Bay; and the poet and courtier, Sir William Alexander, afterwards known as the Earl of Stirling, obtained from the King of England all French Acadia, which he named Nova Scotia and offered to settlers in baronial giants.  A Scotch colony was actually established for a short time at Port Royal under the auspices of Alexander, but in 1632, by the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, both Acadia and Canada were restored to France.  Champlain returned to Quebec, but the Company of the Hundred Associates had been severely crippled by the ill-luck which attended its first venture, and was able to do very little for the struggling colony during the three remaining years of Champlain’s life.

The Recollets or Franciscans, who had first come to the country in 1615, now disappeared, and the Jesuits assumed full control in the wide field of effort that Canada offered to the missionary.  The Jesuits had, in fact, made their appearance in Canada as early as 1625, or fourteen years after two priests of their order, Ennemond Masse and Pierre Biard, had gone to Acadia to labour among the Micmacs or Souriquois.  During the greater part of the seventeenth century, intrepid Jesuit priests are associated with some of the most heroic incidents of Canadian history.

When Champlain died, on Christmas-day, 1635, the French population of Canada did not exceed 150 souls, all dependent on the fur-trade.  Canada so far showed none of the elements of prosperity; it was not a colony of settlers but of fur-traders.  Still Champlain, by his indomitable will, gave to France a footing in America which she was to retain for a century and a quarter after his death.  His courage amid the difficulties that surrounded him, his fidelity to his church and country, his ability to understand the Indian character, his pure unselfishness, are among the remarkable qualities of a man who stands foremost among the pioneers of European civilization in America.

From the day of Champlain’s death until the arrival of the Marquis de Tracy, in 1665, Canada was often in a most dangerous and pitiable position.  That period of thirty years was, however, also distinguished by the foundation of those great religious communities which have always exercised such an important influence upon the conditions of life throughout French Canada.  In 1652 Montreal was founded under the name of Ville-Marie by Paul Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, and a number of other religious enthusiasts.  In 1659, the Abbe de Montigny, better known to Canadians as Monseigneur de Laval, the first Roman Catholic bishop, arrived in the colony and assumed charge of ecclesiastical affairs under the titular name of Bishop of Petraea.  Probably no single man has ever exercised such powerful and lasting influence on Canadian institutions as that famous divine.  Possessed of great tenacity of purpose, most ascetic in his habits, regardless of all worldly considerations, always working for the welfare and extension of his church, Bishop Laval was eminently fitted to give it that predominance in civil as well as religious affairs which it so long possessed in Canada.