6 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

the fleet set sail, arriving at the port of its destination on the 10th July, 1536, bearing the tidings of the great discovery of an Indian nation named Kanahda, but which was destined to be known to the world for all time to come as Canada.

From the date of that failure no other attempt at colonizing was made by the French for a period of five years, when a nobleman named Roberval, was appointed Lieutenant General over Canada, with authority to colonize the country, for which purpose a fleet of five ships was made ready, loaded with people and material, and placed under the command of the old veteran Jacques Cartier. He sailed from St. Malo on the 23rd May, 1541, and arrived up the St. Lawrence, where a settlement was commenced. The following year five ships more reached the settlement; but, notwithstanding all the care taken to secure the complete founding of a colony, it proved a failure likewise, and the emigrants therefore re—embarked for France.

Meanwhile French and English trading vessels had found their way to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and opened a trade with the natives; giving them in exchange for skins of wild animals, hatchets, knives, cloth, iron and brass vessels, fire—arms, etc., in the use of which they soon became skillful.