Miguel also was never heard of again. Another expedition, sent out at the expense of the King, a year later, returned without having found a trace of either brother. And yet once more, the oldest of the family, Vasqueanes Cortereal, then governor of Terceira, proposed to undertake the quest in person; but Emanuel refused the necessary permission, declining to risk the lives of more of his subjects.
The Cortereals had no successors among their countrymen in the attempt to reach the Indies by the Northwest Passage; but their voyages opened for Portugal a source of much trade. Individuals, and perhaps companies or associations, soon followed in their track in the pursuit of fish, until the Portuguese enterprises of this sort on the American coasts grew to large proportions, and produced considerable revenue for the State.
The consolidation of France into one great kingdom may be said to date from 1524, when the death of Claude, the wife of Francis I., vested the hereditary right to the succession of Brittany in the crown of France. The marriage of Charles VIII. with Anne, Claude’s mother, in 1491, had brought the last of the feudal fiefs into subjection; but it required many years to make the inhabitants of these provinces Frenchmen, and the rulers at Paris exercised little authority over the towns and principalities of the interior. The coasts of Normandy and Brittany were peopled by a race of adventurous mariners, some of them exercising considerable power; as, for instance, the Angos of Dieppe, one of whom (Jean) was ennobled, and created viscount and captain of that town. Such places as Dieppe, Honfleur, St. Malo, and others had already furnished men and leaders for voyages of exploration and discovery. These had made expeditions to the Canaries and the African coast, and the fishing population of the French provinces were not unused to voyages of considerable length. They were not slow, then, in seeking a share in the advantages offered by the new countries discovered by Cabot and Cortereal, and they speedily became skilful and powerful in the American fisheries. The fishermen of the ports of Brittany are known to have reached the Newfoundland shores as early as 1504. They have left there an enduring trace in the name of Cape Breton, which, in one form or another, is found upon very early maps. Two years afterward Jean Denys, who was from Honfleur, is said to have visited the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and to have made a chart of it; but what now passes for such a chart is clearly of later origin. Another two years elapse, and we read of the voyage, in 1508, of a Dieppe mariner, Thomas Aubert by name, who is said to have brought home the first specimens of the American natives. A contemporary chronicle relates the visit of seven of those savages to Rouen in 1509. The frequency of the voyages of these fishermen and their skill in navigation are proved by the provision in Juan de Agramonte’s commission from the Spanish Crown, in 1511, that he might employ as pilots of his proposed expedition two mariners from Brittany.[11] In 1518, or (as M. d’Avezac thinks) perhaps a few years later, the Baron de Léry attempted a French settlement in the new country. But storms and unfavorable circumstances brought about the failure of this expedition.[12]