The One Hundred Associates were granted in feudal tenure a wide domain--stretching, in intention at least, from Florida to the Arctic Circle and from Newfoundland to the sources of the St Lawrence, with a monopoly of the fur trade and other powers practically unlimited. For these vast privileges they covenanted to send to Canada from two to three hundred colonists in 1628 and four thousand within the next fifteen years; to lodge, feed, and support the colonists for three years; and then to give them cleared land and seed-grain. Most interesting, however, to the Jesuits and Recollets were the provisions in the charter of the new company to the effect that none but Catholics should be allowed to come to the colony, and that during fifteen years the company should defray the expenses of public worship and support three missionaries at each trading-post. Now began the preparations on a great scale for the colonization of New France. By the spring of 1628 a fleet of eighteen or twenty ships belonging to the company assembled in the harbour of Dieppe, laden deep with food, building materials, implements, guns, and ammunition, including about one hundred and fifty pieces of ordnance for the forts at the trading-posts. Out into the English Channel one bright April day this fleet swept, under the command of Claude de Roquemont, one of the Associates. On the decks of the ships were men and women looking hopefully to the New World for fortune and happiness, and Recollets and Jesuits going to a field at this time deemed broad enough for the energies of both. Lalemant, who early in 1627 had followed Noyrot to France, was now returning to his mission with his hopes realized. A Catholic empire could be built up in the New World, the savages could be christianized, and the Iroquois, the greatest menace of the colony, if they would not listen to reason, could be subdued. The Dutch and the English on the Atlantic seaboard could be kept within bounds; possibly driven from the continent; then the whole of North America would be French and Catholic. Thus, perhaps, dreamed Lalemant and his companions, the Jesuit Paul Ragueneau and the Recollets Daniel Boursier and Francois Girard, as they paced the deck of the vessel that bore them westward.