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.