The Conquest of Canada, Vol. 1. George Warburton
reached Tadoussac on the 3d of June; his views were far more extended than those of a mere merchant; even honest fame for himself, and increase of glory and power for his country, were, in his eyes, objects subordinate to the extension of the Catholic faith. After a brief stay, he ascended the Great River, examining the shore with minute care, to seek the most fitting place where the first foundation of French empire might be laid. On the 3d of July he reached Quebec, where, nearly three quarters of a century before, Jacques Cartier had passed the winter. This magnificent position was at once chosen by Champlain as the site of the future capital of Canada: centuries of experience have proved the wisdom of the selection; admirably situated for purposes of war or commerce, and completely commanding the navigation of the Great River, it stands the center of a scene of beauty that can nowhere be surpassed.
On the bold headland overlooking the waters of the basin, he commenced his work by felling the trees, and rooting up the wild vines and tangled underwood from the virgin soil. Some rude huts were speedily erected for shelter; spots around them were cultivated to test the fertility of the land: this labor was repaid by abundant production. The first permanent work undertaken in the new settlement was the erection of a solid building as a magazine for their provisions. A temporary barrack on the highest point of the position, for the officers and men, was subsequently constructed. These preparations occupied the remainder of the summer. The first snow fell on the 18th of November, but only remained on the ground for two days: in December it again returned, and the face of nature was covered till the end of April, 1609. From the time of Jacques Cartier to the establishment of Champlain, and even to the present day, there has been no very decided amelioration of the severity of the climate; indeed, some of the earliest records notice seasons milder than many of modern days.
The town of Stadacona, like its prouder neighbor of Hochelaga, seems to have dwindled into insignificance since the time when it had been an object of such interest and suspicion to Jacques Cartier. Some Indians still lived in huts around Quebec, but in a state of poverty and destitution, very different from the condition of their ancestors. During the winter of 1608, they suffered dire extremities of famine; several came over from the southern shores of the river, miserably reduced by starvation, and scarcely able to drag along their feeble limbs, to seek aid from the strangers. Champlain relieved their necessities and treated them with politic kindness. The French suffered severely from the scurvy during the first winter of their residence.
On the 18th of April, 1609, Champlain, accompanied by two Frenchmen, ascended the Great River with a war party of Canadian Indians. After a time, turning southward up a tributary stream, he came to the shores of a large and beautiful lake, abounding with fish; the shores and neighboring forests sheltered, in their undisturbed solitude, countless deer and other animals of the chase. To this splendid sheet of water he gave his own name, which it still bears. To the south and west rose huge snow-capped mountains, and in the fertile valleys below dwelt numbers of the fierce and hostile Iroquois. Champlain and his savage allies pushed on to the furthest extremity of the lake, descended a rapid, and entered another smaller sheet of water, afterward named St. Sacrement. On the shore they encountered two hundred of the Iroquois warriors; a battle ensued; the skill and the astonishing weapons of the white men soon gave their Canadian allies a complete victory. Many prisoners were taken, and, in spite of Champlain's remonstrances, put to death with horrible and protracted tortures. The brave Frenchman returned to Quebec, and sailed for Europe in September, leaving Captain Pierre Chauvin, an experienced officer, in charge of the infant settlement. Henry IV. received Champlain with favor, and called him to an interview at Fontainebleau:97 the king listened attentively to the report of the new colony, expressing great satisfaction at its successful foundation and favorable promise. But the energetic De Monts, to whom so much of this success was due, could find no courtly aid: the renewal of his privilege was refused, and its duration had already expired. By the assistance of the Merchant Company, he fitted out two vessels in the spring of 1610, under the tried command of Champlain and Pontgravé: the first was destined for Quebec, with some artisans, settlers, and necessary supplies for the colony; the second was commissioned to carry on the fur trade at Tadoussac. Champlain sailed from Honfleur on the 8th of April, and reached the mouth of the Saguenay in eighteen days, a passage which even all the modern improvements in navigation have rarely enabled any one to surpass in rapidity. He soon hastened on to Quebec, where, to his great joy, he found the colonists contented and prosperous; the virgin soil had abundantly repaid the labors of cultivation, and the natives had in no wise molested their dangerous visitors. He joined the neighboring tribes of Algonquin and Montagnez Indians, during the summer, in an expedition against the Iroquois. Having penetrated the woody country beyond Sorel for some distance, they came upon a place where their enemies were intrenched; this they took, after a bloody resistance. Champlain and another Frenchman were slightly wounded in the encounter.
In 1612 Champlain found it necessary to revisit France; some powerful patron was wanted to forward the interests of the colony, and to provide the supplies and resources required for its extension. The Count de Soissons readily entered into his views, and delegated to him the authority of viceroy, which had been conferred upon the count.98 Soissons died soon after, and the Prince of Condé became his successor. Champlain was wisely continued in the command he had so long and ably held, but was delayed in France for some time by difficulties on the subject of commerce with the merchants of St. Malo.
Champlain sailed again from St. Malo on the 6th of March, 1613, in a vessel commanded by Pontgravé, and anchored before Quebec on the 7th of May. He found the state of affairs at the settlement so satisfactory that his continued presence was unnecessary; he therefore proceeded at once to Montreal, and, after a short stay at that island, explored for some distance the course of the Ottawa, which there pours its vast flood into the main stream of the St. Lawrence. The white men were filled with wonder and admiration at the magnitude of this great tributary, the richness and beauty of its shores, the broad lakes and deep rapids, and the eternal forests, clothing mountain, plain, and valley for countless leagues around. As they proceeded they found no diminution in the volume of water; and when they inquired of the wandering Indian for its source, he pointed to the northwest, and indicated that it lay in the unknown solitudes of ice and snow, to which his people had never reached. After this expedition Champlain returned with his companion Pontgravé to St. Malo, where they arrived in the end of August.
Having engaged some wealthy merchants of St. Malo, Rouen, and Rochelle in an association for the support of the colony, through the assistance of the Prince of Condé, viceroy of New France, he obtained letters patent of incorporation for the company [1614]. The temporal welfare of the settlement being thus placed upon a secure basis, Champlain, who was a zealous Catholic, next devoted himself to obtain spiritual aid. By his entreaties four Recollets were prevailed upon to undertake the mission. These were the first99 ministers of religion settled in Canada. They reached Quebec in the beginning of April, 1615, accompanied by Champlain, who, however, at once proceeded to Montreal.
On arriving at this island, he found the Huron and other allied tribes again preparing for an expedition against the Iroquois. With a view of gaining the friendship of the savages, and of acquiring a knowledge of the country, he injudiciously offered himself to join a quarrel in which he was in no wise concerned. The father Joseph Le Caron accompanied him, in the view of preparing the way for religious instruction, by making himself acquainted with the habits and language of the Indians. Champlain was appointed chief by the allies, but his savage followers rendered slight obedience to this authority. The expedition proved very disastrous: the Iroquois were strongly intrenched, and protected by a quantity of felled trees; their resistance proved successful; Champlain was wounded, and the allies were forced to retreat with shame and with heavy loss.
The respect of the Indians for the French was much diminished by this untoward failure; they refused to furnish Champlain with a promised guide to conduct him to Quebec, and he was obliged to pass the winter among them as an unwilling guest. He, however, made the best use of his time; he visited many of the principal Huron and Algonquin towns, even those as distant as Lake Nipissing, and succeeded in reconciling several neighboring nations. At the opening of the navigation, he gained over some of the Indians to his cause, and, finding that another expedition
"It was at this time that the name of New France was first given to Canada."—Charlevoix. tom. i., p. 232.
Champlain, part i., p. 231; Charlevoix, vol. i., p. 236.
Seven or eight years before the arrival of the PP. Recollets at Quebec, Roman Catholic missionaries had found their way to Nova Scotia. They were Jesuits. It was remarkable that Henry IV., whose life had been twice attempted by the Jesuits,[ By Barrière in 1593; by Jean Châtel in 1594. He finally perished by the hand of Ravaillac, in 1610. See Sully's Memoirs, b. vi., vii.; Cayet, Chron. Noven., b.v.; Père de Chalons, tom. iii., p. 245, quoted by Sully] should have earnestly urged their establishment in America. When Port Royal was ceded to Poutrincourt by De Monts, the king intimated to him that it was time to think of the conversion of the savages, and that it was