There chanced at this time to be residing at court, a Huguenot gentleman who had been a faithful adherent of Henry IV. in the late war, Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, gentleman ordinary to the king's chamber, and governor of Pons in Saintonge. This nobleman had made a trip for pleasure or recreation to Canada with De Chauvin, several years before, and had learned something of the country, and especially of the advantages of the fur trade with the Indians. He was quite ready, on the death of De Chastes, to take up the enterprise which, by this event, had been brought to a sudden and disastrous termination. He immediately devised a scheme for the establishment of a colony under the patronage of a company to be composed of merchants of Rouen, Rochelle, and of other places, their contributions for covering the expense of the enterprise to be supplemented, if not rendered entirely unnecessary, by a trade in furs and peltry to be conducted by the company.
In less than two months after the return of the last expedition, De Monts had obtained from Henry IV., though contrary to the advice of his most influential minister, [32] a charter constituting him the king's lieutenant in La Cadie, with all necessary and desirable powers for a colonial settlement. The grant included the whole territory lying between the 40th and 46th degrees of north latitude. Its southern boundary was on a parallel of Philadelphia, while its northern was on a line extended due west from the most easterly point of the Island of Cape Breton, cutting New Brunswick on a parallel near Fredericton, and Canada near the junction of the river Richelieu and the St. Lawrence. It will be observed that the parts of New France at that time best known were not included in this grant, viz., Lake St. Peter, Three Rivers, Quebec, Tadoussac, Gaspé, and the Bay Chaleur. These were points of great importance, and had doubtless been left out of the charter by an oversight arising from an almost total want of a definite geographical knowledge of our northern coast. Justly apprehending that the places above mentioned might not be included within the limits of his grant, De Monts obtained, the next month, an extension of the bounds of his exclusive right of trade, so that it should comprehend the whole region of the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. [33]
The following winter, 1603-4, was devoted by De Monts to organizing his company, the collection of a suitable band of colonists, and the necessary preparations for the voyage. His commission authorized him to seize any idlers in the city or country, or even convicts condemned to transportation, to make up the bone and sinew of the colony. To what extent he resorted to this method of filling his ranks, we know not. Early in April he had gathered together about a hundred and twenty artisans of all trades, laborers, and soldiers, who were embarked upon two ships, one of 120 tons, under the direction of Sieur de Pont Gravé, commanded, however, by Captain Morel, of Honfleur; another of 150 tons, on which De Monts himself embarked with several noblemen and gentlemen, having Captain Timothée, of Havre de Grâce, as commander.
De Monts extended to Champlain an invitation to join the expedition, which he readily accepted, but, nevertheless, on the condition, as in the previous voyage, of the king's assent, which was freely granted, nevertheless with the command that he should prepare a faithful report of his observations and discoveries.
ENDNOTES:
18. Blavet was situated at the mouth of the River Blavet, on the southern coast of Brittany. Its occupation had been granted to the Spanish by the Duke de Mercoeur during the civil war, and, with other places held by the Spanish, was surrendered by the treaty of Vervins, in June, 1598. It was rebuilt and fortified by Louis XIII, and is now known as Port Louis.
19. Deseada, signifying in Spanish the desired land.
20. Margarita, a Spanish word from the Greek [Greek: margaritaes], signifying a pearl. The following account by an eye-witness will not be uninteresting: "Especially it yieldeth store of pearls, those gems which the Latin writers call Uniones, because nulli duo reperiuntur discreti, they always are found to grow in couples. In this Island there are many rich Merchants who have thirty, forty, fifty Blackmore slaves only to fish out of the sea about the rocks these pearls…. They are let down in baskets into the Sea, and so long continue under the water, until by pulling the rope by which they are let down, they make their sign to be taken up…. From Margarita are all the Pearls sent to be refined and bored to Carthagena, where is a fair and goodly street of no other shops then of these Pearl dressers. Commonly in the month of July there is a ship or two at most ready in the Island to carry the King's revenue, and the Merchant's pearls to Carthagena. One of these ships is valued commonly at three score thousand or four score thousand ducats and sometimes more, and therefore are reasonable well manned; for that the Spaniards much fear our English and the Holland ships."—Vide New Survey of the West Indies, by Thomas Gage, London, 1677, p. 174.
21. Caymans, Crocodiles.
22. For an interesting Account of the best route to and from the West Indies in order to avoid the vigilant French and English corsairs, see Notes on Giovanni da Verrazano, by J. C. Brevoort, New York, 1874, p. 101.