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, pp. 108, 268, and the authorities there cited.] This was at a single point on the coast, and in latitude 47 Degrees 30’ N.; and so large a number of vessels there denotes a growth of many years, at that time, of those fisheries.

These facts not only prove that Newfoundland and Cape Breton were well known in France and Portugal before the Verrazzano voyage and therefore that he did not discover them, but that he must have known of them before, and that the letter is intentionally false in that respect.  It might perhaps be insisted with some plausibility under other circumstances, that he ran along the coast, believing that it was a new land, and therefore made the representation of having discovered it in good faith.  But admitting that it was even possible for him to have sailed along those shores without encountering a single fishing craft which would have assured him that he was not in unknown waters, it is impossible that he could have sailed from Dieppe and returned to that port where, of all the places in France or Europe, the knowledge of these facts most existed, and where they were as familiar as household words, and where they must have entered into the thoughts and hopes of many of its inhabitants, without their being known to him; and that he could have written the letter from that same port, claiming the discovery of the country for himself, without intending a fraud.  It was the port to which Aubert belonged and where he landed the Indians he brought from Newfoundland.  It was the principal port of Normandy from which the fishing vessels made their annual voyages to that country.  It was the port from whence he manned and equipped his own fleet of four ships, with crews which must have been largely composed of Normand sailors who were familiar with the navigation and the coast.  And there was not a citizen of Dieppe, probably, who had not an interest of some nature in one or more of the fishing vessels, and could have told him what country it was that he had explored.