The successor of Champlain was Marc Antoine de Bras-de-fer de Chasteaufort. He was succeeded by Charles Huault de Montmagny, who reached New France in 1636. With him came a considerable reinforcement; "and, among the rest, several men of birth and substance, with their families and dependents." But Montmagny found the affairs of his colony in a woful condition. The "Company of One Hundred" had passed its affairs into the hands of those who were wholly engrossed in the profits of trade. Instead of sending out colonists, the Hundred Associates "granted lands, with the condition that the grantees should furnish a certain number of settlers to clear and till them, and these were to be credited to the company." The Iroquois, who, from their intercourse with the Dutch and English traders, had been supplied with firearms, and were fast becoming proficient in their use, attacked the Algonquins and Hurons--allies of the French, interrupting their canoes, laden with furs, as they descended the St. Lawrence, killing their owners, or hurrying them as captives into the forests, to suffer the horrors of torture. At a point to which was given the name of Sillery, four miles above Quebec, a new Algonquin mission was started; still, in the immediate neighborhood of the town, the dark forests almost unbroken frowned as gloomily as when, thirty years before, Champlain founded the future city. Probably, in all New France, the population, in 1640, did not much exceed two hundred, including women and children. On the eighteenth of May, 1642, Montreal began its existence. The tents of the founders were "inclosed with a strong palisade, and their altar covered by a provisional chapel, built, in the Huron mode, of bark." But the Iroquois had long before become the enemies of the French, sometimes seriously threatening Quebec. So, upon the Island of Montreal, every precaution was taken to avoid surprise. Solid structures of wood soon defied the attacks of the savages; and, to give greater security to the colonists, Montmagny caused a fort to be erected at the mouth of the Richelieu, in the following August. But the end of the year 1642 brought no relief to the Algonquins or Hurons, and little to the French, from the ferocious Iroquois.