The Voyage of Etienne Bellenger to the Maritimes in 1583: A New Document

Abstract

of the St. Lawrence penetration of North America by France under Champlain there is a long gap, only very partially filled by the revival in interest though not in action which the appointment of Tro'fius de Mesgouez, marquis de la Roche, to act as royal governor in New France, 1577-$, seemed to mark, and the undoubted re-penetration of the river by small, fur-trading expeditions from 1551 onwards. x What has not been examined, and indeed has sccmcd incapable of examination for lack of materials, isFrench activity southwards from Cape Breton in thee last quarter of the sixteenth century. The predominance of Breton fishing vessels •usino the Cape Breton area, evident in the earlier part of the century, had given way to the dominance of the Basques, mainly French but with Spaniards amongst them, later in the century. It is highly probable that before 1550 they ranged not only down the coast of Nova Scotia, but also along the New England shores where Englishmen were to find traces of them at the opening of the seventeenth century. But, being fishermen, with some though probably not major fur-trading interests, they left no trace, it appeaxs, inthe records of their home ports of precisely where they went. Indeed, what little knowledoe we have of them in action comes, in the 'nineties, from English sources. This absence of information gives all the more value to what can be gleaned of a Norman voyage under the command of Etienne Bellenger in 1583 which explored the coasts outhwards from Cape Breton, coasted the southern shore of Nova Scotia, and then turned along its north coast into the Bay of Fundy, following its limits around southern New Brunswick and, in open sea again, some way along the coast of Maine, before turning homewards for France.

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