CHAPTEK III 

 THE HUGUEXOT COLONY IN CANADA 



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High Aim of TT -^ ENRY IV entered heartily into the colonization 



King Henry IV ■ ■ *' 



plans of his great minister, Admiral Coliguy, 

 and after the Edict of Nantes had brought peace 

 to France, this monarch undertook to realize his am- 

 bitious plans to build up a powerful navy, promote 

 exploration and ti-ade with distant parts, and carry out 

 Coligny's scheme to establish a French colony in 

 America. The honour belongs to this enlightened king, 

 who strove to deal fairly with all his subjects and to pro- 

 tect the Protestants in their rights, of founding the first 

 agricultural colony on our continent, and of basing it, 

 moreover, upon the principles of religious liberty and 

 equality. 



To understand the character of this new movement of 

 colonization and of those who engaged in it, it is neces- 

 sary briefly to review the religious history of the western 

 seacoast provinces of France. The fisher-folk and sailors 

 of Normandy, Brittany, Saintonge, and the islands along 

 the coast, were of the hardy sort of which explorers are 

 French made. From the year 1504 these seamen had crossed to 



Fishermen ^ 



the banks of Newfoundland and rivalled the English and 

 Spaniards in discovery, fishing, and commercial enter- 

 prise. Many of these men were Protestant, and many 

 of the ships engaged in these voyages were owned by 

 Huguenot merchants, and manned by Huguenot sailors, 

 who persisted in singing lustily Clement Marot's version 

 of the Psalms, to the scandal of the Roman Catholics 

 who heard them. It was as early as 1534 that Protestant- 

 ism made its way into the seaboard provinces, through 



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