We have now arrived at the period of Champlain's first connection with Canadian discovery and colonization. The difficulties, dangers--not to say horrors--of the previous expeditions were enough to deter any but the most confident and resolute from attempting such an apparently hopeless task; but the hour and the man were come, and from the date of Chauvin's death a new era was to arise for Canada, and French colonization in North America was at last--to be. Samuel Champlain, descended from a noble family of Saintonge, was born at Brouage,[14] a place formerly of some importance in that province, now an obscure town of the department of the Charente Inférieure. Of the date of his birth and of his earlier career there is no account extant; from the events of the last thirty-five or thirty-six years of his life we may, however, form a correct judgment of his attainments, which, in navigation, in military matters, and in general knowledge, were evidently of no common order. That he had early distinguished himself is also clear, and that his services were appreciated we may gather from the high favour with which he was regarded by the king, and from the friendship and constant protection with which he was honoured by one of the best and bravest, as well as most intelligent and devoted followers of Henry IV,--the Sieur Aymar de Chastes, governor of the town and château of Dieppe, who commanded the fleet appointed to cruize on the coast of Brittany during the latter years of the war with the League and the Spaniards,[15] and under whose orders Champlain had served. On Champlain's return from the voyage to the West Indies, of which the narrative is now for the first time published, he learned that Chauvin was dead, and that his friend, Mons. de Chastes, undeterred by the previous failures and disasters, had resolved to undertake the establishment of a colony in Canada, and even to proceed thither and devote the remainder of his well-spent life to the prosecution of the enterprise. The cause and manner of Champlain's embarking in the undertaking cannot be better narrated than in his own words. [14] The salt works at Brouage were considered the finest in the kingdom. Cardinal Richelieu also established a large cannon foundry there in 1627.