Gladly would Champlain, convinced of the fatal mistake he had made, have taken summary vengeance on the savage warriors, but, alas! he was powerless to do so. The few settlements at Ladoussac, Three Rivers, and other advanced points on the St. Lawrence, would have presented an easy prey to the Iroquois, and there were no forces at Quebec or Montreal fit to cope with the thousands who would have swept down upon the whites from the Lakes, at the first sign of weakness among them. At this very time, too, the English were casting longing eyes at the rich fur-yielding grounds of the Canadian backwoods, and would gladly have shared in the cod and whale fisheries of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. A Huguenot refugee, named Kirk, actually obtained a commission from Charles I. to conquer Canada, and for that purpose anchored a little squadron at the mouth of the St. Lawrence in the summer of 1628, sending a summons to Quebec to surrender. As a matter of course, Champlain, although literally driven to bay, with the Indians on one side and the English on the other, returned a spirited answer of defiance, which, to his surprise, resulted in the withdrawal of his enemies, who were totally ignorant of the real state of affairs. A year later, however, Kirk returned, this time sailing up the St. Lawrence, and casting anchor off Quebec. Resistance was hopeless, and Champlain was compelled to surrender his “capital;” but, struck by the noble bearing of his opponent, and by the courage with which he had evidently so long been waging a hopeless contest with the natives, Kirk granted the most liberal terms to the French, who were allowed to remain undisturbed in their homes, which were, moreover, now secured to them by English troops from the raids of the savages. In the autumn of the year of the taking of Quebec, Kirk left that city under the charge of his brother Lewis, and returned to England, accompanied by Champlain, who hoped to obtain by diplomacy what he had been unable to gain by force; and so earnestly did he plead his cause with the French ambassador in London, that the affairs of New France were brought before the then all-powerful Cardinal Richelieu. Convinced of the vast importance to his country of the fur-trade and fisheries of Canada, the French Minister negotiated with the English Court for the restoration of Canada, Acadia, and Cape Breton, and after much discussion they were transferred to the French Crown by the treaty of St. Germain de Sage, which put off for more than a century the establishment of the British dominion in Canada.