Smith's Canadian gazetteer - ElectricCanadian.com

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In 1598, the Marquis de la Roche received a commission from Henry tht
Fourth, of France, to conquer Canada; but returned without doing anything o(
consequence; and shortly afterwards died of vexation. On the death of La
Roche, his patent was renewed in favour of M. De Chauvin, who made a voyage
up the St. Lawrence, as far as Tadousac; where he left some of his people, and
returned with a freight of furs. The following year he sailed again, and pro*
ceeded as far as Trois Rivieres. In 1603, Pierre du Gast, a gentleman of the
bed-chamber to the same king, received a patent, constituting him Lieutenant
General of the American territory, from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degrees
of north latitude, with power to colonise it, and subdue and convert the natives
to Christianity. In 1608, Champlain was sent out with three ships for the
purpose of making a permanent settlement; and after having examined all the
most eligible situations along the coast of Nova Scotia, (then called Acadia), and
the River St. Lawrence, fixed upon the present site of Quebec, where he laid
the foundation of what he intended to be the future capital of the country.
In 1627, in the reign of Louis XIII., Canada, then called New France, was, by
direction of Cardinal Richelieu, placed together with its trade, under the management
of a company, called the Company '' of One Hundred Associates;" at the
head of. which was the Cardinal himself. A commission having been given by
Charles I. to David Kertk, and his kinsmen, to conquer the American dominions
of France ; Kertk attacked Canada, in July. 1628, and continued to carry
on his military operations with vigour. In 1630, he appeared again off Point
Levi, and sent an officer to Quebec to summon the city to surrender. Champlain,
then in command, knowing his means to be inadequate to a defence,
surrendered the city by capitulation. The terms of the capitulation were
favourable to the French colony; and they were so punctually and honourably
fulfilled by the English, that the greater part of the French chose to remain
with their captors, rather than return as had been stipulated to France. In
1632, Charles I , bj- the treaty of St. Germain, resigned tlie right which he had
claimed to New France and Acadia, as the property of England, to Louis XIII.,
King of France.
In 163.5, Rene Rohault, having become a Jesuit, resumed a project which
had been interrupted by the English conquest of Quebec, of founding a college
in that city ; an institution that had been planned ten years before. In this
year, M. Champlain died at Quebec.
In 1640, the French king vested the property of the island of Montreal in
thirty-five Associates, of whom Maisonneiive, a gentleman of Champaign, was
one; and Avho on the 15th October, 1641, was declared governor of the island;
and brought over with him several families to Montreal.
The P^rench in their trade with the neighbouring Indians, being much
obstructed by the Mohawks, then a powerful tribe, and being unable to subdue
them without assistance, in 1647, sent M. Marie, a Jesuit, as an agent to solicit
aid from Massachusetts, with offers of liberal compensation for assistance, which
the governuuMit of the English colony refused, on the ground that the Mohawks
had never injui-ed them.
In the following year, the colonists of Newfoundland sent to the Governor
ahd Council of Canada a proposal of perpetual peace between the colonies, even
though the mother countries might be at war. Although the French were much
pleased with the proposal, and anxious to conclude an agreement of the kind,
the business terminated without success, because the English were firm in their
determination not to assist the French against the Iroquois (or Five Nations.)
In 1640, in the month of March, a party of Iroquois, about one thousand in
number, attacked the Huron village of St. Ignatius, containing four hundred
persons, all of whom, with the ('xeei)tion of three only, were massacred. About
five years aftcrw.irds, the Eries, a numerous tiibc of Indians inhabiting the
borders of Lake Erie, were so etl'ectually extenninated by the Iroquois, that
were it not for the name of the lake, we should have no mmorial of their
existence.