In the year celebrated for the Edict of Nantes, the Treaty of Vervins and the death of Philip II., the French once again started their attempts to colonise Canada. In that year, 1598, the Marquis de la Roche established a small settlement of convicts on Sable Island, which lies off the coast of Nova Scotia. The settlers, however, were incapable, the callous nobleman sailed away to sunny France, and the unhappy survivors were left to quarrel among themselves, till eleven only of the original forty remained alive to be rescued after five long years of misery and starvation. The spirit of adventure was not crushed, and in 1599 Chauvin, a sea captain, and Pontgravé, a St Malo merchant, obtained a patent to colonise Canada, and so established a settlement at Tadoussac. Their object was to monopolise the lucrative fur trade, rather than to establish any permanent colony. Four years later De Chastes, a grey-haired veteran of the civil wars, associated himself with Pontgravé, and they were fortunate in obtaining the services of Samuel Champlain, whose name is the greatest in the history of French colonisation. Almost immediately the small association of Chastes was amalgamated with another under De Monts, a Huguenot nobleman of the King's household, and together in 1604 they entered the Bay of Fundy. In the next year Port Royal was established in Nova Scotia on Annapolis Basin, and the fur traders passed the winter there under the leadership of Champlain. Supplies were brought out in 1606 by an expedition, which was accompanied by Lescarbot the historian, but, as De Monts' patent was cancelled in 1607, Port Royal was abandoned.