The Founder of New France: A Chronicle of ChamplainColby, Charles W. (Charles William)
History
The Founder of New France: A Chronicle of Champlain
Colby, Charles W. (Charles William)
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Champlain, Samuel de, 1574-1635
Richelieu's first step in resuming possession of Canada was to compose
matters between the De Caens and the Company of New France. Emery de
Caen and his associates were given the trading rights for 1632 and
79,000 livres as compensation for their losses through the revocation
of the monopoly. Dating from the spring of 1633, the Company of New
France was to be placed in full possession of Canada, subject to
specific obligations regarding missions and colonists. Conformably
with this programme, Emery de Caen appeared at Quebec on July 5, 1632,
with credentials empowering him to receive possession from Lewis and
Thomas Kirke, the representatives of England. With De Caen came Paul
Le Jeune and two other Jesuits, a vanguard of the missionary band which
was to convert the savages. 'We cast anchor,' says Le Jeune, 'in front
of the fort which the English held; we saw at the foot of this fort the
poor settlement of Quebec all in ashes. The English, who came to this
country to plunder and not to build up, not only burned a greater part
of the detached buildings which Father Charles Lalemant had {130}
erected, but also all of that poor settlement of which nothing is now
to be seen but the ruins of its stone walls.'
The season of 1632 thus belonged to De Caen, whose function was merely
to tie up loose ends and prepare for the establishment of the new
regime. The central incident of the recession was the return of
Champlain himself--an old man who had said a last farewell to France
and now came, as the king's lieutenant, to end his days in the land of
his labours and his hopes. If ever the oft-quoted last lines of
Tennyson's _Ulysses_ could fitly be claimed by a writer on behalf of
his hero, they apply to Champlain as he sailed from the harbour of
Dieppe on March 23, 1633.
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars until I die.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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