Today I depart for the New World. It was not long ago that I addressed a letter to Philippe de Chabot, Sieur de Brion, the High Admiral of France himself, and proposed a new voyage of discovery. Alas, he has answered my request and today I prepare to sail. My goal is to continue the success made by Verrazano’s explorations and discover a Northwest Passage to the Far East. Although King Francis I will be commissioning my trip, he has other things in mind. Ever since the Spanish found remarkable treasures of gold and silver in the Americas, he intends to discover riches of his own. My intuition assures me I am correct about the King’s intentions. Just this morning the King charged me “to discover certain islands and lands where it is said that a great quantity of gold, and other precious things, are to be found.”
King Francis I has given me two ships and sixty-one well-appointed men to accompany me on my voyage. My ships are certainly not the same build of a yacht but fit enough to sustain the ruggedness of the ocean. Today a ceremony was conducted in honor of my launch and the men were sworn “to behave themselves truly and faithfully in the service of the most Christian King of France.” We departed under the light of a first quarter moon and sailed west.
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