as added a solid grant from the royal treasury, with which
five vessels were procured and equipped; and to Cartier was given the
post of Captain-General. "We have resolved," says Francis, "to send him
again to the lands of Canada and Hochelaga, which form the extremity
of Asia towards the west." His commission declares the objects of
the enterprise to be discovery, settlement, and the conversion of the
Indians, who are described as "men without knowledge of God or use of
reason,"--a pious design, held doubtless in full sincerity by the royal
profligate, now, in his decline, a fervent champion of the Faith and a
strenuous tormentor of heretics. The machinery of conversion was of
a character somewhat questionable, since Cartier and Roberval were
empowered to ransack the prisons for thieves, robbers, and other
malefactors, to complete their crews and strengthen the colony.
"Whereas," says the King, "we have undertaken this voyage for the honor
of God our Creator, desiring with all our heart to do that which shall
be agreeable to Him, it is our will to perform a compassionate and
meritorious work towards criminals and malefactors, to the end that they
may acknowledge the Creator, return thanks to Him, and mend their lives.
Therefore we have resolved to cause to be delivered to our aforesaid
lieutenant (Roberval), such and so many of the aforesaid criminals
and malefactors detained in our prisons as may seem to him useful and
necessary to be carried to the aforesaid countries." Of the expected
profits of the voyage the adventurers were to have one third and the
King another, while the remainder was to be reserved towards defraying
expenses.

With respect to Donnacona and his tribesmen, basely kidnapped at
Stadacone, their souls had been better cared for than their bodies; for,
having been duly baptized, they all died within a year or two, to the
great detriment, as it proved, of the expedition.

Meanwhile, from beyond the Pyrenees, the Most Catholic King, with
alarmed and jealous eye, watched the preparations of his Most Christian
enemy. America, in his eyes, was one vast province of Spain, to be
vigilantly guarded against the intruding foreigner. To what end were
men mustered, and ships fitted out in the Breton seaports? Was it for
colonization, and if so, where? Was it in Southern Florida, or on the
frozen shores of Baccalaos, of which Breton cod-fishers claimed the
discovery? Or would the French build forts on the Bahama