The early colonists seem to have had a remarkable preference for islands; accordingly the company of De Monts selected an island near the mouth of the river St. Croix, in New Brunswick; here they passed a winter of intense suffering, and in the spring removed to a place in the Bay of Fundy, where was formed the first permanent settlement of the French in America, three years before a cabin had been erected in Canada. The settlement was called Port Royal, and the whole country, including New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the neighbouring islands, received the name of Acadia. De Monts was superseded by Pourtrincourt, one of his company. The undertaking now assumed a religious character. The pope gave his benediction to all who went thither to evangelise the heathen; Marie de Medici contributed money, and the Marchioness de Guercheville gave her support. Jesuits were sent over, and the order itself enriched by imposts on the fishery and fur trade. Jesuit priests commenced the conversion of the natives and the exploration of the country at the same time. The Indians of the Canadian territory, affected by the confiding humanity of the French priests, listened reverently to their teachings of salvation. A French colony within the United States was soon established, under the safeguard of religion. “The conversion of the heathen,” says Bancroft, “was the motive of the settlement; the natives venerated the Jesuit Biart as a messenger from heaven, and beneath the summer sky, round a cross in the centre of the hamlet, matins and vespers were regularly chanted. France and the Roman religion had appropriated the soil of Maine.” In 1608, the company of merchants of Dieppe and St. Malo, who had been instrumental in depriving De Monts of his monopoly, founded Quebec, the whole undertaking, nevertheless, originating with Samuel Champlain, in concert with De Monts. Brick cottages were built, a few fields cleared, a few gardens laid out; the city of Quebec was begun. The following year, Champlain, attended by his two Europeans, joined an expedition of Indians against the Iroquois, and advanced as far into the interior as the lake which bears his name. Seven years later, he once more advanced against his old enemies, the Iroquois. Wounded and alone, he spent a winter with the Hurons, and thus “a knight-errant in the forest, he carried his language, religion, and influence even to the hamlets of Algonquins near Lake Nipissing.” The presence of Jesuits and Calvinists led to contentions; religious animosity and commercial jealousy checked for a time the progress of the colony; nevertheless, the wisdom and good conduct of Champlain established successfully the dominion of the French on the banks of the St. Lawrence. He lies buried in the land which he colonised.