Nor was it the Indian alone who was to fall before the farmer and founder of towns. The French _coureurs des bois_, and traders in the scattered posts, were likewise to fall and, in part, for the same reason. Nevertheless, at the time of the first authorized English attempt to colonize New England, the French were, if anything, ahead in the race. Champlain's knowledge of the coast and its possibilities was quite as accurate, probably, as that of Gosnold or Pring or Weymouth, though English writers usually give many pages to the latter trio while dismissing Champlain in a line or two. A definite grant of the territory had been made, and the first colony of their hereditary enemy was seemingly successfully started within the limits of the English patent, when King James affixed his signature to that document. A struggling little settlement in Virginia, however, was to prove the undoing of the French in the north, and win the New England coast for the English, though not without further effort on the part of its future settlers. But, whatever the local successes of French or English, it must not be forgotten that the colonies of both nations were mere pawns in the game of European policy, and that the allegiance of the colonist was to be determined in the last analysis, not by their own comparative strength on faraway shores, but by the strength which the two nations could put forth in their navies on the sea. Footnote 77: Ellis, _The Red Man_, p. 242; J. Winsor, “The Rival Claimants for North America,” _American Antiquarian Society Proceedings_, 1894, pp. 415-17. [Illustration: Manuscript Map of the New England Coast, 1607-8, believed to have been drawn by Champlain Original in [Library] of Congress. ] CHAPTER III THE RACE FOR EMPIRE During the period upon which our story now enters, all of North America was claimed by the three contestants for empire—Spain, England, and France. The claims of the first covered the entire western world beyond the line established by the treaty of Tordesillas; while those of the other two are indicated, at least as to their minimum extent, by the patents granted. Adrian Gilbert, in his application to Queen Elizabeth, had asked leave to “inhabit and enjoy” all places discovered between the equator and the North Pole;[78] and although these limits are nowhere given in any single charter, those granted to various companies show English claims extending from at least 10° to 52° North Latitude, or from Panama to Labrador.[79] Following the difficulties of colonizing in Maine and Nova Scotia, mentioned in the last chapter, the French King granted to Madame de Guercheville all of the continent from Florida to the St. Lawrence, thus overlapping the Spanish and English claims.[80] Footnote 78: W. R. Scott, _Constitutions and Finance of English and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720_ (Cambridge, 1910), vol. II, p. 244. Footnote 79: