114 THE FRENCH BLOOD IN AMERICA 



Sieur 



de Monts' 



Expedition 



LaCadie 



Missionary 

 Zeal and Re- 

 ligious 

 Liberty 



II 



Hence it was that when, November 8, 1603, Pierre de 

 Monts, a Huguenot gentleman of Saintonge, received a 

 royal commission authorizing him to possess and settle 

 that part of North America embracing what is now Nova 

 Scotia, New Brunswick and Canada, and granting him a 

 trade monopoly for ten years, this brave Protestant 

 leader and good man found no difficulty in securing 

 Protestant followers. He had himself accompanied 

 Chauvin on his first visit to the St. Lawrence, and 

 thinking that region too severe in temperature had de- 

 cided on a more southerly region for his colony. Nova 

 Scotia was his choice. The name La Cadie had then been 

 given to this fertile country by the French discoverer 

 Cartier, and thus the Acadia of poetic legend came to be 

 known. The royal grant emphasized the King's firm 

 resolution "with the help and assistance of God, who is 

 the author, distributor, and protector of all kingdoms and 

 states, to seek the conversion, guidance and instruction 

 of the races that inhabit that country, fi'om their 

 barbarous and godless condition, without faith or re- 

 ligion, to Christianity and the belief and profession of 

 our faith and religion, and to rescue them from the 

 ignorance and unbelief in which they now lie." Thus 

 the purpose was declared to be spiritual as well as secular ; 

 and the Sieur de Monts was appointed the King's lieu- 

 tenant-general with powers to '' subject all the peoples of 

 this country and of the surrounding parts to our au- 

 thority ; and by all lawful means to lead them to the 

 knowledge of God and to the light of the Christian faith 

 and religion, and to establish them therein." But there 

 was one great difference between this missionary purpose 

 and that of the ordinary Roman Catholic ruler. It was 

 decreed that religious liberty should prevail in the new 

 colony, and that all the colonists were to be maintained 

 and i)rotected in the exercise and profession of the Chris- 

 tian faith, and in peace, repose and tranquility. Calvinist 



