Tadoussac was chosen as the headquarters. Thither Chauvin and Dupont
Gravé and a Huguenot, Pierre Dugas, Sieur de Monts, a prospector who
came out on "pleasure," went with an advance party. Tadoussac had
been well enough for a summer trading post but, says Champlain, "if
there is an ounce of cold forty leagues up the river there is a pound
at Tadoussac." However, they fixed up a guardlike building of wood, 25
feet long by 18 wide, and 8 feet high. This was to harbour seventeen
men and provisions. "Behold them there very warm for the winter,"
chuckles Champlain, who had no love for the Huguenots. The leaders went
to France and during the winter the settlement at Tadoussac was "the
Court of King Pétaud; each one wished to command. Laziness, idleness,
and the diseases that attacked those remaining, reduced them to great
want and obliged them to give themselves up to the savages, who kindly
harboured them and they left their lodging. Some died miserably; others
suffered a great deal while waiting for the return of the ships." In
the next year a second voyage as fruitless as the first was made, by
Chauvin. He assayed another but fell into an illness which sent him to
another world. We have Champlain's comment in the account published
in 1632 on this attempt at colonization. "The trouble with this
undertaking was giving to a man of opposing religion a commission to
establish a nursery for the Catholic Apostolic and Roman faith[22] of
which the heretics have such a horror and abomination. These are the
defects that must be mentioned in regard to the enterprise."
After the death of Chauvin, the same commission of lieutenant general
was applied for, by Eymard de Chastes, Knight of Malta, Commander of
Lormetan, Grand Master of the Order of St. Lazarus and Governor of
Dieppe. Henry IV granted it and de Chaste should have made a good
colonizer for he intimated that in making his application it was in the
intention of betaking himself thither in person and of devoting the
rest of his years to the service of God and that of his king, but he
was not to live long. In order to meet the expenses of the expedition
Commander de Chastes formed a company of several of the principal
merchants of Rouen and elsewhere. He chose the explorer, Dupont Gravé,
to direct the flotilla as before to Tadoussac, and he desired him to
associate with himself in his further explorations for which he had
received a commission from the king, a young captain of Saintonge,
who had already given undoubted proof of his ability as a zealous,
courageous and intelligent explorer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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