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The use of this name, destined to mean so much to later generations, here appears for the first time in Cartier's narrative. The word was evidently taken from the lips of the savages, but its exact significance has remained a matter of dispute. The most fantastic derivations have been suggested.
But Cartier was in no mind to run the risk of closer contact with so numerous a company of savages. The French would not approach the fleet of canoes, and the savages, seeing this, began to press in on the strangers. For a moment affairs looked threatening. Cartier's boat was surrounded by seven canoes filled with painted, gibbering savages. But the French had a formidable defence.
His Exploration of the St. Lawrence. A Bitter Winter. Cartier's Treachery and its Punishment. Roberval's Disastrous Expedition. How early the first Frenchmen visited America it is hard to say.
Luckily, the chief to whom the news was first told was Donnacona's successor, and, as might have been expected, he showed no dissatisfaction at Cartier's story. The French then settled themselves in their old quarters at Quebec.
When the ice had left the river, and the snows the land, Roberval determined to make an effort to explore the great inland seas which had been depicted on Cartier's map, and if possible to find the spot where the nugget of gold had been discovered.
From the period of Cartier's and Roberval's expeditions nearly fifty years elapsed before France renewed her efforts to colonize the New World. About the year 1598 the lucrative fur trade began to be encouraged by Henry IV, of France, who in the brief respite from religious wars was turning his attention to colonization and commerce. In 1603 Samuel de Champlain, a French naval officer of high character and chivalrous instincts, made his first voyage to Canada in company with M. Pontegravé, a merchant of St. Malo, and together they pushed their way up the St. Lawrence as far as the rapids above Montreal, which Champlain named Lachine (
The Emerillon was left at anchor out in the St Lawrence, in readiness for the continuance of the journey, but the two larger vessels were moored at the point where a rivulet, the Lairet, runs into the St Charles. It was on the left bank of the Lairet that Cartier's fort was presently constructed for his winter occupancy.
That Sir John Macdonald entertained the warmest feelings of unbroken regard for his colleague, I know, for he told me so many times; and Cartier's correspondence plainly indicates that these sentiments were fully reciprocated. Sir George Cartier was a man who devoted his whole life to the public service of his country.
As they passed Hochelay the abode of the supposed friendly chief near Portneuf they learned that he had gone down the river ahead of them to devise means with Agouhanna for the destruction of the expedition. Cartier's narrative ends at this most dramatic moment of his adventures. He seems to have reached the encampment at Cap Rouge at the very moment when an Indian assault was imminent.
Lanctot was too busy at this time with the political campaign he was carrying on in the press and on the platform against Cartier's Confederation policy to look after his clients, and the office work fell mainly to his junior partner. It was a curiously assorted partnership: Lanctot with his headlong and reckless passion, Laurier with his cool, discriminating moderation: but it lasted a year.
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