. CHAPTER IV 



SAILING CRAFT: UNDER THE FLEURS-DE-LIS 1 



EVERY one knows that when Champlain stood 

 beside Lake Huron, wondering if it had a west- 

 ern outlet towards Cathay, he was discovering 

 the Great Lakes, those fresh-water seas whose 

 area far exceeds the area of Great Britain. 

 Every one knows that he became the * Father 

 of New France ' when he founded Quebec in 

 1608; and that he was practically the whole 

 civil and military government of Canada in its 

 infant days. But few know that he was also a 

 captain in the Royal Navy of France, an expert 

 hydrographer, and the first man to advocate 

 a Panama canal. And fewer still remember 

 that he lived in an age which, like our own, had 



1 The nautical history of New France is all parts and no 

 whole ; brilliant ideas and thwarted execution ; government 

 stimulus and government repression ; deeds of daring by adven- 

 turers afloat and deeds of various kinds by officials ashore: 

 everything unstable and changeable ; nothing continuous and 

 strong. It cannot, therefore, make a coherent narrative, only 

 a collection of half-told tales. 



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