An extract from the Parliament Registers at Rouen of March 9th, giving power to Roberval to have the prisoners transferred from its jails to him limits the choice somewhat by "excepting the prisoners who shall be held in cases and crimes of heresy and high treason in the first degree, of counterfeiting money and other too monstrous cases and crimes."
Roberval could not get his party together for April. Indeed it seemed that he needed Jacques Cartier's assistance, for on October 17, 1540, we find him receiving a commission similar to Roberval's to take over fifty prisoners. In this charge he is allowed and permitted "to take the little galleon, called L'Emerillon which he now has of us, the which is already old and rotten, in order to serve in repairing those of the ships which shall have need of it," without rendering any account of it. But it was not till May 23d of the year following, 1541, that Cartier set sail with five ships, well furnished and victualed for two years. He went without Roberval, because as the King had sent Cartier letters "whereby he did expressly charge him to depart and set sail immediately upon the sight and receipt thereof, on pain of incurring his displeasure, and as Roberval had not got his artillery, powder and ammunitions ready he told Cartier to go on ahead and he would prepare a ship or two at Honfleur whither he expected his things were to come. Having mustered and reviewed "the gentleman soldiers and mariners which were retained and chosen for the performance of the said voyage, he gave unto Captain Cartier full authority to depart and go before and to govern all things as if he had been there in person."
So Cartier sailed away, on May 23d. We will leave the misfortunes on the way to be read in Cartier's memoir of the third voyage. At last, however, Cartier arrived at the mouth of what is now Cape Rouge River and found a spot where a fort should be built on the high point now called Redclyffe. This fort he called Charlesbourg Royal, doubtless after Charles, Duke of Orléans, son of Francis I. He put three of the vessels in haven, and after the two others were emptied of all that was destined for the colony, Cartier sent them back and with them in command Marc Jalobert, his brother-in-law, and Etienne Noël, his nephew, to tell King Francis that they had begun to construct a fort, but that Monsieur de Roberval was not yet come and that he feared that by occasion of contrary winds and tempests he was driven back to France. They departed for St. Malo on September 2d.