The absence of Smith had caused disorder and insubordination in the colony. The pinnace had again been seized, and again he was obliged to level the guns of the fort against her and compel submission. He was now personally assailed by a charge replete with stupid malignity. Some, who believed themselves skilled in the Levitical law, accused him of being the cause of the death of Emry and Robinson, the two unfortunate men whom the Indians had slain, and, with this pretext, they clamored for capital punishment. To their insane charge Smith replied by taking the accusers into custody, and by the first vessel he sent them for trial to England. By his courage, his address, and his firmness he now wielded great influence with the Indians, and proved the salvation of the settlement.
[ FOUNDING OF QUEBEC
CHAMPLAIN ESTABLISHES FRENCH POWER IN CANADA ]
A.D. 1608
H. H. MILES
From the period of Cartier's and Roberval's expeditions nearly fifty years elapsed before France renewed her efforts to colonize the New World. About the year 1598 the lucrative fur trade began to be encouraged by Henry IV, of France, who in the brief respite from religious wars was turning his attention to colonization and commerce. In 1603 Samuel de Champlain, a French naval officer of high character and chivalrous instincts, made his first voyage to Canada in company with M. Pontegravé, a merchant of St. Malo, and together they pushed their way up the St. Lawrence as far as the rapids above Montreal, which Champlain named Lachine (à la Chine), for he thought he had at last found a waterway to China. In 1608 he proceeded to found at Stadacona (Quebec) a fixed trading-post of the Merchant Company, in whose service he had again come to the country. Champlain brought with him among the colonists a number of artisans, who, on the magnificent headland of Quebec, erected a fort which was to become the refuge of the sadly menaced little European colony, and was long the centre of French influence and dominion in the New World.
The rivalries of various commercial companies and the conflicting colonial policy of France seriously retarded settlement and were a great vexation to Champlain. Moreover, his quarrels with the powerful Iroquois Indians, as here related by Dr. Miles, secretary of the Quebec Council of Instruction, long prevented the southward extension of French power in America.
In 1627 Cardinal Richelieu, prime minister to Louis XIII, cancelled the old trading-charters, and established the Company of One Hundred Associates, with power to trade throughout New France from Florida to Hudson Bay. By the terms of the charter the "Hundred Associates" were given the sole right to engage in the fur trade, with control over the shore and inland fishing and of all commerce with the French settlements in the country. In return for this monopoly the company agreed to carry out mechanics and tradesmen to the colony, to settle within a specified period some six thousand colonists, and to make provision for the support of a certain number of Catholic clergy. The French King, at the same time, made Champlain governor, so that he finished his life in the service of the colony he had founded.
Samuel de Chaplain, who must be regarded as the real founder of the Canadian colony, was already a noted man when invited by De Chates (or De Chastes), commandant of Dieppe, to take part in the enterprise for colonizing New France. He had served in the French marine at the Antilles, and also in the South of France against the Spaniards, and De Chates had met him at court. He was a man of noble and virtuous disposition, chivalrous, and inspired with a deep sense of religion, and at that time about thirty-six years of age. It will also be seen that Champlain was gifted with qualities which endeared him both to his own followers and to the native Indians of Canada. He was of good address—always able, when he desired it, to render himself acceptable to the highest personages in France, so as to secure a willing attention to his representations. Such was the man who, under the auspices of De Chates and of M. de Monts, first made his appearance in New France, in whose early annals he figured conspicuously upward of thirty years.
In 1603 Champlain, in conjunction with Pontegravé, made his first voyage to the St. Lawrence. At Tadoussac they left their ships and ascended the river in boats to the then farthest attainable point—the Sault St. Louis, now known as the Rapids, above the city of Montreal. The features of the country, so far as they could be examined from the river, were carefully observed. The Indian towns of Carrier's time, Stadacona and Hochelaga, were no longer in existence; but Champlain regarded with attention the scenery around their sites. Hochelaga is not even mentioned by him, although, acting as Carrier had done nearly seventy years before, he ascended Mount Royal in order to obtain a good view. Returning to Tadoussac, where their three small vessels had been left, Champlain and Pontegravé, toward autumn, set sail for France.