89. The house of the Recollects on the St. Charles was erected in 1620, and was called the Conuent de Nostre Dame Dame des Anges. The Father Jean d'Olbeau laid the first stone on the 3d of June of that year.—Vide Histoire du Canada par Gabriel Sagard, Paris, 1636, Tross ed., 1866, p. 67; Découvertes et Êtablissements des Français, dans l'ouest et dans le sud de L'Amerique Septentrionale 1637, par Pierre Margry, Paris, 1876, Vol. I. p. 7.
90. Hundred and eight feet, dix-huit toyses. The toise here estimated at six feet. Compare Voyages de Champlain, Laverdière's ed., Vol. I. p. lii, and ed. 1632, Paris, Partie Seconde, p. 63.
91. There was but one private house at Quebec in 1623, and that belonged to Madame Hébert, whose husband was the first to attempt to obtain a living by the cultivation of the soil.—Vide Sagard, Hist, du Canada, 1636, Tross ed. Vol. I. p. 163. There were fifty-one inhabitants at Quebec in 1624, including men, women, and children.—Vide Champlain, ed. 1632, p. 76.
92. Vide Champlain, ed. 1632, pp. 107, 108, for an account of the attempt on the part of the Huguenot, Émeric de Caen, to require his sailors to chaunt psalms and say prayers on board his ship after entering the River St. Lawrence, contrary to the direction of the Viceroy, the Duke de Ventadour. As two thirds of them were Huguenots, it was finally agreed that they should continue to say their prayers, but must omit their psalm-singing.
93. Father Lalemant enumerates the kind of peltry obtained by the French from the Indians, and the amount, as follows. "En eschange ils emportent des peaux d'Orignac, de Loup Ceruier, de Renard, de Loutre, et quelquefois il s'en rencontre de noires, de Martre, de Blaireau et de Rat Musqué, mais principalement de Castor qui est le plus grand de leur gain. On m'a dit que pour vne année ils en auoyent emporté iusques à 22000. L'ordinaire de chaque année est de 15000, ou 20000, à une pistole la pièce, ce n'est pas mal allé."—Vide Rélation de la Nouvelle France en l'Année 1626, Quebec ed. p. 5.
94. This exclusiveness was characteristic of the age. Cardinal Richelieu and his associates were not qualified by education or by any tendency of their natures to inaugurate a reformation in this direction. The experiment of amalgamating Catholic and Huguenot in the enterprises of the colony had been tried but with ill success. Contentions and bickerings had been incessant, and subversive of peace and good neighborhood. Neither party had the spirit of practical toleration as we understand it, and which we regard at the present day as a priceless boon. Nor was it understood anywhere for a long time afterward. Even the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay did not comprehend it, and took heroic measures to exclude from their commonwealth those who differed from them in their religious faith. We certainly cannot censure them for not being in advance of their times. It would doubtless have been more manly in them had they excluded all differing from them by plain legal enactment, as did the Society of the Hundred Associates, rather than to imprison or banish any on charges which all subsequent generations must pronounce unsustained.—Vide Memoir of the Rev. John Wheelwright, by Charles H. Bell, Prince Society, ed. 1876, pp. 9-31 et passim; Hutchinson Papers, Prince Society ed., 1865, Vol. I. pp. 79-113. American Criminal Trials, by Peleg W. Chandler, Boston, 1841, Vol. I. p. 29.
CHAPTER X.
THE FAVORABLE PROSPECTS OF THE COMPANY OF NEW FRANCE.—THE ENGLISH INVASION OF CANADA AND THE SURRENDER OF QUEBEC—CAPTAIN DANIEL PLANTS A FRENCH COLONY NEAR THE GRAND CIBOU—CHAMPLAIN IN FRANCE, AND THE TERRITORIAL CLAIMS OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH STILL UNSETTLED
The Company of New France, or of the Hundred Associates, lost no time in carrying out the purpose of its organization. Even before the ratification of its charter by the council, four armed vessels had been fitted out and had already sailed under the command of Claude de Roquemont, a member of the company, to convoy a fleet of eighteen transports laden with emigrants and stores, together with one hundred and thirty-five pieces of ordnance to fortify their settlements in New France.
The company, thus composed of noblemen, wealthy merchants, and officials of great personal influence, with a large capital, and Cardinal Richelieu, who really controlled and shaped the policy of France at that period, at its head possessed so many elements of strength that, in the reasonable judgment of men, success was assured, failure impossible. [95]