654 [Assembly 



During tlie half century succeeding the failure of Rober- 

 val, the subject of New France was unheeded amid the 

 convulsions and conflicts of the religious wars by which 

 the kingdom in that period was torn and agitated. In 1598, ano- 

 ther abortive attempt, under governmental patronage j was made to 

 colonize the region of the St. Lawrence, by disgorging upon its 



shores, the convicts from the dungeons and gaols of Fiance. 



• 



Private enterprise, unfolding the only just and secure basis of 

 colonization of that region, by associating it with the fur trade, 

 initiated the first successful effort. In 1600, Chauvin had ob- 

 tained a comprehensive patent, which formed a monopoly of 

 that trade. Repeated and prosperous voyages had been made, 

 and settlements were about being formed, when the death of 

 Chauvin dissolved the organization. 



A body of fiierchants of Rouen, animated by this success, orga- 

 nized in the year 1603, a new company, with similar purposes, 

 and arranged an expedition to be directed by the skill and science 

 of Champlain. On returning from this voyage, he presented a 

 most accurate and discriminating account of the geography and 

 aspect of the country, and the manners and traits of the savage 

 tribes. 



A new patent, in the meanwhile, had been granted to the Cal- 

 vanislic Protestant, De Monts. It conferred still broader ex- 

 panse of sovereignty, extending from tlie fortieth to the forty- 

 sixth degree of north latitude, and was clothed with greater 

 privileges in the monopoly of the fur trade and with higher im- 

 munities of the soil and government. This charter guaranteed 

 freedom of religious worship to the Huguenot emigrant. 



Several years were exhausted in trafficing under this charter, 

 with the aborigines; in wandering from one locality to another 

 bteween the St. Lawrence and Cape Cod, and in forming temporary 

 settlements, without' effecting any permanent occupation of the 

 country. ^ 



The first French settlement upon the American continent, 

 was made in 1605 by these emigrants at Port Royal. The charter 

 of De Monts w^as abrogated in the year 1608, upon the remon- 



