Devout Catholics, kindling with redoubled zeal, would
fain requite the Church for her losses in the Old World by winning to
her fold the infidels of the New. But, in pursuing an end at once so
pious and so politic, Francis the First was setting at naught the
supreme Pontiff himself, since, by the preposterous bull of Alexander
the Sixth, all America had been given to the Spaniards.
In October, 1534, Cartier received from Chabot another commission, and,
in spite of secret but bitter opposition from jealous traders of St.
Malo, he prepared for a second voyage. Three vessels, the largest not
above a hundred and twenty tons, were placed at his disposal, and Claude
de Pontbriand, Charles de la Pommeraye, and other gentlemen of birth,
enrolled themselves for the adventure. On the sixteenth of May, 1535,
officers and sailors assembled in the cathedral of St. Malo, where,
after confession and mass, they received the parting blessing of the
bishop. Three days later they set sail. The dingy walls of the rude old
seaport, and the white rocks that line the neighboring shores of
Brittany, faded from their sight, and soon they were tossing in a
furious tempest. The scattered ships escaped the danger, and, reuniting
at the Straits of Belle Isle, steered westward along the coast of
Labrador, till they reached a small bay opposite the island of
Anticosti.
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