1516-1627

COLONIZATION

UNDER THE EARLY TRADING COMPANIES OF NEW FRANCE

FRENCH COLONIZATION, A CHRISTIANIZING MOVEMENT—THE CROSS AND THE CROWN—ROBERVAL'S COMMISSION TO COLONIZE CANADA AND HOCHELAGA—FEUDALISM PROJECTED—CRIMINALS AND MALEFACTORS TO BE SENT AS COLONISTS—JACQUES CARTIER SAILS IN ADVANCE—CHARLESBOURG ROYAL, THE FIRST COLONY, STARTED—CARTIER SAILS FOR HOCHELAGA AND PASSES TUTONAGUY—CARTIER SAILS SECRETLY FOR FRANCE—CHARLESBOURG A FAILURE—DEATH OF CARTIER—HIS GREAT NEPHEW, NOEL, VISITS THE GREAT SAULT IN 1557—THE FIRST PRIVATE MONOPOLY TO NOEL AND OTHERS—THE FIRST ROYAL TRADE MONOPOLY TO DE LA ROCHE—THE EDICT OF NANTES—CHAUVIN, A HUGUENOT, SECURES A TRADE MONOPOLY—TADOUSSAC, THE COURT OF KING PETAUD—EYMARD DE CHASTES RECEIVES A COMMISSION AND ENGAGES THE SERVICES OF A ROYAL GEOGRAPHER, SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN—CHAMPLAIN's FIRST VISIT TO THE SAULT—DE MONTS, SUCCEEDING DE CHASTES, RETAINS CHAMPLAIN AS HIS LIEUTENANT—QUEBEC CHOSEN BY CHAMPLAIN—CHAMPLAIN BECOMES A COMPANY PROMOTER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, THE SHAREHOLDERS BEING MOSTLY HUGUENOTS, THE PRINCE DE CONDE, GOVERNOR GENERAL—CHAMPLAIN's BLUNDER IN ALLYING HIMSELF WITH THE ALGONQUINS AND HURONS AGAINST THE IROQUOIS, AFTERWARDS THE CAUSE OF IROQUOIS HOSTILITIES AGAINST THE FUTURE MONTREAL—THE COMING OF THE "RECOLLECTS"—CHAMPLAIN'S ATTEMPT AT A REAL COLONIZING SETTLEMENT AT QUEBEC—THE JESUITS ARRIVE—THE COMPANY OF ONE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES.

As the origin of Montreal is bound up so closely with the history of the colonization of La Nouvelle France, it is well to place it in relation with this movement, otherwise Montreal will appear as detached from its mission in the growth and development of Canada.

The date usually assigned for the discovery of Canada is April 5, 1409, but the knowledge of Canada begins only with Jacques Cartier. Long, however, before him, the fishing grounds of Newfoundland had seen navigators from Dieppe, St. Malo, La Rochelle, Honfleur and other ports of France, besides those of Cornwall, Devonshire and the Channel Islands. Brave mariners, Normands, Bretons and Basques, besides being familiar with Newfoundland, knew vaguely of the existence of Canada, although that name had not been yet attached to this country. Other nations also were represented in these fishing regions, but it was reserved to Cartier definitely to discover it, and to Francis I of France, to attempt to colonize and christianize it.

It must be conceded that the religious policy played a great part, as the commissions granted to Cartier, Champlain, and others, as well as the report of these and the relations of their discoveries, amply testify. Lescarbot, no good Catholic, acknowledges that: "Our kings in enterprising these movements for discovery, have had another end than that of our neighbours (the English and the Dutch). For I see by their commissions that these smack only of the advancement of the Christian religion without any present profit."

It is this lofty missionary spirit that we must read into the adventurous motives of the first discoverers and founders of Canada—La Nouvelle France—of Quebec and Montreal in particular, else nothing but a sordid desire for trade, mixed perhaps with adventure, is to be the story of the origin of our great country. Unless the religious character and close touch with the supernatural, possessed by the first inhabitants are appreciated, the romance of the accounts of the early historians will have no attraction for our readers nor will the key to the understanding of the history of Canada till the occupation by the British in 1760 be supplied.

We must look upon Jacques Cartier, when as the bearer of a Royal Commission, he left St. Malo, on April 20, 1534, to conquer new lands for Christianity, as dignified by this side of his duty—to promote the glory of God and that of France. Consequently his progress up the River St. Lawrence to Hochelaga is marked by such incidents as the distribution of rosaries and pious objects, emblems of the faith he believed in, and the planting at GaspÉ of a cross thirty feet high, in the middle of which was a shield with three fleurs de lis, with the inscription, cut into the wood, "Vive Le Roi de France." His course and that of Champlain, up the St. Lawrence is strewn with a number of places named after the festivals of the church, all dignifying an otherwise prosaic catalogue of discoveries. The cross and the crown of France may therefore be considered the emblems of the French occupation.

It is not the purpose of this book to detail Cartier's voyages, three of which we have recounted by himself, those of 1534, 1535-36, and 1540. We have, however, chosen several extracts from the second voyage, as these relate especially to Montreal. We wish to gather the results of his work. He left no permanent settlement and established no trading posts but he claimed the land for France and his accounts to the king and the ministers and his published voyages of the country of Canada, Hochelaga and Saguenay, kept before his countrymen the existence of a great land in the West worth the colonizing.

Cartier's commission in the first voyage was that of "Captain and Master Pilot of the King;" in the second, "Captain General and Master Pilot." When he was sent on his third voyage, a new element entered into the view of Canada. At the head of the expedition was placed a gentleman of Picardy, Jean FranÇois de la Rocque Seigneur de Roberval, whom Francis I playfully styled the Petty King of Vimeux, and whom he appointed his lieutenant and governor in the countries of Canada and Hochelaga, with Jacques Cartier as "the Captain General and leader of the ships." His commission is dated October 20, 1540. This was to be the first colonizing movement.

Jean FranÇois de la Rocque's letters patent were granted by Francis I, on January 15, 1540. It reads, having learnt of the discovery of countries, "the which have been found furnished with very good commodities, and the people thereof well formed in body and limb and well disposed in disposition and understanding, of which have also been brought us others having the appearance of good inclination. In consideration of which things we have considered and determined to send again into the same countries of Canada and Hochelaga and others circumjacent, as well as into all transmarine and maritime countries inhabited, not possessed nor granted, by any Christian princes, some goodly number of gentlemen, our subjects, as well men of war as common people of each sex, and other craftsmen and mechanics in order to enter further into the said countries; and as far as into the land of the Saguenay and all other countries aforesaid, for the purpose of discoursing with the said peoples therein, if it can be done, and to dwell in the said lands and countries, there to construct and build towns and forts, temples and churches in the communication of our Holy Catholic Faith and Christian doctrine, to constitute and establish laws in our name, together with officers of justice to make them live according to equity and order and in the fear and love of God, to the end that they may better conform to our purpose and do the things agreeable to God, our Creator, Saviour and Redeemer, which may be to the sanctification of His Holy Name and to the increase of our Holy Faith and the growth of our Mother of the Holy Catholic Church, of the which we are said to be and entitled the first son," etc.

The text of the letters patent following is a very long one, it enters most minutely, and in a most legal and formal manner, into the details of the powers of the governor which are to be very great and foresee a thoroughly organized kingdom with all the elements of feudalism with his fiefs and seigneuries—in fact a Nouvelle France!

On January 15th, Roberval's Royal Commission empowering him to take the means for the equipment, was signed at Fontainebleau. It gave to "our said lieutenant full authority, charge, commission and special mandate to provide and furnish of himself all things necessary to said army and to levy or cause to be levied in all parts, places and precincts of our realm as shall seem to him good, paying therefor reasonably, and as is meet, and to take men of war, or artisans and others of divers conditions in order to carry them with him on the said voyage, provided that this may be of their own good will and accord, and likewise also provisions, victuals, arms, artillery, arquebuses, powder, saltpeter, pikes and other offensive and defensive weapons, and generally all clothing, instruments and other things suitable for the equipment, despatch and efficiency of this army," etc. The supply of volunteers for this expedition does not seem to have been sufficiently encouraging, for, dated February 7th, we have an order by Francis I, for delivery of prisoners to Jehan FranÇois de la Rocque. This document after re-stating the terms of the commissions, already given, in view of the wish of the King that the expedition shall sail on the 15th of April, at the latest, states "and on account of the long distance from the said country and the fear of shipwreck and maritime risks, and others regretting to leave their goods, relatives and friends, fearing to make the said voyage; and, peradventure as a number, who would willingly make the same journey, might object to remain in the same country after the return of our said lieutenant, by means of which, through want of having a competent number of men for service, and other volunteers to people the said countries, the undertaking of the said voyage could not be accomplished so soon, and as we desire, and as it is requisite for the weal of the human creatures dwelling in the said country without law and without knowledge of God and of his holy faith, which we wish to increase and augment by a great zeal, a thing if it were not accomplished, which would cause us very great regret, considering the great benefit and public weal which would proceed from the said enterprise, and as we have enjoined and verbally commanded our said lieutenant to diligently execute our said will and intention, to depart and commence the said voyage by the fifteenth of April next ensuing, at farthest if it can be accomplished," etc. * * * "We desire to employ clemency, in doing a good and meritorious work, towards some criminals and malefactors, that by this they may recognize the Creator by rendering him thanks and amending their lives, we have thought proper to have given and delivered to our said lieutenant, his clerks and deputies, to the full number that he shall advise of the said criminals and malefactors detained in the jails and state prisons of our parliament and of other jurisdictions, * * * such as they shall desire to choose and select, condemned and judged as has been said, always excepting the imprisoned criminals to whom we are not accustomed to give pardon * * * commuting the penalty of death into an honest and useful voyage, with the condition that when the said persons return home again from the said voyage without permission from us, they shall be executed in the place in which they may have been condemned, immediately and without hope of pardon."

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.

Things were progressing at the fort; the land was tilled and the fort was begun to be built; but now a party consisting of Cartier, Martin de Painport, with other gentlemen, and the remnant of the mariners, departed with two boats "with victuals to go as far as Hochelaga of purpose to view and understand the fashion of the Saults of water." The Viscount de BeauprÉ stayed behind for the guarding and government of all things in the fort. Cartier's party reached the rapids passing Tutonaguy, which we identify as the site of Montreal, but we have no record of his staying there. Cartier's memoirs of the voyage break off here. However, as we are interested only in the colonizing movement, we get sufficient information from Roberval's account of his voyage of the fate of the Charlesbourg attempt. Roberval says that Cartier left for France at the end of September, 1541, and that he himself after having set sail from Honfleur, on the 16th of April, 1542, arrived at Newfoundland on the 7th of June following, where he found Cartier on his way home. Cartier explained that he had left the fort because he had not been able, with his little troupe, to resist the savages who roamed daily around the fort, and were very harassing. However, Cartier and his men praised the country highly, as being very rich and fertile, adding that they had taken away many diamonds, and a certain quantity of gold ore which Roberval examined and found good. Roberval had arrived with three great vessels fitted out at the expense of the King, with 200 souls, men and women and some gentlemen, among them being the Sieur de Lenneterre, his lieutenant, Lespinay, his ensign, the Captain Guinecourt, and the pilot, Jean Alphonse. He ordered Cartier to retrace his steps to Charlesbourg, believing that the new recruitment was able to resist the attacks of the enemy. But Cartier, and his following, departed secretly the following night. Whether or not this flight was disloyal, or born of fear, or of vainglory, since Roberval asserted, that Cartier had fled being desirous of getting first to France to acquaint the king of his discoveries, certain it is that it was wise. For this first royal colonizing party composed of so many men and women from the jails of France was fated to be a most lamentable failure. Famine and lawlessness marked its sojourn at Charlesbourg. It was well that New France should not be born of such material for citizenship. This voyage has an interest for Montrealers in that Roberval passed by it on a voyage to the Sault.

Cartier never seems to have been blamed by the king for his desertion of Roberval, but, it is said, he was sent back to recall him for more useful service in France. Of this fourth voyage of Jacques Cartier we have no record. We find him settled in France, ennobled and known as the Sieur de Limoilou, although there is a tradition, not well founded, that he made a fifth voyage to Canada. He lived an honoured man in St. Malo to his death. In the margin of the old record of the Town of St. Malo under date of September 1, 1557, we find the following:

"This said Wednesday about five o'clock in the morning died Jacques Cartier."

Cartier's name is no longer to be associated with the further history of Canada, except in the memory of a grateful people, who will come to admire the memory of this brave sailor, daring adventurer, missionary and historian—the discoverer of Canada and Montreal. We shall see, however, how this spirit of enterprise for Canadian extension was carried on by his nephews.

We cannot help feeling sorry for Roberval. He was a young man of energy and had great ideas as a colonizer. He went out, according to Charlevoix, with the Royal Commission as "Lord of Norumberga, Viceroy and Lieutenant General of Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle-Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay and Baccalaos." He was recalled for more useful service!

After Cartier had ceased visiting the St. Lawrence, the care of the French government for the development and colonization of Canada seems to have been neglected from 1543 to 1603. Cartier's discoveries were not appreciated; it was reserved for Champlain three-quarters of a century later, to follow in his footsteps. As Champlain is the trader par excellence of Canada and of Montreal, we may now briefly trace the history of our trade.

Although discovery and colonization were so long abandoned still the banks of Newfoundland and the mouth of the St. Lawrence were frequented yearly by hardy Normans and Bretons as before, for the cod and whale fishery there. [21] Trading with the natives in peltry became insensibly mingled with the occupation of fisherman and Tadoussac grew to be a public market for this sort of commerce and exchange. There we would have found many good friends of Jacques Cartier, among them Capt. Marc Jalobert, his brother-in-law, who visited Hochelaga in 1535 and Etienne NoËl, his nephew, also a sturdy captain under Cartier in his third voyage. There, too, would have been Jacques NoËl, his great-nephew, who reports in a letter of 1557 that he had gone on his uncle's traces up the St. Lawrence as far as the Great Sault. This visit to Hochelaga makes us interested in him, the more so, as it was this NoËl, associated with Sieur de la Jaunaye-Chaton and the nephew of Jacques Cartier, who in 1558 applied to Henry III for a charter similar to that granted by Francis I to their uncle, appealing for this favour on the ground that their uncle had spent, from his own pocket in the service of the king in the voyage of 1541, a sum in excess of that which he had received from the king, and had been allowed no recompense; nor had indeed his heirs. Warned by the failures and the expenses of the past the King demurred. Cartier's nephew then compromised. They offered to renew their uncle's design and to form a French colony in Canada to Christianize the savages, all at their own expense, provided that the king would grant them the sole privilege for twelve years of trading with the inhabitants, principally in peltry and that he would forbid interference of rivals with them in this privilege and in the exploitation of a mine discovered by them. To this the King consented by a favour of January 14, 1588. This monopoly, the first of its kind, was soon revoked at the instance of jealous rival traders of St. Malo who obtained a revocation of the charter on the 5th of May following for they considered that the good things coming from Jacques Cartier's discoveries were to be shared in by all of St. Malo, since they belonged to all and not to his nephews alone.

This attempt to obtain a private monopoly having failed, we are surprised to find a monopoly being granted in 1589 by Henry IV to a gentleman of Brittany, the Sieur de la Roche, apparently in accordance with a promise given verbally or otherwise by Henry III at sometime before his assassination in August, 1659. This document was one similar to that granted by Francis I to Roberval and it made de la Roche the king's lieutenant governor in New France—with real vice-regal privileges. The commission differed in this from Roberval's that it gave power to the lieutenant general to choose merchants to accompany him and forbade all others to trade in the same regions without his consent under penalty of confiscation of merchandise and vessels. Again a miserable fiasco was to take place. The lieutenant governor had to draw upon the jails and galleys for his colonists. He arrived with sixty men under the direction of pilot Chedotel at Sable Island, twenty-five leagues to the south of the Island of Cape Breton. Arrived there he disembarked, according to Lescarbot, the greater part of those he had drawn from the prisons, left them provisions and merchandise, and promised to return for them as soon as he had found on the mainland, a suitable place for settlement. Taking a little bark, he went to the Acadian coast, but on returning was surprised by so violent a wind that he was driven back to France in less than twelve days. The fate of the abandoned colonists had better be told by Champlain. In the description of his voyages, dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu and published in 1632, Champlain's criticism of de la Roche's expedition was "that the fault of this attempt at colonizing was that this marquis did not have some one experienced in such matters explore and reconnoitre, before assuming so excessive an outlay." On the other hand we can be glad that Canada did not start her origin as a colony with such stuff as composed the greater part of Roberval's and de la Roche's consignments.

In 1598 the Edict of Nantes had been published in France and it was soon to affect Canada in this wise. In France it had restored civil and religious liberty to the Huguenots, Protestants or French Calvinists. The spirit of conciliation was in the air and Huguenots now began to take their place in the judicature and financial posts, and in the army. Next year we find a sailor merchant of St. Malo named Dupont GravÉ soliciting a commission for Sieur Chauvin, of Normandy, a Huguenot, a man of great skill and experience in navigation, captain in the King's navy and of some influence at the court. As the King remembered the good services of M. Chauvin he granted a monopoly to him on the condition that no one should trade in Canada unless he had Chauvin's permission and should settle in the country and make a home there. Chauvin was to bear all the expenses, and he was to take 500 men to fortify the country and defend it, and to teach the Catholic faith to the Indians.

Tadoussac was chosen as the headquarters. Thither Chauvin and Dupont GravÉ and a Huguenot, Pierre Dugas, Sieur de Monts, a prospector who came out on "pleasure," went with an advance party. Tadoussac had been well enough for a summer trading post but, says Champlain, "if there is an ounce of cold forty leagues up the river there is a pound at Tadoussac." However, they fixed up a guardlike building of wood, 25 feet long by 18 wide, and 8 feet high. This was to harbour seventeen men and provisions. "Behold them there very warm for the winter," chuckles Champlain, who had no love for the Huguenots. The leaders went to France and during the winter the settlement at Tadoussac was "the Court of King PÉtaud; each one wished to command. Laziness, idleness, and the diseases that attacked those remaining, reduced them to great want and obliged them to give themselves up to the savages, who kindly harboured them and they left their lodging. Some died miserably; others suffered a great deal while waiting for the return of the ships." In the next year a second voyage as fruitless as the first was made, by Chauvin. He assayed another but fell into an illness which sent him to another world. We have Champlain's comment in the account published in 1632 on this attempt at colonization. "The trouble with this undertaking was giving to a man of opposing religion a commission to establish a nursery for the Catholic Apostolic and Roman faith [22] of which the heretics have such a horror and abomination. These are the defects that must be mentioned in regard to the enterprise."

After the death of Chauvin, the same commission of lieutenant general was applied for, by Eymard de Chastes, Knight of Malta, Commander of Lormetan, Grand Master of the Order of St. Lazarus and Governor of Dieppe. Henry IV granted it and de Chaste should have made a good colonizer for he intimated that in making his application it was in the intention of betaking himself thither in person and of devoting the rest of his years to the service of God and that of his king, but he was not to live long. In order to meet the expenses of the expedition Commander de Chastes formed a company of several of the principal merchants of Rouen and elsewhere. He chose the explorer, Dupont GravÉ, to direct the flotilla as before to Tadoussac, and he desired him to associate with himself in his further explorations for which he had received a commission from the king, a young captain of Saintonge, who had already given undoubted proof of his ability as a zealous, courageous and intelligent explorer.

This was none other than Samuel de Champlain, whose name is to be connected this very year of 1603 with Montreal and more lastingly in 1611. He is to become entitled to be called the founder of La Nouvelle France. De Champlain had been living at Dieppe after his return from a visit of two years to the West Indies and New Spain, for which he had started early in 1599 in command of a French ship chartered by the Spanish authorities and in which he had sailed under his uncle, a man of distinction, in the previous year. During this period he had the opportunity of observing and studying a European colony before trying to found one himself. His "Brief discours des choses plus remarquables que Samuel Champlain de Brouage a reconnues aux Indes Occidentales, au voyage qu' il y a fait," was the result of this experience.

Champlain was now thirty-six years of age, having been born about the year 1567 at Brouage, a small seaport town in the old province of Saintonge, southeast of Rochefort and opposite the island of OlÉron. Champlain's father was a sailor, being a captain of the marine; his uncle's position we have seen. Hence we do not wonder, when he tells us of himself: "From my earliest years the art of navigation attracted me, made me love the sea and drove me to expose myself nearly all my life to the wild waves of the ocean. It has made me explore the coasts of a part of the lands of America, and principally those of 'La Nouvelle France,' where I have always had the desire to cause the lily to flourish with the only Catholic religion, Apostolic and Roman." But Champlain was also a soldier, for, having taken up the cause of Henry IV in the troublous times of the League, he had served in Brittany under MarÉchals de Daumont de St. Luc and de Brissac and held during several years the rank of MarÉchal de Logis in the royal army. He held this position till May 2, 1598, when peace between France and Spain was established by the treaty of Vervins. Then again he turned to the sea and went with his uncle to Spain, and afterward to Spanish America as we have said. On his return he seems to be in favour with, and in the service of, the King. He is in receipt of a pension, either for his services in the army, or, as it has been supposed, because the King, having been shown the notes and topographical sketches taken by Champlain in his late voyage, had given him the title of Royal Geographer; but when Commander de Chastes, who doubtless also had seen the manuscripts, offered him a post in his new expedition, Champlain told him he must obtain the king's permission for him to embark as indeed de Chastes did. Moreover, the king commissioned Champlain to report faithfully on his discoveries.

So Dupont GravÉ and Champlain set out for Tadoussac and on the 18th of June, reaching it, made for the Grand Sault. They passed by Quebec, "which is a strait of the River of Canada, and anchored till Monday, June 28th, and thence proceeding examined and named Three Rivers and found it good for a future settlement." Finally on Wednesday, July 2, the feast of the Visitation, they reached the entrance of the Sault. We will reserve this visit to its proper chapter. After their exploration on July 4th they turned back to Tadoussac and thence to France, where they learned of the death of the worthy Commander de Chastes at Dieppe on Tuesday, May 13, 1603. To replace de Chastes, that same Sieur de Monts, who prospected Tadoussac with Chauvin, now took command of the reins of government as lieutenant general, having applied for a similar charter as the last. He was a Huguenot and was Governor of Paris for the Protestant party. He continued the same association, employing Dupont GravÉ and Champlain. With them was the gentleman adventurer, the Sieur de Poutrincourt. They set sail from Havre on the 7th of March, 1604, this time for Acadia. A site, since called "Port Royal," was chosen by Poutrincourt and granted on condition he should return.

After having abandoned Acadia in 1607, de Monts now turned his attention to Canada. He did this the more readily because the king gave him for one year the exclusive right of the fur trade. Champlain, hitherto a man subordinate, was charged by the lieutenant general as his lieutenant. Champlain sailed from France on the 13th of April, arrived at Tadoussac on the 3d of June and ascending the St. Lawrence, named Cape Tourment and Montmorency Falls and, reaching StadaconÉ, he chose that place called KÉbec by the natives and began to take possession of it in the name of M. de Monts, and to construct a fort. Champlain's instinct as a city planner was distinctly manifested in the choice of the bold promontory whose bases are washed by the Rivers St. Lawrence, Cap Rouge and St. Charles and whose outlook from the promontory above is one of the grandest in the world. There were twenty-eight men sent by de Monts for the expedition. A plot having arisen among these to kill Champlain, one of the conspirators was beheaded and three others were sent back to France. Soon, also, some twenty died of scurvy or of dysentery caused by the eating of eels to excess. The colony was now a cipher. Meanwhile, in France, de Monts' one year's monopoly was revoked owing to the jealousy of the merchants there. The question of the sale of the habitation of Quebec came up, as the post appeared to be unnecessary if there was to be no monopoly. Sieur de Monts remained governor general. Seeing the danger of de Monts' enterprise breaking up, through the trading with the savages being thrown open to other traders, Champlain began to look out for himself and to cast his eyes on the Great Sault as a trading post for himself. Thither he now went, as shall be related hereafter.

About this time, as the prohibition of trading had been removed from private individuals, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the river was a scene of rival barks of greedy, avaricious, envious people without harmony and without chief. On his return to France as de Monts wished to resign his command, Champlain went to court to get permission to form a company with exclusive rights and he was advised to invite Charles de Bourbon, Count of Soissons, to accept the governor generalship on the ground that his powerful protectorate would control order among the traders in Canadian waters. This was accepted, and after the necessary documents had been made out, but before being published, the count died. The Prince de CondÉ, Henri de Bourbon, then accepting the protectorate, received his commission, and named Samuel de Champlain his lieutenant. But the commission was not published, owing to representations being made to the Prince de CondÉ that such an association was prejudicial to trade. The delay was doubtless annoying to Champlain. However, as the old company was not yet dissolved, Champlain, not wishing to lose the fur trade for the current year, ran off again to Canada. On his return to France he went to Fontainebleau, where the King and the Prince of CondÉ were.

Champlain was now successful as a company promoter. He contrived to get his opposing merchants to come into the scheme themselves, and form a company, of which they made him the managing director in Canada, with a yearly salary of two hundred Écus for looking after their interests. The Prince of CondÉ became the governor general and the commission gave a monopoly for eleven years. The usual powers were given as we have seen before of absolute power, the proviso of bringing the savages to the light of the Holy Roman and Catholic and Apostolic religion being included as usual. This seems strange considering that all the merchants of the new company were Huguenot Protestants.

On arriving in Canada Champlain soon made his first great mistake. He was about to commence the great work of colonization of La Nouvelle France, in which he was to succeed, but his first important step was a great blunder and one from which La Nouvelle France was to suffer for many years. The whole story of the Iroquois attacks, which terrorized the French settlements and Montreal for so many years, is bound up in the policy now initiated by the colonial builder of Canada. It will be remembered that in the commissions granted to those sent out to Canada, side by side with the duty of taking every means to attract the natives to Christianity, was the privilege to contract alliances with the natives and if they did not keep their treaties to force them by open warfare, and to make peace or war—but all this, be it understood, in accordance with the dignity of a great power and following established methods of diplomacy. Champlain's fault lies in this, that having arrived in Canada in the spring of 1605 as the representative of the king of France, he was tempted, for the sake of the petty reason of securing traffic facilities, to jeopardize the future by taking sides with the Algonquins and Hurons, who were then in open warfare with the Iroquois. Instead of remembering that the future peace of the colony depended on his neutrality, he went with the few men of the colony against the Iroquois, and with his modern weapons caused deadly havoc among the bewildered Iroquois, who thenceforth became the irreconcilable enemy of the Frenchmen. They never forgot this needless intrusion of the Frenchmen into their quarrels; thus they were implacable in their attacks on their Algonquin allies, and were ready later to ally themselves with the English in their campaign against the colony. It certainly made the work of Christianizing and civilizing the people later very difficult. Champlain's blunder at the battle of Lake Champlain on July 29, 1609, has been avoided in subsequent colonization schemes of other nations as far as possible. This is one of the uses of history.

So far we have seen that the two chief conditions, on which the trading companies were granted their monopolies, were those of taking steps to colonize and to Christianize. Neither had been observed. The merchants were there for business and nothing else. Be it said, however, to Champlain's credit that he was more ready than any of the others to carry out both conditions. In 1615 he secured the four Recollect Fathers of whom we shall speak. Their memoirs reveal a pitiable state of irreligion, and apathy towards the policy of French colonization and Christianizing the natives. Thus in Quebec, in 1617, there were only fifty to sixty Frenchmen, in 1620 only sixty men, women and children and religious all told. There seems to have been only one family, that of the colonist, Louis HÉbert, and he had a sorry time to make a living. Louis HÉbert was an apothecary and thus he was useful to be tolerated, by the merchants. Some day HÉbert will have a monument raised to Him to commemorate his efforts to commence agriculture in Canada.

Towards the end of the year Champlain's blunder begins to have its fruits, for the savages around Quebec determined to exterminate the French settlement. In the sequel, they satisfied their vengeance by killing only two secretly, but it was a sign of more to follow. Meanwhile what were the gentlemen with the high sounding titles of governor general and viceroy of the king doing to carry on the wonderful scheme outlined in their commissions? They were like modern titled directors of speculating companies, drawing their fees. Thus the Prince of CondÉ drew 1,000 Écus, then while he was in prison his successor to the fees, the MarÉchal de ThÉmines drew 5,000, to be followed by 11,000 drawn by the Duke de Montmorency, a young man of twenty-five years, appointed governor general in 1618. This was a drain on the merchants. Still it was better than losing their privileges.

The new governor general, Montmorency, appointed Champlain his particular lieutenant. In fact, Champlain may be called the acting governor. This looked at last like a real attempt to make a true settlement. Champlain now brought Madame de Champlain out and others, and with them Madame Champlain brought her furniture. The Recollect Father, Denis Jamay, came back with two other Recollects. The day after arrival at Quebec, after mass and a sermon in the chapel exhorting all the colonists to obedience to the king, they all assembled and the commission of His Majesty to Montmorency was read, as well as that of Montmorency to Champlain as his lieutenant. The cannon spoke amid the cries of "Vive le Roi" and Champlain took possession of the Habitation in the name of the Duke of Montmorency. It became Government House. Obliged by his commission to carry on justice, Champlain now looked out for the most capable men in the country to act with him on the bench of justice. The king's procuratorship fell to Louis HÉbert, while the office of lieutenant de prevost was taken by Gilbert Coursera, and a man named Nicholas became the clerk of the Court of Quebec. Champlain took the direction of the "police."

Building activities were now taking place. The Recollects commenced the foundations for a convent and a seminary, for the native children, under the name of Notre Dame des Anges, the stone being laid by Father Jean d'Olbeau on June 3d. Champlain began to build another habitation on the hill which he named the Fort St. Louis. He also began tilling the ground and making a garden, a work which he delighted in. He was seconded in such enterprises by the Recollects. He next prepared to receive cattle. But there were only forty-five people at the habitation and the company was not sending more. In order to better things Montmorency in 1621 formed another company opposed to that of which M. de Monts was still head and he placed in command two Huguenots, Guillaume de Caen and Emery de Caen, uncle and nephew. The new company was opposed to the old but a union was effected between them: still with no better results. In the beginning of 1625 Henri de LÉvy, Duke de Vantadour, a pious nobleman who afterwards became a religious, succeeded his uncle, the Duke de Montmorency, as governor general. Negotiations pending the introduction of Jesuits, on the request of the Recollects, were now concluded. Accordingly he sent at his own expense Fathers Lalement, BrÉbeuf, MassÉ and two lay brothers, who arrived in the absence of Champlain and were coldly received by de Caen, who offered them no hospitality. The Recollects, however, entertained them at their convent, for two years and a half, until their own buildings were ready. In 1627, a year of great famine, the above company was supplanted by the famous Company of One Hundred Partners or Associates.

[21] For the purposes of trade the connection with Canada never ceased. In 1578 there were 100 French vessels at Newfoundland besides 200 Spanish, Portugese and English vessels. (Kingsford, Vol. I, Page 12.)