here is no record whence they
were taken, but it is supposed from Cape Breton. The reports borne back
to France by these hardy fishermen and adventurers were not such as to
raise sanguine hopes of riches from the bleak northern regions they had
visited: no teeming fertility or genial climate tempted the settler, no
mines of gold or silver excited the avarice of the soldier;[61] and for
many years the French altogether neglected to profit by their
discoveries.

In the mean time, Pope Alexander VI. issued a bull bestowing the whole
of the New World upon the kings of Spain and Portugal.[62] Neither
England nor France allowed the right of conferring this magnificent and
undefined gift; it did not throw the slightest obstacle in the path of
British enterprise and discovery, and the high-spirited Francis I. of
France refused to acknowledge the papal decree.[63]

In the year 1523, Francis I. fitted out a squadron of four ships to
pursue discovery[64] in the west; the command was intrusted to Giovanni
Verazzano, of Florence, a navigator of great skill and experience, then
residing in France: he was about thirty-eight years of age, nobly born,
and liberally educated; the causes that induced him to leave his own
country and take service in France are not known. It has often been
remarked as strange that three Italians should have directed the
discoveries of Spain, England, and France, and thus become the
instruments of dividing the dominions of the New World among alien
powers, while their own classic land reaped neither glory nor advantage
from the genius and courage of her sons. Of this first voyage the only
record remaining is a letter from Verazzano to Francis I., dated 8th of
July, 1524, merely stating that he had returned in safety to Dieppe.

At the beginning of the following year Verazzano fitted out and armed a
vessel called the Dauphine, manned with a crew of thirty hands, and
provisioned for eight months. He first directed his course to Madeira;
having reached that island in safety, he left it on the 17th of January
and steered for the west. After a narrow escape from the violence of a
tempest, and having proceeded for about nine hundred leagues, a long,
low line of coast rose to view, never before seen by ancient or modern
navigators. This country appeared thickly peopled by a vigorous race, of
tall stature and athletic form; fearing to risk a landing at first with
his weak force, the adventurer contented himself wi