In the year 1591, a voyage to Canada was undertaken by the sieur du Court Pré Ravillon, in a vessel called the Bonaventure, to endeavour to establish a trade in moose-skins and teeth. Whether he succeeded in his adventure or not, history is silent. The Marquis de la Roche fitted out some vessels in 1591, embarking a number of men and a large quantity of stores of all kinds requisite for forming a colony in Canada. Not having, it appears, any personal knowledge of the country or of navigation, he engaged a Norman pilot, of the name of Chédotel, for the voyage. The details of this enterprise are not very clear, but it is certain that the expedition reached the Isle des Sables, and, for some reason or other, seventeen of the people were sent on shore and abandoned. The poor fellows remained there for seven years, living in holes in the ground, and subsisting on fish and the cattle which they found wild in considerable numbers--the descendants of those left there in 1518 by the Baron de Léry.[10] [10] Champlain says, that the cattle had been saved from the wreck of a Spanish ship. At the expiration of seven years, the pilot Chédotel was _condemned_ by the Parliament of Rouen to go and fetch away the unfortunate men,--with the condition, however, that he was to have half of all the property, hides, oil, seal and black fox skins, etc., which the wretched creatures might have collected during their banishment. On their arrival in France, the poor men were presented to the king, Henry IV, who ordered the Duke de Sully to give them some relief,--which the worthy Duke did, to the amount of fifty crowns each, "to encourage them to return there!" The poor Marquis de la Roche, unfortunate in his expedition, was equally so at court in his endeavours to obtain the aid which the king had promised him. "It being denied him," says Champlain, "at the instigation of certain persons who had no wish that the true worship of God should increase, or to see the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion flourish in those parts." The Marquis took all this so much to heart that he fell sick and died, having consumed all his property, and wasted his time and labour, in vain.