Things had reached such a pass that Champlain thought it necessary to speak very plainly to the home authorities. Cardinal Richelieu, who was at this time at the head of affairs in France, and specially in charge of the maritime interests of the kingdom, determined on what he hoped would be a radical measure of reform, namely the formation of a company on a much wider basis than any preceding one, and consisting of persons of higher mark and responsibility, who should hold their powers directly from himself. The edict establishing the company, the legal name of which was the Company of New France, but which was afterwards more commonly known as the Company of the Hundred Associates, bore date the 29th April 1627. The preamble set forth in forcible terms the lamentable failure of all the previous trading associations to redeem their pledges in the matter of colonization; and the new associates were, by the terms of their charter, bound in the most formal and positive manner, to convey annually to the colony, beginning in the following year, 1628, from two to three hundred _bona fide_ settlers, and in the fifteen following years to transport thither a total of not less than four thousand persons male and female. The settlers were to be maintained for three years, until they could get their land under cultivation, and then for one season till they had reaped their crops. Provision was also to be made for the maintenance of a sufficient number of clergy to meet the spiritual wants both of the settlers and of the native population. In consideration of these services all French possessions between Florida and the Arctic Circle, and from Newfoundland as far west as the company should be able to possess the land, were handed over to them in absolute sovereignty, saving only the supreme authority of the French king. They had, of course, a complete monopoly of trade, with the sole exception of the cod and whale fisheries which, as before, were to be open to all French subjects.